I had been meaning to visit Billie Earith's Small Town Cafe at Percival for some time and since I was on vacation and had to get up early anyway, the time was right.
Now you just don't pop in on the fellas at Percival as a stranger and expect to make friends (or get stuck with the coffee bill) unless your are prepared for it.
So I prepared. I wore my striped overalls (with the brass buttons that say "Sears") and my African safari cap that I had saved from the state cornpicking contest we had south of Nebraska City some years ago.
Actually, I felt out of place. I should have worn my P.A.G. hybrid seed corn cap.
To tell the truth to this story, I have to admit that Mones Zach was in on the fun. We had cooked up a little scheme for the birthday of Sam Kellogg, Jr. that morning . . . only Sam didn't show up. One of the men said he was cultivating.
Well, since the whole deal backfired I had to switch to a different tactie. I wasn't going to say too much until Mones introduced me as the Harvest King (we spent part of the vacation combining wheat for a friend in Jefferson county).
From that point on it was sort of a dog-eat-dog game.
The brown paper sack that contained a gift for Sam suddenly became my "sack lunch."
The only thing I could think of fast when they asked me what I was doing in Percival dressed in the colorful outfit and toting a sack lunch was:
"Mones hired me."
"Whattya mean?" Larry Moyer asked.
"Well, fellas you see it's like this. Mones and me were talking about farming the other night and he was telling me how busy he was with farm work and since I was so-o-o-o- experienced, he needed extra help . . .."
"I didn't say that," Mones declared.
"I don't believe it either," Dean Handy said.
"Look guys," I explained. "It doesn't matter much of who believes who at this early hour of the morning. The fact is here I am, dressed for work, here's my sack lunch and now I want my breakfast."
Arnold Handy said the whole thing seemed silly to him and added that I looked more like a clown in my get up.
Meanwhile, Billie was in the kitchen ready to pop her apron strings when I ordered bacon, eggs, toast and strawberry jelly.
The breakfast was delicious despite the glare from Mones.
We had a few other words during the brief session and as each person came in the door I readily informed them that I was Mones' hired hand.
The meal was over and the party broke up.
I must have done a pretty good selling job. Dean Handy paid for my breakfast.
The "sack lunch?"
Oh I tacked it to the bulletin board with the lettering: SAM.
The happy birthday message was inside. You'll have to ask Mones about that. After all the whole deal was his idea in the first place.
Stolen
The reporter was assigned to do an on-the-street opinion poll concerning "Ms" the modern woman. The first person he encountered was a man who had just passed his 102nd birthday.
"I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you," replied the old gentleman regretfully. "I quit thinking about women almost two years ago."
The late Vern Pickering would have liked this.
On the 20th anniversary a noted bandleader who had played over 2,000 dance engagements was asked, "what have you had the most requests for?"
He replied, "where's the men's room."
We've been early morning risers at our house this summer. No. 2 daughter, Clarissa, goes to work at 7 a.m. at Nebraska City Manor, No. 3 daughter, Jeannea, was picking cherries at 6 a.m. and the boy with the big feet, Keaton, gets up at 5:15 a.m. to work with Dan Rawlings' crew in the cornfields in Iowa.
Since I have to get up so early each day, I try not to stir any late sleepers (sometimes they even get a day off).
It makes for a long day and by 10 a.m. during the vacation week, I had finished piddling m the garden and was ready for a morning nap.
Clarissa suggested I visit the Manor.
"Eddie's there and he'd enjoy visiting. And he just had his 85th birthday," she said.
We made two trips to the Manor that day. The first trip Eddie (Gerber) and I talked about some of the jokes we pulled on the courthouse folks when Eddie was custodian and the times we took drives to visit one of his favorite places, the Missouri river.
The second trip was to convince Eddie that the little dark haired girl in the white uniform was my daughter. The years have a way of slipping by, we agreed.
Didya hear the one about the elderly woman who zoomed past a state trooper?
The officer gave chase and when he brought her to a stop he asked for her drivers license.
"Young man," she snapped, "how can I be expected to show you my drivers license when you people keep taking it away from me?"
C. F. "Slim" Mason depends a great deal on his cane for balance, but when he's behind the wheel of a Model T, he's an old pro.
Slim drove the Scimitar Shrine club's Model T fire truck in a parade at Ralston. Dan Hall, the alfalfa weevil chaser from the Thurman hills, rode shotgun.
The Shrine parade vehicle is a pretty flashy piece of equipment. Shriners did a lot of sanding and Harold Rowe's crew came up with a bright-bright glossy red.
Anyway, back to Slim.
He's one of the oldtimers who remembers the operation of the three pedals and hand lever of a Model T.
The Shriners buzzed around the fire truck in a pattern in their new three-wheeled vehicles purchased from Johnny Bando, as Slim chuggety-chugged down the street.
Everything went fine on an especially warm afternoon, but that was taken care of in good style. Slim wheeled the truck down a side street.
"You're going the wrong way," Dan said to Slim as he turned off the main street at the end of the parade route.
"Naw, we're going the RIGHT WAY," Slim answered as he wheeled the truck into a parking stall next to the Legion club where a bit of cool refreshment was the pit stop.