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Another Perspective
On the Farm
The summer of 40 years ago.
Forty summers ago I went upstate to spend the idyllic season on the farm in Broome County, New York near Binghamton. Three hundred acres of fields and woods, its southern boundary the Pennsylvania line. My late Uncle Stanley Rosenkampf inherited some money and bought it in 1966, an avocation, as at the time he was an industrial arts teacher in downstate Westchester County. Stanley and Aunt Rosemary (my late father’s younger sister, still living) eventually retired to the small white farmhouse on a county road. In 1970 the nearest neighbor — a dairy farm — was nearly a half mile away.
Stanley fancied himself a farmer, one of those guys who longed for the life of sun and soil, while the practical concerns of making a living got in the way. But being a high school teacher his summers were free, and were spent on the farm. And so I was sent up, having just finished my sophomore year in a Catholic high school. I looked forward to this as an away-from-home adventure, and as an opportunity to hang out with my Rosenkampf cousins Molly, Tom, Paul and Artie. The first three were there only occasionally, as they were old enough to have lives away from the place (college, jobs, etc.), but Artie and I — both sixteen — would be there for the duration.
This was advantageous from Stanley’s point of view. Maybe sometime in his academic career he’d taken an economics class, because he certainly understood Adam Smith’s “Labor Theory of Value.” That summer he found himself in possession of two healthy sixteen year old boys. He had to provide each with a bed to sleep in, and he had to feed them. Other than that he could work them, as they say in the South, like rented mules.
The problem with that “idyllic season” trope is that the words “farm” and “work” are synonymous. Most hobby gardeners have a small backyard plot, but Stanley had a full five acres under cultivation in a series of interconnected plots. And he didn’t have a roadside stand to sell all the produce. This summer hobby was for family consumption, and for friends, neighbors and other visitors to the farm. Aunt Rosemary preserved as much as she could, but Stanley simply gave a lot away, or disposed of much of it — spoiled and rotten — on his compost pile. Though I wasn’t there for the entire season, the output was huge: sweet corn, pathetic golf ball-sized potatoes, cucumbers, red and green cabbage, multiple varieties of squash and peppers and melons, and shiny purple eggplants. Stanley had a patch of strawberries the size of an Olympic swimming pool. He had a half acre in tomatoes; the scores of plants properly spaced and staked. He had rows of string beans and wax beans as long as a football field. I can still see him standing wiry in the sun in his sweat-stained white T-shirt, as he surveyed his agricultural empire, wiping his ruddy brow or blowing his nose with an ever-present blue handkerchief.
Stanley, Artie and I worked from 7AM to late afternoon in a daily round of “cultivating,” endless weeding as we broke up the dirt around and between rows of vegetables with hoes. Sometimes Aunt Rosemary joined us wearing a big straw sun hat. The occasional afternoon summer thunderstorm that drove us from the fields was most welcome from mine and Artie’s viewpoints, but the rain only meant more weeds the next day. And then there were the rocks.
Going back to the first agricultural settlement of colonial New England the historical record is littered with accounts of farmers cursing the rocky soil. The ancient glacial landscape of the Northeast is some of the most unarable land in the world. The stones rising out of it are eternal. It has something to do with freezing winters and then the thawing spring ground summons the next generation to the surface for the summer’s picking. I had the feeling that Stanley had a fragmented Rock of Gibraltar under his farm. When we dug up those aforementioned small potatoes, the accompanying rocks were thrice their size.
So, Artie and I “picked rocks,” as we called it, which from Stanley’s point of view measured the garden’s success. We filled a wheelbarrow dozens of times per day and took turns dumping it on a large nearby pile. I’ve often wondered why Stanley never built a stone wall, because just as nature in its utilitarian way provided the bounty of the garden it also provided the rocks. But instead they accumulated in multiple mounds the size of old Volkswagens at the edge of the fields. It was either a lapse of judgment on Stanley’s part, or he detested the rocks so much that he refused to use them in an aesthetic way. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote Robert Frost.
