Gossip
Today I found myself the subject of gossip. I was sitting in a local diner minding my own business, eating my breakfast, thinking about everything I had to do and wanted to do today.
Three "old timers" were sharing stories when I heard one that sounded familiar. "A farm sold near me two years ago and this fella bought it, he was an ag teacher at Blanchester." That limits the audience right there.
"He bought that farm outside Martinsville as you go to the covered bridge." "The Ertl farm one old bird asked, no, not the Ertl farm", the other one piped up, "yeak, he writes sports articles for the News Journal, no that isn't it," he replied. That guy was talking about neighbor Darryl. They mentioned the 3 big two story houses on these 3 farms trying to figure out which was which and who was who.
Well, he tore out a fence row and you know that son of mine burns wood so my wife called him if we could buy the logs. She got hold of his wife and she kept asking, what's the point? What's the point? I have no idea what he was talking about but I do remember LuAnn told me some lady offered $100 for our pile of logs and I said it's worth more than that to us to burn and LuAnn said we will have one heck of a bonfire before we sell them for that.
"You know I always said that is the best farm in Highland County" and immediately all the farms I thought were better ran through my mind. But I appreciate him thinking so. It is a good farm and we have been blessed with two good crops on it.
He went on about how we farmed with fancy machinery and I thought now that is a stretch, and how I worked for ASCS which I never have and how I brought my German Shepherd to his house which panicked his little dog and so forth and so on. That one is true, I have to be careful about where I take her.
He did seem a little jealous or proud of my crops though as he told about us spreading lime, planting a cover crop and all this "new fangled stuff." Paul Reed taught me to speak with my fields, that is the only way you can show the neighbors a better way to farm and ever have a chance to teach them if they want to change and farm better.
I just couldn't bring myself to holler, hey, I am right here, do you want the truth or just tell stories? I let them go on and on and finished my breakfast and walked within 10 feet of them to pay my bill and they never stopped or blinked an eye. They just kept gossiping.
LuAnn is right, old men, old farmers are worse than a bunch of hens cackling. I was reminded of the times I have gossiped and it bit me in the rear. Gossip is not good but today it was kind of fun. Is that sick?
Cows may come and cows may go, but the bull around here goes on forever!
I can't wait to go back and tell the waitress that was me they were talking about. She will get a real kick out of that.
Ed
0 comments:
Post a Comment