About a mile or so down the road from my Uncle Wilson’s farm outside of East Homer NY there lived a pair of spinster sisters whose name I don’t recall 50 plus years later. They would be East Homer’s version of the Baldwin Sisters on “Walton’s Mountain”. The most memorable thing about them to me was that they shared one set of false teeth between them which had been their father’s I think, and they didn’t fit either of the ladies mouths well!
Wilson and I had ridden down to their place on the Ford 8N to do some work for them, maybe plowing their garden, but I’m not sure. Anyway, when the work was done, the ladies insisted that we have a glass of cider with them before we headed home. They went to a barrel in their barn and drew out a large glass of some of the best apple cider I ever remember having, then they went to another barrel and got 3 glasses of cider from that barrel. Their glasses were even larger than mine as I recall, and mine wasn’t small. Wilson was a good visitor (conversation for the sake of conversation is something that seems to be rare today, but was a commonly practiced art then), and he and the sisters talked their way through their cider, and then they insisted we have another glass, and we did. By the time this second glass had been chatted away, the three of them had become a little unsteady on their feet, and they sat on available buckets or whatever during their third round. I don’t remember any of the conversation topics, but I do remember that it was fun listening to the folks talking and that they made me feel quite welcome. But all “good” things come to an end and it came time to head home to the farm. For some reason that I didn’t fully understand at the time, it took all three of the adults to make it to the tractor, and I remember Wilson telling me I was going to have to drive home! When I heard that, I felt about 10 feet tall!
The Ford wasn’t real fast, even as tractors go, and I savored every minute of the ride! We drove alongside the road so as not to disrupt traffic, even though there wasn’t much of it. When we got home, there were cows to be milked, but it may have been Aunt Virginia who did it that night!
Of course, the cider they were drinking was as “hard” as could be, while mine was not. Which leads me to wonder how the term “hard” came to be used in this context?...
On another occasion, I recall riding on the Ford to a hay field across the road from the farm. Wilson had bought another piece of property which was located across the road from the original farm. The farm was located on a side hill above the road, which was graded out along the hillside. The new piece of ground went down hill from the road to a small creek and then up the other side of the valley, which was where the field we were headed for was located. It was my first time down the lane to these fields and the creek was flowing strongly. I thought it looked nearly impossible to cross and said so to Wilson, who told me it would be no problem. I’ve always been something of a worrier, so his nonchalance didn’t convince me.
Wilson put the tractor in low or second gear, and we waded through the creek with no more than wet tires for our trouble. Whenever I think of this episode, it always reminds me that things can appear much larger to a kid than they do to us adults! I doubt if the creek was more than 10 feet wide or more than 6 inches deep, and the bottom was rough because it was rocky, which also kept it from being muddy. To this day, I think of this whenever I go 4 wheeling and come to a creek crossing…
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