FATHER'S DAY 2009

On this 100th anniversary of Father's Day, I started thinking about the fathers in my family. When Spencer was born in 2004, there were three generations of fathers alive in our family on the Shannon side. Looking back in our ancestral tree, it may be the only time that this has ever or ever will happen. In my case my great grandfather Nolker lived until I was five, but I don't remember meeting him. My grandfather Shannon died four years before I was born and my grandfather Edwards less than two years after. My great grandfather Nolker (Shannon) actually lived nine years after my grandfather Shannon died (four years before I was born).

There are two reasons that come to mind why the 3 generations of fathers alive at one time did not occur before and won't be repeated. The life span of the past was usually not much past the 50s because heart disease was so prevalent. And now children go to college and on to graduate degrees and start families later which makes the age span of each generation almost 30 years and that makes it impossible to have four generation alive at any time.

So this photo of the four generations and the three generations of dads is pretty radical.

MY GRANDFATHER'S BARN & SILO

In the early Kansas morning, sometimes before sunup, we grand kids (either two or four depending on whether our cousins from Lawrence were there) would climb into the cab if cold or the back if warm of Uncle John's Chevy pickup and head slowly down the back road to "the farm". My grandfather had died when I was two years old so Uncle John was our "grandfather" figure. We took the dirt road about a mile and then another mile on the highway till we turned in to the barn yard.

Just past where the road crossed the highway was "the windmill" which pumped water into the horse tank by the barn which grew a little of what is now known as "pond scum" around the edges. The barn yard was surfaced with gravel and from time to time we could find small circular fossils in the gravel. We would make holes in the center of and string them together.

The predominant site as we turned into the farm was the big white two story barn (in recent decades painted red). This barn had many functions and was a fascinating place for young kids to explore. There were two "dutch" doors on the front. The center door opened into the center isle which had an open area for cows on the left and in the back on the left a large door opening to the pen side of the barn. On the right of the isle were two horse stalls and then a ladder to the hay mow and then a grain bin with a sliding door. The door to the right on the front opened into the area behind the horse stalls where the saddles, bridles an other tack for the horses hung on the end wall.

We were allowed to get a bucket of oats for the horses which they ate while being saddled and bridled. My memories of the exact animals inside the barn are fuzzy, but I seem to remember seeing a cow milked at some time on the cow side and I remember the sight and sound of the horses chewing on the other side.

Most fascinating for the grand kids was the hay mow. The hay was bailed in the fields and then brought to the barn on a hay wagon pulled by the tractor. Men would then throw the bales up and into a window of the hay mow which was on the right end of the barn. Hay hooks were used to grab the bales and of course it wasn't until we got older that we were allowed around the hay hooks and their sharp points.

The hay was stacked systematically in the hay mow so that there could be maximum use of the space. Gradually as the hay was used there would start to be little areas where bales had been removed that we could hide in or jump into and we moved some of the bales around to make better play places. The down side was that since I had developed asthma at 7mos old, every time I went to play in the hay I knew that it would make me wheeze. However the fun was too much and a little wheezing was worth the price.

Just a stones toss along the lane behind the barn was our other favorite play place at the farm, the concrete stave silo. The silo was even taller than the barn and had a chute on the front and handles by each silo window which we were able to climb as we got older and taller.

The silo was filled with a mixture of corn cobs, corn shocks, and perhaps other grain-type things I can't recall. I don't remember being at the farm when the silo was filled, which involved chopping up the corn, etc with a silage chopper and then blowing the silage up and over the top of the silo.

Each of the windows was closed with a silo door (I have one of them in my garage) and the silo then filled close to the top. In the winter when the cattle didn't have grass to eat, we would pull a

wagon up to the silo and Albert or Morey would climb to the top of the silo and shovel the "insulage" through the opened window and it would fall down the chute and into the wagon; and we would then take it to the fields and spread it for the cattle. In the summer it just made a place to climb up and peer down into the empty silo. With my current dislike of high places, my memory is blunted as to how high I used to climb back then.

These days the old barn and silo have only each other to talk to. The are no kids in the hay mow or horses in the stalls or feet on the silo ladder - just memories carried by those who were there.