Mailboxes and Old Barns Guest Post: Some Assembly Required, by Maxine Lee

Maxine Lee is grandmother of our good friend carterzest. We will continue to share the narrative of her family’s history as presented in the book she published in 2005 entitled Some Assembly Required. The gathering of her stories in the book was a result of her dream “to leave a printed account to my family, of my beginning, my birth place and childhood, and a few of the lessons life has taught to me.” Thank you, Maxine, for sharing with us what you gathered for them.

Links to previous posts in the series will be shared at the end of each Sunday’s post.

Kittens, Dogs, Etc. ….continued….

Our cows became pets. We rode them, milked them, chased them and loved them. I still love a good Jersey milk cow and until our own boys left home, we kept one. We always had fresh milk, cream and butter and in the event of a bull calf, there was beef on our table. We had Betsy, Dolly, Pet, Spot and dozens I have long forgotten.

One day, when I was about five or six, Dad gave us strict orders to stay away from the barn because a cow was about to drop her calf and must not be disturbed. I had never seen a calf born and I was very curious. When Dad wasn’t looking, I sneaked out of the house to the window of the barn and peeked in. The calf had just entered the world when my father had come up behind me. I thought I got spanked for seeing something forbidden, when actually I got spanked for disobeying him. But it hurt more than just my backside. I had displeased my father, and I had a tender conscience.

We milked cows when we were small. My sister and I took turns, one helping in the house for the week and the other milking five of the cows. I liked the smell of the cows and cuddling up to one on a cold morning to milk was not too bad. I hated trying to find them when they wandered off. We all liked to play hide and seek after the milking was done, until my father finished the chores and we all went to the house.

My brother, Larry, struggled with allergies, so we got goats. They were a trial. The buck butted us when we weren’t on guard. The kids climbed on top of the car and on anything else that was around. They all ate ropes, cans – everything in sight. The old Billy almost hanged himself. He was tied beside the barn to eat noxious weeds and decided the grass was greener in the barn. He went through the window, and when I saw him, he was hanging by his rope making gurgling sounds. I ran and got Dad who cut him loose.

The goat milk tasted just like goats smell. The meat also tasted like goats smell and I still do not like goat cheese. It, too, tastes like goats smell. So much for goats. They taste a little like venison, but stinkier.

We had cats. We loved kittens and needed them on the farm to keep the mouse population down in the barns and corn cribs. My brother Dale had a cat he named Shookie, because he shook it. He also tried to teach it to swim in the rain barrel that stood at the corner of the house. It wsa doing pretty good, but Mom rescued the poor thing from the barrel. The cat couldn’t climb out. Once I prayed to have a kitten. When I didn’t get it, I decided God just didn’t think I should have one, and that was fine with me.

Games People Play

We were poor. There was no money for toys and our imagination would have to provide entertainment. Mom taught us to play Hide the Thimble. She gave her only thimble to one person to hide it on top of something, and the others hunted for it. If you discovered it, you yelled, “I spy” and you got to hide the thimble next. After dark we played hide and seek in the tall grass behind the many oaks trees that surrounded the house.

Softball was big and tag was good. We had a tire swing in the front yard of the old cabin. We always fought over who got to swing first. Another game was to scratch the ground near the few buildings looking for nails. The lucky one who found a nail, got to pound it into the big oak stump out front. After awhile, the top of the stump was shiny with nail heads. In winter, of course, there were all the snow activities.

At school, we played Red Rover, a game where half of the school (about 90 kids) held hands. The other half did the same on the opposite side of the play area. Then the leader selected someone to come over and try to break through the line. Then there was Anti Over, which was a favorite game because it added a new concept. The two groups were on opposite sides of the school house and threw the ball over the roof to the other side, yelling, “Anti, Anti Over.”

When someone on the other side caught the ball, he ran around to touch someone with it. Just before recess was over, you could chase someone with that ball clear into the next county and skip the next class. But it never worked. The teacher caught on real fast.

We played games in the barn after milking was finished. The barn was warm from all the cattle, and dark enough for hiding. At the Flynn farm, we had a huge silo where Dad stored silage from corn to feed the cattle. In winter it froze about two feet all around the edge, and we would climb up and walk around that “walkway.” After it got so high from removing silage, it became dangerous and we had to stop.