But there were interludes free of rocks and dirt. Stanley religiously took a nap after lunch, a siesta in the heat of the day, and this was the signal for me and Artie to hop on our bikes and head to the swimming hole by the bridge over Cascade Creek, or for a round of plinking at woodchucks with our .22s (encouraged by local dairy farmers to keep the number of chuck holes down in the hayfields). One day we decided to play hooky and didn’t come home until suppertime. Stanley was not amused, of course, but his even-tempered demeanor shrugged it off. Still, Artie and I knew that the next day he would find a way to work us harder.
Another favorite pastime was shooting at trains. The Erie Lackawanna tracks lay across the road from the farm and by climbing a nearby hill we had a perfect vantage point. Some evenings after supper we surreptitiously assumed our sniper position. The freight trains regularly rumbled by always heralded by the whistle, and we blasted away at the passing boxcars. There were specific targets: the “S” in “Santa Fe”; the “N” in “Norfolk and Western.” We loaded and reloaded as our amusing moving target rolled by. To do this we actually had to shoot over the house, and one memory I have is of Aunt Rosemary standing in the kitchen window as she did the supper dishes, probably assuming the gunfire was target shooting in the woods, and not knowing that the bullets were passing twenty feet over her head. Needless to say, train shooting was a no-no, but train shooting with Aunt Rosemary in the line-of-fire would certainly have provoked her noteworthy Irish temper. To this day I thank God that I’m free of the all encompassing guilt that would have resulted if I’d shot my much-beloved aunt. And I have a tinge of regret about this adolescent mischief. I hopefully doubt that we shot any passing hobos. I see now that it was an inappropriate use of a firearm. Don’t try this at home, kids.
The glass insulators perched atop telephone poles were also a preferred target. As far as I know we caused no power outages or interruptions of phone service. Then there were the road signs that we nonchalantly blasted while cruising by on our bikes. Artie and I were mounted and armed, roaming the countryside like Comanches or Cossacks. The elderly proprietor of the General Store in the hamlet of Gulf Summit gladly kept us supplied with Cokes, ice cream, and ammunition. Since Stanley didn’t pay us for our garden work, I’m scratching my head as to how we scrounged up the money to afford such luxuries. There must have been petty larceny involved.
There were late nights. Artie had a girlfriend two farms down the road and we spent a lot of time there. And in the company of an older cousin we went to a bar called “Davidsons” in Deposit, New York one night. We were obviously too young to drink, but those were the days when a bar owner permitted the presence of young people if they were with responsible adults, as my cousin Tom was, well, sometimes. But Aunt Rosemary was out of bed and beside herself when Artie and I rolled in at 2 AM after a long night of drinking Cokes, playing pinball and shooting pool. Tom dropped us off and then quickly headed out to continue carousing with older friends, and I recall Aunt Rosemary swearing an oath or two at him as he pulled out of the driveway.
In the end Stanley had enough, and sent “Cousin Willie” home, cutting my enjoyable summer in half. Cousin Willie and Artie were a bad influence on each other, and Stanley reasoned that if he sent me home our extracurricular nonsense would cease, and he’d get twice as much work out of Artie for the remainder of the summer. So home I went. Poor Artie.
Ah, but the memories.
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
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stephanie| 7.22.10 @ 7:03AM
What a sweet read. Thank you Bill for sharing that with us. You make me smile.
Marine Mike| 7.22.10 @ 7:26AM
Bill, your article brings back similar memories of growing up in the hills of Northwestern Pennsylvania in the early 60's...it was the "best of times" in this country. I think it's time to make a visit there after 35 years removed.
Forever Marine| 7.22.10 @ 10:44AM
I just visited my grandparents chicken farm where I spent a few summers in the late 50's. It was cathartic. So many memories.
Thank you Bill
Kitty| 7.22.10 @ 7:47AM
Boy, talk about pangs of nostalgia. I grew up in near-by Otsego County. The summer you were taking pot shots at those "glass insulators perched atop telephone poles," I lived in neighboring Delaware County.
The glass insulators that survived are now collectors' items. Family farms are going the same way, especially here in NYS where the property taxes are forcing them out. My brother discovered he had hay fever working summers on a farm, while I spent my summers biking all through the countryside -- without a helmet.
