Two Wheels To Nowhere

I used to work on the Smith Farm in Utopia when I was just a young lad. I gained a healthy respect for what hard work is and where our food comes from. I really enjoyed the physical challenge that job presented. 

I regularly bike by the Smith Farm now and I always have good memories of that summer job in 1982. Tom Smith still lives in the main farmhouse with his wife, Teri. Occasionally, I stop in to say hello. Uncle Clarence lived across the road and just passed away a few years ago – he lived to be very old, I think over 100. Tom’s parents Eugene and Evelyn were retired when I worked on the farm, living in a modest trailer home on a well kept property, beside the main farm. 

One day I was rounding up cows in the barnyard that backed onto Evelyn’s neat little garden. I was using a willow switch to whack the cows in the ass to move them along, back to the barn. As I stood whacking one particularly stubborn beast in the ass, I heard Evelyn call out in an anxious voice from across the fence, “Eric, stop! That one’s the bull!!”. I am lucky he didn’t kick my lights out that day.