5 December 2023, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2212: bean counter
My dad was a Bean Counter.
This is a pejorative term for an accountant or treasurer who wants to severely limit the amount of money spent for anything. It's also anyone who will "nickel and dime you to death" and keep a score card and make sure nobody gets more than what's coming to him. Most of all, Bean Counters know that a penny saved is a penny earned.
Add to that a Protestant work ethic, and you get my dad.
Waste not, want not! Work, work, work, earn, earn, earn, and save, save, save, but do not enjoy the fruits of your labor. Keep hoarding them!
I will not describe the grain bins full of rotting corn and beans nor all the WORK work WORK and effort and money that went into the planting and harvesting of these crops, and the broken brain of the old man who wouldn't sell off his harvest because he might have to pay income tax....
I am not a bean counter.
One thing Dad taught me is that I do not want to be too busy working to do the work of LIVING. I'm as un-busy as possible. #rebel
Dad was a very very busy farmer with five daughters all barely more than a year apart in age, yet he raised pigs, sheep, cows, and chickens; he built seven houses from scratch and dealt with tenants (oh the stress they added to his life, and Mom's); he built grain bins, and hired out as a carpenter; he was TOO BUSY for us kids and even for the grandkids -- but after sighing that he had so much to do, he would make time for a tractor ride, and maybe it wasn't just to show off his toys and fulfill a grandfatherly duty. He was really living when driving the grandkids down those dusty roads.
With Dad gone, "Grandpa Duty" was handed off to my husband (who was born and raised on a farm):
NOT TO BE TOO BUSY -
Not to work work earn earn save save
Are my five minutes up yet? I forgot to set the timer.
I think I've said enough for now about Dad, how he thought he'd take it all with him. He died a few months ago (in a dementia unit at a very expensive nursing home). The auction was in November. There went his tractors, trucks, combines, tools, and almost a century's hoarding and collecting.
Someday I might bring myself to talk about that day, that auction. Suffice to say, he did not roll in his grave (he was cremated, and his ashes are in the house he was born in). He did not thunder at us from the sky and I trust he just didn't see ALL HIS STUFF down below, getting sold to others.
For now I will focus on the two young men who caught my eye.
I regret that I could not snag a decent snapshot of them.
I keep mentioning Mennonites and deer-slayers to my unwed nieces (and daughter). 🙂 When the apocalypse hits (some say 2024!), the Amish and Mennonites and the outdoorsmen who kill adorable mammals, birds, and fish (ok, Big Mouth Bass may not be so adorable) - but - these "killers" (no PETA vegans here!) will be the hardiest survivors.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite memes:
Um...
yes....
At the epic, haunting, mind-blowing auction of all my dad's tools and implements, I kept noticing these two very striking young men, lean and sharp looking and well dressed with their black hats, clean shaven (my mom said that means unmarried). Turns out they're Mennonite, from a community only half an hour from my mom.
5 MINUTES! Woot!
I could stop, but but but, these men.
I keep wondering if my town-raised daughter will ever understand my preoccupation with homesteading and manly men.
The kind with apocalyptic warlord potential.
(Yes. I know. Mennonites are peaceful, not warlords.)
My neighbor has warlord potential.
He's a Navy vet.
He SHOOTS rabbits to protect the garden.
My own garden was decimated in 2023, by rabbits, mostly, possibly woodchucks too. Nope, didn't set a trap and fire a bullet at any of 'em, and the dogs just sat there watching as the rabbits munched on my garden.
Recently, my daughter was searching online for where to see bobcats in the wild in the Midwest. She happens to really fixated with these creatures thanks to a bobcat at the zoo, whom she visits and admires religiously.
Her search turned up this happy, hale and hearty HUNTER holding up his KILL -
A bobcat!
And he was thrilled to have added this to his Bucket List.
And he looks vaguely like my son, and he is very much the handsome Viking outdoorsman and hunter, AND he's a farm boy (who played college football) and he trains hunting dogs and ....
Me: "Here is my future son in law." The guy on the right; my son is on the left
Daughter: "MURDERER!"
Please Jesus make him my son-in-law,
I kinda/sorta halfheartedly say, not "pray," because my mantra is "Thy will be done," not mine, but if you would please send me a son-in-law like him (minus his joy in slaying beautiful bobcats), it might go a long way toward restoring my faith in God. LOL.
Do not take me too seriously, folks.
Before I go,
Here is Dad with my niece, and behind him is a landscape I had my husband draw for him in chalk pastel, an image of his own father, my grandpa, pipe clenched in his jaw, silhouetted against the sunset on Grandpa's first tractor.
(Yes, the farm boy I married is an extraordinary artist, and musician, and carpenter, and... that's a whole 'nother freewrite!)
That tractor got sold. Here is the auctioneer's image from his bill of sale:
My dad was not the world's best dad. He was a bean counter and a workaholic who seemed to value money more than time with family - but he was MY DAD and I loved him and always will.