Melvin| 7.22.10 @ 9:41AM
My goodness, 40 years ago I was shoveling wheat into a silo, bailing Alfalfa hay bales, picking strawberries, cucumbers, blueberries, and just about every other fruit or vegetable that was hand picked in the Pacific Northwest to earn money for my school clothes from J.C Penny, not the J.C. Penny of today mind you.
I also shoveled cow manure with my cousins out of their father's dairy farm just out of Forest Grove Oregon. This was the least glorious part learning what was hard work.
It was hard but fulfilling. When I walked away there was a sense of accomplishment of the day. In the mornings, observing a sun rise over the dew covered fields, the sun shining through the tall Douglas Firs, and the sweet wonderful smell of freshly turned earth getting ready for planting.
Damn! How I want to be a kid again, this getting older business just doesn't suit me.
I want to float my cousin's size 13 Converse tennis shoes down Gales Creek and spend the rest of the day diving into it, looking for them after they sank. I want to catch fresh Crayfish with a hot dog on a stick in the swift running Alsea River and boil them over a Coleman stove in Blackberry Park.
I want to walk through Oregon's forests with my Black Labrador Snoopy exploring natures wonders, running back to tell my family in what I had just seen.
I want to sit on the lava rocks at Seal Rock again and gaze out into the Pacific Ocean, daydreaming as a kid what was on the other side.
I was the first one in my family to venture outside my state of where I was born and grew up and acutally see what was on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
Like the Salmon, I to yearn to return to the land of which I was created from. To die, and lay down into the embrace of the sweet earth only to come back as something else of God's great design. I guess ya get that way when we get older.
I guess there will a time for ET to go home, but for now as of yesterday my daughter informed her mother that she and her husband are expecting there first child.
I have grandfather duties to attend to now, like telling my grandchild as we sit upon the rocks gazing out into the Pacific Ocean, " Did I ever tell you what is on the other side?"
Ya, know something dear readers of the American Spectator. Maybe after all, we don't really have it so bad as we might think.
Hmm and kids today think they have it bad.
Kate| 7.22.10 @ 9:57AM
Bill,I can still see that mischievious twinkle in Artie's eye. As far as Aunt Rosemary is concerned, what she didn't know then, SHE DOES KNOW NOW...
Ned| 7.22.10 @ 11:11AM
Wow, shooting over a house at a train, with a view through a window of your Aunt washing dishes. And I have been thinking how irresponsible I was as a youngster for spending endless summer days at the ponds north of my home with my friends shooting BB guns at minnows. On the rare occasion we would hit one it would break almost in half and float to the surface. We were violating the rule of never shooting at water, since it is supposed to more easily produce ricochets.
One the way home we would inevitably shoot at each other, the only rule being we had to shoot our target below the waist. If you have ever been shot in the back of the leg with a BB gun you know this is quite painful, but seldom requires a doctor visit. (At least then it didn’t)
We would also take our beginner bow and arrow equipment to open fields and shoot the arrows into the air straight above us. The trick was to keep your eyes on the arrow and move out of way when gravity brought it point first back to earth. Somehow we all lived and now looking back is when we shudder in disbelief at our dangerous mischief. (Fun)
Allen Hanson| 7.22.10 @ 2:25PM
Stanley learned the Farmer's Rule for Hiring Teenagers:
You hire one kid, you get a kid.
You hire two kids, you get half a kid.
You hire three kids, you get no kid at all.
My dad taught me that one. He died March 12th of this year. RIP, Dad.
REB| 7.22.10 @ 11:39PM
Good memories man! I have similar ones in NW Pa. My brothers and I and my uncle who wasnt much older than me were the terrors of the countyside,farmboys with .22 rifles mailordered from Monkey Wards catalog when we turned 12 and BB guns before that ,man I miss that catalog,roamed the countryside looking for old pop bottles and copper wire to sell to buy bullets,man I miss 40 years ago!!
Vern Crisler| 7.22.10 @ 11:48PM
I grew up in some fields and forests near Plattsburgh, New York in a similar setting to that described by the writer and at about the same year.
