Laughing, not crying, over spilled milk
REMEMBER WHEN
When I was in grade school we always had a pig or two and a cow. We used the cow, of course, to supply milk and other beef critters for freezer meat. The pigs were for hams, bacon and home salted salt fat back.
Dad always tethered the cow in the field behind our home on the Mapleton Road, after getting permission from the farmer who owned it. That particular field was too wet to plant so it just sat fallow for years. Dad would take the pickup into the field after dinner in the evening and milk the cow and change the tether to a different location for fresh grass for the night and next day.
One evening I went to help dad with the chores. After milking dad asked me if I wanted to hold the milk bucket while he drove back to the house. Now, in those days, the early to mid 1960s, the pickup bodies weren’t like they are today. Dad’s truck was a 1955 Dodge three-quarter ton with what was to become known as a “step-side” body. I stood on the step on the side of the body and held the milk bucket with one hand and held tightly to the handle of the body with the other.
Neither Dad nor I had seen the ant hill about 50 yards along the way but find it we did. When the left wheels of the truck hit the ant hill the bucket and I became airborne. I landed and did a beautiful somersault and ended up sitting in the grass with fresh milk all over me.
That was the last time I ever rode the running board with or without anything in my hands and it was a bath I will never forget. What a chuckle I get when I sit and think of that day and remember when …
Guy Woodworth of Presque Isle is a 1973 graduate of Presque Isle High School and a four-year Navy veteran. He and his wife Theresa have two grown sons and five grandchildren. He may be contacted at lightning117_1999@yahoo.com.
