Conversation through a farm house basement window

I got the call that it was time to haul more firewood to the basement.  Because it was a cold, windy day, I bundled up in my insulated overalls then walked across the yard to the old farm house where the folks live.

One of the tires on the wheel barrow has a leak so I have to put air in it every time before heading to the wood pile sitting behind the long retired semi tractor trailer.  The last time the plates were updated on the rusting hulk was in 2000 when Dad was 72 years old.  The faded lettering on the door still reads clearly, “Heikkila Forest Products, Floodwood, MN”

After I loaded the wheel barrow and pulled it over to the house, the basement window was removed by hands protected by a pair of old leather gloves, my Dad’s.  “LOTS of WOOD,” he says approvingly and with admiration.  He has forgotten his own strength and now thinks I’m Pauline Bunyan.  

I slowly hand him one stick at a time, making sure to get it in far enough for him to reach easily.  Mom stands on his right, out of range of my eyesight, except when her hands, protected in old garden gloves, jut in front of the old leather gloves to grab the stick ahead of Dad.

Silence and the scraping of wood against the window sill pervade when Dad suddenly says, “When you and Earl put the wood in, I don’t know how you two survive it.” He says that because Earl throws the wood through the window like a rapid fire cannon.  I stand far away on the stairs leading to the basement until he is done, then I stack the heap into a pile. I think Dad envisions me standing in the line of fire miraculously and successfully dodging the wood and living to do it again the next time.

Silence overtakes again.  When the second load of wood arrives to the window, I hear in the bowels of the basement, “BIG LOAD.” Again, we hand and take each stick until the wheel barrow is empty.  

“One more load,” I tell them.  “Oh boy,” my Mom exclaims.  “Lordy, Lordy,” is the reply of the old man occupying the leather gloves. 

When the third load is being handed through the window, the stack on the floor is higher so the garden gloved hand more often juts in front of the leather gloves to grab the sticks.  The garden gloved hands are ready to be done with the job.  The leather gloves don’t get a chance to grab the sticks too often at this stage of the game. They spend more time empty handed, midair, and in the recesses of the dim basement light. 

When the job is done, the window is replaced and the gloves come off until two or three days in the future when we do it all over again. 

This is my version of Sirach 3 which says, “My child, take care of your father when he grows old; give him no cause for worry as long as he lives. Be sympathetic even if his mind fails him; don't look down on him just because you are strong and healthy.  The Lord will not forget the kindness you show to your father.”