However, I was not above eight or nine years old at the time, and our “farm” consisted of only an acre of crops, or maybe half-an acre. It was a long time ago, and the details may be a little off.
My father was from rural Georgia and probably had a nostalgia for the old country, where farming was a way of life for most. Peas and squash and okra and butter beans grew there, for the earth brought forth much vegetables, which we had to eat.
We were not allowed to have guns, so stones were our weapon of choice. We had poor aim and couldn’t hit anything that wasn’t as big as a house. So the birds and squirrels were content to eye us with some curiosity before going back to their reading.
The only thing I was afraid of in those days were bobcats. My mother concocted a story that bobcats roamed the woods looking for boys to kill and eat. No doubt, there once had been a child who had been killed by a bobcat -- sometime in the days of Nebuchadnezzar perhaps -- but the story had the intended effect of keeping me from roaming the woods by myself.
Plattsburgh used to be the location of a SAC Air Force base, back in those hoary days when we still had a Soviet Union and the Inevitable Triumph of Communism. But my brother and my friends and I thought nothing of those world-historic matters.
We thought only of baseball, the latest insults we could throw at each other -- for we had better aim with those -- and how to play with matches without starting a tree on fire, or at least learn to put it out before it became a conflagration.
If I had known Mr. Croke was out firing off his .22s at trains and telephone poles, I think I would have asked him to come over and hunt up a few bobcats, a much more productive use of his artillery in my estimation.
At least, it would have allowed me to play with my matches, and invent new insults, and dream of being Mickey Mantle in the World Series on a little patch of ground in Plattsburgh, New York, now some forty years ago.
Dennis| 7.23.10 @ 1:30AM
Waves of nostalgia-the summer of 70. I had just graduated from HS. We lived on a dairy farm about 60 miles to the west. I was awaiting my first year at Grove City and most of it was filled with throwing hay bales onto an elevator.
One diversion was M-80's. For whatever reason my dad never thought I was worthy of a 22 or a shotgun. -but he did assign me to set up a series of fuses peppered with the huge firecrackers to scare away crows form the corn fields. At 72 to a box and about $3.00 a box there was always a lot around and it was easy to "skim off the top". I had read about the Hungarians and their Molotov cocktails and thought I could do one better. I 3/4 filled an Ivory liquid bottle with gasoline and set a weighted m-80 in the mouth of the bottle an lit it-and ran like hell. After the fuse burned down the cracker dropped into the gasoline it exploded a second later. The effect was similar to Hollywood pyrotechnics and probably a lot more dangerous. Somehow I still have all my fingers.
David Watson| 7.24.10 @ 9:28PM
This article reminds me of my own teenage years in northern California in the 70's. My friends and I all had horses and used to spend weeks every summer camping. We carried our 22 rifles and pistols practically everywhere we went. I still have specks of lead in my arm where one of my friends shot a fork out of my hand as a joke. He was getting back at me for shooting between his legs at the puddle he was making while taking his morning piss. We once found a pile of old florescent lights at an old hunting cabin in the woods and took turns playing chicken by seeing who would hold on the longest while another shot the light to pieces each shot getting closer and closer to the hand holding it. We sometimes would stand on hilltops several hundred yards apart and take turns raining shotgun pellets on each other. I'm sure our parents would be horrified to this day if they knew what we were doing when out on our own but those were the best days of my life and I'll miss them till the day I die.
Dave M. (now in S. Korea)| 7.24.10 @ 9:37PM
Nice story and a great diversion from the current political mess. However, I do have a question: how is a plot land, in New York State, whose southern boundary is the northern Pennsylvania state line considered "upstate?"
Pine duBois | 2.20.11 @ 12:04PM
Thanks for the update on my childhood friends in Ardsley, NY--your relatives and the side I never knew of Molly (and parents!)--but it all fits. Great read. Please wish her a Happy Belated birthday(2-19) and greetings from the Lubbers family!
Adult toys | 7.4.11 @ 3:34AM
l like the space.support.
thank you.