Thinking about his years growing up on the farm, the old-timer said, “And everything had a damned handle on it.” The comment brought back lots of memories of my early years of farm and ranch work. Much of it was done “by hand,” which implies there were lots of handles. This was before hydraulics became commonplace, before there were electric and pneumatic tools, before skidsteer loaders and before UTVs ferried feed buckets across the yard.
They were called “hand tools” for a reason – crosscut saws, hacksaws and meat saws, claw hammers, blacksmith hammers and sledgehammers. There were round spades, square spades and scoop shovels. There was a handle on the water pump in the corral and on the axe we used to chop the ice in that tank. The same axe sharpened fenceposts and cut firewood. There was a handle on the cream separator, and on the pails used to carry milk to the separator and the skim milk to the hogs and the bucket calves. The pitchfork and posthole digger had handles, as did the hoe that cleaned the trees, the tire pump, the corn sheller and the sausage stuffer. Small square bales had twine handles.
If you look down a line of antique farm machinery, you see handles sticking out in all directions. Plows, cultivators, grain drills, mowers and rakes all had handles that adjusted something. I recall how difficult it was for me as a teenager to maneuver the handle that set the height of the 12-foot platform on Dad’s pull-type grain swather. From the tractor seat, it took all my strength to push that handle back and raise the platform.
All those handles made you tough. It was a matter of personal pride that I could empty a 70-bushel pickup load of wheat with a No. 12 scoop shovel without taking a break.
Farm families tended to be larger then, so there were more hands for all those handles. Still, doing work “by hand” did take its toll. When I went to the bone and joint specialist a couple of years ago because of arthritis in my knuckle, he looked at the X-ray and said, “You used to milk cows, didn’t you?” Because, you see, when I was growing up, milk cows had handles, too.
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Al Gustin is a retired farm broadcaster, active rancher and a member of Mor-Gran-Sou Electric Cooperative.
