of claustrophobia and cots

Every time I run across this picture, I smile.
And then I wonder why I'm running on top of photo albums.
But mostly I smile.

Because if ever there were a picture of Americana or Midwest, "Iowa style" (to quote D.P. Scaer) agriculture, this is it. Seed corn hats, a dryer, a land yacht of a truck, brothers, tired smiles. It’s all here. You can even see a hint of the long hours, stiff backs, dirty fingernails, and corn dust in the air.

The year was 1985, and the one of the right is my dad. I love that his smile hasn't changed a bit, not even back then when he worked dawn to dusk, put away enough calories at dinner to make a health nut collapse, and still made time to play with my sisters and me before sitting down to read the Wall Street Journal.

I also love that that he made that time count, especially during the harvest season. Back then, Dad and Uncle Tom and the hired hands would take turns sleeping in a little glassed-in room next to the dryer to make sure that nothing started on fire or stopped working or broke in two. It was a tiny little room, barely wide enough for him to even get to the cot.

He showed that little bitty room to me once, and in my five-year-old wisdom, I said, “Whoa, Dad. I gotta get outta here. This rooms makes me clobberfostic.”

You know what it means to be clobberfostic, right?

It’s that feeling you get when there’s too many people on an elevator. Or you’re touring a cave and you suddenly realize it's very, very dark, and you feel like you can’t breathe. That’s being clobberfostic. 

Or claustrophobic, as you would say.  

Dad knew what I meant. He didn't whip out the dictionary to point out my mistake. He ran with it like I was right. Maybe it was because he liked that my little brain was trying for big words. Or maybe he was exhausted from being up half the night. Either way, he let me use my made-up word like the little adult I was trying to be.

{Then again, what he failed to tell me is that 28 years later, I'd still have a hard time remembering the correct pronunciation. But that is neither here nor there.}

But I don’t blame him. Look at that picture again. He’s half-turned, already moving to jump in the truck. He’s got a farm to run, and grunting pigs to feed, and dusty tractors to drive, and clumpy manure to haul, and hired hands to joke with.

He had sows who needed help giving birth to piglets, even in the middle of the night; pastures to mow; sweet corn to shuck; little girls to tickle; and a skinny, gorgeous wife to kiss. 

He was a busy guy in 1985, my dad. Maybe that's why I like this picture so much. It's a little snapshot, just a moment in his big, full life, and even if it makes me a little clobberfo . . . claustro . . . whatever, I'm still glad to have it.