Grandpa Riggan was a farmer of the old school, he plowed his fields walking behind a team of mules, sowed his grains walking the plowed field and with a flip of his wrist scattered the seeds of a new crop. Small plants grown from seeds over the winter were called slips and had to be carefully planted by hand, this required him to walk bent over and individually place the slip in the ground.
He raised pigs that were born from his sow, the pigs foraged in the pasture and woods. To keep the pigs from tearing up the fields too bad in their quest for roots he would put a ring in their nose. To do this he first lured them in to a feeding pen by putting feed in a trough. As the pigs were busy eating Grandpa would walk over and grab one by the ear and lift it up on it's hind legs, he had a special pair of pliers that held an open ring, he would quickly insert the ring into the pigs nose and squeeze the ring against the cartilage of the nose then pull the pig to the gate and push it out of the pen. This ring didn't really hurt the pig until it started rooting with his nose but you would think they had been shot from all of the squealing they were doing.
I would watch this process from afar because when I was barely walking I wandered out in the paddock where a sow was feeding a bunch of young piglets, I reached down to touch one and the sow bit me. More than seventy years later I still carry an inch long scar on the back of my right hand.
Grandpa also had two cows that he milked by hand everyday. Even though the cows had been foraging on grass in the pasture all day they would return to the barn at night and walk in to their stall where Grandpa would have corn waiting in their feed troughs. While the cow ate Grandpa sat on a stool and pulled on their tits as milk streamed in to a pail, when he was done he poured the milk into a special "milk jug" that was picked up by the local creamery for processing.
Being an farmer of the old school was hard work, Grandpa was up before dawn feeding the live stock and after breakfast he hitched up the mules and headed out to the fields. He was lean yet muscular, he walked from the time he got out of bed till he climbed back in it. If he was lucky it would rain every now and then giving him a day off. Regardless of the weather Sunday was his day of rest after he milked the cows and fed the livestock, it was a day when he went to church and enjoyed his family who visited every Sunday as long as he lived. I never knew him to be sick with so much as a cold, he had a double hernia and couldn't hear very well but that was it. In the end he retired in his late 70's, one day not long after retiring his heart just gave out.
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I often find myself comparing the times I grew up in with the times I live in now, the difference is stark in my opinion. For instance the welfare system was put in place in 1935 and it has helped many poor families but it has also been riddled with graft and corruption, it was never meant to be a way of living but there are those who thought otherwise and found way to cheat the system.
Now I can't say that we were poor, maybe we didn't have a lot of money and for sure we weren't on welfare. Dad was the bread winner, Mom was a housewife and we five kids had to be fed everyday, had to have a roof over our heads and clean clothes on our backs and new shoes at the beginning of every school year. Dad balked at the expense of sending us to school, new shoes, new clothes ( what mom didn't sew ). School supplies consisted of writing tablets or notebook paper, pencils, erasers, crayons all the standard fare for staring school and everything we needed Dad supplied. As for lunch we had PBJ or baloney sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a couple of cookies for desert then wrapped up in a brown paper bag. When we didn't have the makings for lunch Dad begrudgingly gave us the 25 cents to buy lunch in the school cafeteria. We had everything we needed and never went hungry.
So fast forward to today, school systems feed kids a free lunch and sometimes a breakfast because they can't get it at home, they even continue the program in the summer months when school is out. As for school supplies the local TV stations support a program called "stuff the bus" where people are encouraged to purchase backpacks and stock them with all sorts of school supplies and after all of this teachers have to dig into their own pockets to purchase class room supplies.
From time to time I wonder just what has changed, I understand there are less people on welfare than ever before, wages are up, jobs are plentiful so why are their so many in need ? It used to be "pride before the fall", maybe today some don't mind the fall because they have no pride ?
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There is a poem written by a A.E. Housemen "When I was one and twenty" it's a short poem that deals with naivety of youth. Naivety of youth is something every older person sees everyday in the youth of the day that reminds them that somethings never change.
I can honestly say that when I was one and twenty I thought I was ready to tackle life head on, there was nothing else to learn because I knew it all and there was no sense in anybody trying to tell me otherwise because I wouldn't have listened. I think this is true about most young people although there are some that are wise for their age.
I turned 21 during my third year in the Navy, I had recently returned from my first tour in Vietnam, Linda and I had not yet been married for a year and had been separated for half of that. Three months later I would volunteer to go back to Vietnam because we couldn't afford to live in San Diego. There was a war on, I and thousands of other young people were involved in it, sadly many of them would not survive to see one and twenty even though they were as cocksure as me.
We all make mistakes on our way through life, turning twenty one is often no help and many people don't seem to find that out till years later, looking back I can say I was a bit of a slow learner. I'm an old man now and I see young people full of spit and vinegar and I have to wonder how long it will take them to realize they're not as smart as they think.
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My two grandfathers were as different as night and day. Their only similarity is that they were my grandfathers. Grandpa Riggan was older than Grandpa Wade, he was also smaller in stature, Grandpa Wade was louder and more vociferous while Grandpa Riggan was quiet and laid back ( I inherited that trait ).
Earlier today Kay and I were driving around rural Georgia and as we passed through a small town, I saw a sign advertising "live wrestling" every Friday night, the sign brought back a memory or two. Back in the early or mid fifties my uncle Sam bought a small black and white TV for Grandpa Riggan, up until then they had only heard of TV and had very little idea of all the programs available to them. Granny found the soap operas pretty quick and it wasn't long until they found live wrestling.
Live wrestling was not new but it was new to TV and for some reason Granny and Grandpa were both hooked on live wrestling. Every Friday or maybe it was Saturday night "Live" wrestling from the Hippodrome in Nashville was shown on TV and come that night they waited impatiently till the program came on about ten o'clock at night which was way past their bedtime. Just before the fight started a couple who were friends with them would come in to watch wrestling with them.
This is where things got a little weird at least to a young six or seven year old grandson. Up to this point I had never seen my Grandfather upset or excited about anything, Granny was a different story but even she got excited to say the least. There I was standing beside my Grand parents when all of a sudden one of them would jump up, shake their fist at the screen and loudly yell out "hit him again" or "kick him, kick him". I think the first time I ran and hid scared to death.
Grandpa Wade on the other hand was a sports addict particularly for baseball and football. He was so intense at watching a ballgame on TV that he could watch it with his eyes closed, a trait that we kids quickly learned about. A Sunday visit usually found Grandpa holding court in front of the TV, telling his stories to all who cared to listen, at certain points in the story laughter would break out even from Grandpa although uncle Harold always laughed the loudest and hardest.
When the ballgame came on brother Pat and I would watch a little and after a while Grandpa and uncle Harold would start to dose off. Once the snores became louder than the TV we would change the channel, within moments Grandpa would snap awake "who changed the channel, turn that game back on I was watching that".
I looked up to my Grandfathers, regardless of their stature they were both instrumental in the formation of my life. I have inherited traits from both of them, I have Grandpa Riggan's laid back personality and Grandpa Wade's gift of storytelling but when it came to TV they were giants in their own rights.
