Laughter, from all, opened up in the living room as the grandson slipped into his shoes while simultaneously asking his dad where the tow strap was located. With anticipation the grandson idled his newly acquired shiny red 12hp Sears tractor, something his family deemed appropriate for gathering firewood.
Following his grandfather through the path in the woods towards the pond where his grandfather's lawn mower was stuck, you could see the seriousness in the grandson's face. This was an opportunity to give back assistant where so much had been earned and everybody knew this.
The tow strap was attached to the mud sunken tractor and the grandson was coached by his father who gave advice on the combination of which gear to use and the recommended engine rpm setting. With one attempt the grandson jerked his grandfathers stuck machine up out of the mud and continued to pull the machine up and out of the pond. The grandfather thanked his grandson and commented on his Sears tractor for "pulling him out so easily".
The grandfather returned to tell his story and indulge in blackened coffee, a Finnish heritage he enjoys. His story was inadvertently interrupted by his two young grandchildren who were spatting with each other over a reason unknown to the adults.
The grandfather laughed and recalled a memory from his own youth. His younger brother had a toy which he wanted. Being the older and tougher sibling at the time the grandfather being about 8 years old used these advantages to their "difference of opinion". Nearly upon getting his way his younger brother smacked him in the nose with a 16" cow bone. Needless to say, the grandfather changed his mind about the need for that certain toy. The grandfather sat on the couch telling his story and he recalled the pain that cow bone caused, then he laughed and shook his head while leaving his hand cupped around the bridge of his nose displaying a reenactment of the situation.
As the grandchildren listened the grandfather went on to tell a story about the toys he played with when he was a child. He and his brothers would take a chicken breast bone and pound it on a board with nails. They would attach toy wheels to the board and make "plows" for their toy tractors. They would spend hours playing with these chicken bones, plowing up the sand in their pit behind the barn.
He also preferred to use blackened poplar trees to whittle airplanes. The grandfather remembered there being about 100 airplanes laying about the farm that he and his younger brothers carved from wood with their pocket knifes. He thought they were realistic, but then figured it could have been just the memory of them being hand crafted and carved with such exact precision.
They would run around the farm holding an airplane in their right hand above head level making a sound similar to a high performance engine. Complete with nose dives and near crashes, the grandfather and brother ran around the farm with their supreme imagination levels at work and yelling "Captain Midnight!".
The grandfather went on to speak to the attentive family about the radio shows his family would listen to during the late 1930's. They would gather around the small black radio and listen to the radio show, Captain Midnight, a World War I pilot who was sent on high risk missions. The grandfathers story went on to other radio shows, such as The Lone Ranger and how he would say "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!"
The grandfather finished his thick coffee and rode off to the West into the setting sun on a mud stained lawn mower leaving some of his personal memories of generations ago. "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!"
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