A Grand Old Tree

It was about 1954. One of the main chores my brother George and I had to do every day in the winter was to feed hay to our herd of cows in the pasture. We backed up our old gravel dump truck to the barn door and loaded 15 to 20 square bales of hay on it. We cut and pulled out the strings as we stacked the bales. Then all I had to do was slide the hay off the truck bed as my brother drove the truck. Another chore I had after we finished feeding the cows was to go into the milk pen and release a calf back to its mama. Whenever my mom milked the milk cow every day, she would tie off or pen the calf separately from its mama to keep it from nursing while she milked the cow.

It just so happened that the cow pen was located close to a postoak tree. There was a lowhanging limb on this tree just over the roadway that our truck used as a path to the garage where George parked the vehicle overnight. The limb had a knob on the end of it making a perfect handle for me to grab onto as he drove under it. I would grab the limb and swing off the truck bed. After swinging to and fro a few times, I gently dropped to the ground. This method of dismounting the truck saved me many steps walking back to the cow pen from the garage.

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