The Coonridge Digest: The luxury of time to think

Greetings from the Ridge.

My grandfather never climbed on his tractor with a wrinkled handkerchief. I can still see my grandmother standing over her ironing board, carefully steaming the creases into each piece of red cloth, edges straight and with that delicious aroma that only a grandma and a steam iron can produce. Sometimes grandpa’s sharp creases were my work since handkerchiefs were the only item she’d let me iron, knowing they had no buttons, seams or collars to foul up.

It’s easy in our cell phone world to tell ourselves that grandma had less to do. In fact, a journal of her tasks accomplished in single day would put our current schedules to shame. The difference was that grandma took the time. The older days were seldom simpler. I’d guess that grandma would look and her own grandmother’s daily schedule with horror. Life has not become less busy, we’ve simply junked it up with — well — stuff.

My dad would spend most of the summer on the seat of a John Deere tractor without benefit of a tractor cab or even a radio. I can remember that the first tractor radios were loud, nuclear-powered devices that endured about a week of clod jiggling before they’d shake apart. You had to turn them up so high that the driver was the only one in county who couldn’t hear it. But those long days spent cultivating endless rows of corn and soybeans gave him time to think.

Time to sort out. There was hardly a day when Dad didn’t return home with the opening line, "You know, I’ve been thinking."

What farmer today can chisel plow a half day without air conditioned cab, cell phone, CD player and GPS system to occupy his thoughts? What father enters the house at the end of a long day with, "You know I’ve been thinking?" when he’s been surrounded by noise-producing

communications devises for the past ten hours?

I had an elderly nursing home resident once tell me the thing he missed most about being an active farmer was the hours he spent on the tractor seat, in his words, "Just sorting things out." Time to just sort things out. What’s happened to it?

Even folks in non-farming occupations used to have the luxury of uninterrupted travel time. Sit at a busy intersection and try to find a driver who’s not either talking on the cell phone or listening to car’s music system. Abe Lincoln said that he rehearsed his law cases riding Illinois’ eighth judicial circuit. Could today’s lawyer chalk up anything equaling Lincoln’s 5,000 cases while busying his travel time with a laptop and IPod?

Even the simple pleasure of walking has been robbed of solitude’s joys as the majority of strollers now travel with earpiece in place.

Are the leaves, squirrels and breeze too noisy? I have a good friend who says she loves to walk just to be alone and reflect upon the world. Then she sticks "The Greatest Hits of Dolly Parton" in her ear and takes off across the park. Wouldn’t a person get a more reflective view of the world without "Jolene" knocking upon her eardrums?

I enjoy good company as much as anyone else and there’s little music that doesn’t please me, but oh the joy of taking off across country with the window down and radio off! The things I can figure out! I’ve rehearsed conversations in my mind, I’ve settled disputes, I’ve planned entire family get-togethers, and I’ve had the simple time to listen to the Lord without the benefit of commercials.

Time to think — alone and in relative silence. Where’s it gone and what have we lost without it? Can you truly appreciate the joy of a sunset across a cornfield when it’s accompanied by the radio? Does the simple joy of walking somehow fade away when you can’t hear the clip-clop of

your own footsteps on the town’s sidewalks? Can you actually hear the sounds of God’s creation on an autumn morning with the Today show blaring in the background?

One of my oldest friends, Sue Scott, raised a family of eight and she and husband Jack sent them all to college with the income of their small farm. We called her "The Potato Lady," because of her habit of praying for her kids and her community while she pealed potatoes every morning of her life. But even after her kids were grown and gone, kept it up. She said, "That hour of silence is too precious to lose for instant potatoes."

Grandpa and grandma were masters of multi-tasking, in that when they worked they had the luxury that so many of us lack today — the luxury of time to think.

I doubt that grandpa blew his nose one bit more efficiently with a steam-ironed kerchief, and I doubt that the neatly-pressed seams played much of a part in his ability to plow a furrow straight with the horizon. But when he drove the Ford 8N all morning across the corn stalks or when grandma carried on her simple tasks with no more than the sound of the breeze and the occasional cluck of a roosting hen, they both enjoyed something far more precious than anything our electronic conveniences will ever afford us — the gift of time to think.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.