Laughs from Corn Country
The first story:
Bottoms Up
“Two and a half bucks a gallon for gas! We may be sultans of our domain, but we don’t have their money.”
Jack had just pulled up to the pump in his American made, foreign car. You know the kind I mean, it has a Japanese name and is built in some factory in the boondocks of Nebraska. You can tell it was built in the good old United State of Automobile because the steering wheel is on the left.
“Ya know Mabel, these here A Rabs (he pronounced it A Rabs, two separate words), has got us in a danged stranglehold. They done wrapped their gas hose right around America’s carburetor and are pulling it tight. There’s gotta be a better way.”
Jack, being a farmer, was a self-taught mechanic. It was Friday night and Him and Mabel had just finished supper. Spring was in the air and tonight the wind was in the right direction so they could just sit on the back porch (they raised hogs and cattle also). They had no more than sat down when the wind shifted direction. Now you could tell they raised livestock! Jack smelled money, Mabel smelled what the cows left behind.
The breeze out of the southwest wafted over the barnyard. Because there was more money in beef than milk (and the overhead was less also), Jack’s herd consisted entirely of Herefords.
Rinnnnggggg
Although Mabel was accustomed to the aromas that come with a farm, she still preferred the indoorsy smell of incense and vases full of fresh flowers. At least in the winter the snow helped mask the outdoors.
Rinnnnnnnngggggggggggg
“Mabel, tell that writer to shut up and answer your phone” Came the voice from the answering machine.
“Hello?”
“Just a minute, I’ll get him.”
Laying the phone down, Mabel walks to the back door and yells at Jack who is walking towards the barn.
“Max is on the phone for ya”
“Ok. Yeah he asked me if I could help him get that old tractor of his running”
We’ll leave Jack while he’s on the phone and see what Mabel is up to out in the kitchen. I smell food. Must be a bake sale coming up because the table is covered with homemade pies and other pastries. On the counter is a bowl of Gooseberries and Mabel is getting ready to boil them to use in still another pie. Oh, here comes Jack and he looks puzzled.
“Just got off the phone. Max said he looked at that old tractor and thinks he has a better use for it. I’m going into town tomorrow to meet him over coffee. They got this new coffee joint I’ve been wanting to check out.”
Yeah, I know it’s bad English, but Jack is a farmer, not a writer. Let’s jump ahead a bit here and try to get to the coffee shop before Jack. Ah, we’re in luck, a booth right next to them. Ok, back to the story.
“Three bucks for this here Café Latte. Not bad fer one o them Italian drinks.”
“Max, that latte drink of your is just coffee with milk. They call it Latte to get a higher price for the fancy name. I got the same size as you but it’s regular coffee and only cost a buck and a half.”
It’s amazing how excited a person can get paying three dollars for a sixteen ounce cup of flavored water, but yet so angry at paying fifty cents less and getting four times the quantity for fuel. Just an observation, has little to do with the story.
“Jack, Smokey, our gas man was over yesterday to fill the barrels. I don’t believe those prices! I use diesel for the machinery of course. But then when I was in town yesterday morning, I filled up the car. At those prices, we could pay off the national debt in a week. That got me thinking. Remember a couple of years ago how that manure pile burned on ole Rubins place?
I’ve got this old pumphouse that I was going to tear down, but I wonder if we couldn’t build a small plant in there to convert the manure into usable methane? That old tractor runs but since finding the parts needed for the wheels is getting harder every day. That could be used as the power source.”
Over the next few weeks, Max and Jack spent all their free time converting that pumphouse into a gas station. Once they learned what was needed to convert manure into usable methane, it didn’t take much to modify some old junk equipment into what was needed. The idea was that they would dump the manure down a chute on one end and run it through the machinery and have a tank to store the methane.
While the boys were doing that, Mabel was researching how to convert a gas burning engine to be able to use methane. As it turned out, the conversion was relatively simple, at least to a mechanic.
Jack drove his tractor over to Max’s and finished installing the needed parts. He then pulled the gas tank off and installed the methane one. Jack was not only the mechanic, but was cautious. He replaced the ignition with a remote control device so he could start it from a safe distance. He pushed the button.
The old tractor chugged to life! Success!!
Now, if this story sounds like a lot of bull, You’re right.
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