We liked to jump on “rubber ice.” That’s ice that has begun to melt and crack and when you jumped on it the ice gave way a little. It was a bit risky. We ice skated. Once I went for miles down Lake Calhoun, which was more like a river. I didn’t skate well and skated mostly on my ankles. When it started to get dark, I got scared because I thought I heard wolves.

In winter, we made snow forts and snow ice cream and broke off icicles hanging from the edge of the roof. Once I made the mistake of licking one and my tongue stuck to it when I tried to pull it away.

We had a great playhouse in the corncrib. We would go down the edge of the lake near the county dump to look for things we could use. We found the neatest little cups, attached to whiskey bottles, lots of pots and bottles just right for the modern playhouse.

We had a good time making homes. We scraped the dirt clean and used it to edge an area, then used sticks and rocks to build houses, barns, fences and farms. We carved the shape of a car out of a skinny board and played for hours driving to visit each other, outdoing each other with the magnificence of our possessions, just like real people. We had rubber dolls, and we learned to make clothes for them without armholes, since their arms were fixed to their bodies. We ran string through the top of an oblong piece of material and tied it on like capes. My older brother made a closet out of a Calumet baking powder can where he kept his dolls’ wardrobe. Those were called “Cupie” dolls, now worth money to collectors.

(Maxine’s faith is part of her story, and included in the book are Scripture lessons which are illustrated with stories from her life)

Isaiah 59:19

So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

My favorite basketball team was on the floor; it had been a rough game, but it was going to end. My team was down by several points; I wasn’t excited about the score. It was crunch time. The team came out of enemy territory full of fire, made more than one good play, then the forward forged ahead, received the ball and made a forty-foot, three-point basket. They were tied when the buzzer went off and the game went into overtime.

The opposition was getting tired and had used their last sub. Fouls had taken out some important players, including their top player; they were showing their weakness. The game had gone back and forth. Fouls had been called that seemed unfair, and more than once it appeared that the team could not recover. However, they went into a huddle at a time-out, and came back revived, re-inspired and encouraged to fight. They just would not give up. They were determined to win.

Life sometimes throws us barriers that seem insurmountable. The enemy throws one foul after another and it seems you are drowning in turmoil. There is no answer, and no apparent way out.

We must remember, a “game” is not over till the lasts prayer has been prayed. The last hymn has not been sung. It’s only the middle of the battle and God is not finished yet. Take a “tie out” with God. Get “in a huddle” with a few prayer warriors and get revived on the Word of God. Grab a few of those precious promises and claim them. Take those “barriers” the enemy has used to clutter up the floor, and lay them on the altar.

You have the Captain that never lost a battle, and He is not about to start now. Review the game plan and change your strategy. Raise up the “standard,” the flag of Faith and fight.

Never give up! The game is not over until the buzzer sounds and you never know how it will go. There will be some fouls called unfairly. The “game” may not seem to be going your way, but you don’t know when the opposition may just wear out or let down and a hole open up to victory.

There are times when every thing seems to be falling apart. That’s the time to take the “broken pieces” and declare that you can no longer carry the burden and then lay those pieces at the feet of Jesus.

You cannot win the game alone. You must lean on the team, plead the Blood and let the Captain take the winning shot. When the last trumpet sounds, we will all shout “Victory,” and then, and only then, will the game be over.

Mailboxes along the roads and old barns set back in fields overgrown with weeds often served as landmarks in rural Montana. These landmarks told us where we were, and how far we had to go. Sometimes they signaled “home” and the end of the road. At other times, barely visible through swirling snow, they told us we had miles to go.

Maybe you’ve seen some of the same mailboxes along your roads, or glimpsed some of the same old barns through your storms.

In one way or another, anything you read in this weekly feature is a word picture of some mailbox or some old barn, tangible or intangible, seen by the author somewhere along the roads of their memory. Our stories of other times and places become word pictures of our mailboxes, our old barns.

This current series from Maxine Lee has elements of Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Oregon in it. Others have shared MBOBs from Kansas and Texas and Oklahoma and MBOBs from anywhere show up in the threads. Thank you to all who share in the posts and in the threads, and thanks again to Maxine today.