THE ROAD FROM SPINK

Since ample grass grew along roadsides during the summertime, when pastures were over-grazed the cattle would be driven out onto the roads, once in the morning and again in the late afternoon, to eat the grass.  Herding the milk cows was considered kids’ work.  We would open the farm gate, urge them on their way down the driveway to the road, then head them south (or north) to start them on a grazing path.  They would walk and graze and we would keep abreast or slightly ahead of them so if they strayed too far we could turn them around and head them back toward home.  Graze, walk and turn them around….graze, walk and turn them around; this was the routine for at least an hour.

     Usually these herding exercises were uneventful, but at other times the cattle would be restless and ornery and try to stray down a neighbor’s driveway or through a field gate.  They would stand in knee high grass and stick their dumb heads through a fence to eat from the other side.

      A cow’s tail normally hangs straight down, and it isn’t a pretty tail, at best.  But when they stuck their tails straight up in the air, it struck terror in my heart for I knew they were going to run away and scatter far and wide to who knows where.  I hated the sight of the dumb beasts running off, tails in the air, hell-bent in the wrong direction.  When this happened I would have to walk back home to get help rounding them up. 

      I often wished my folks had armed me with a cannon or a sawed off shotgun to use during these times.  Our farm dog helped some, but only up to the point when the tails were hoist in defiance of my control, then it was overwhelming for the dog and me.  Herding was not my favorite pastime during the summer months, but I did a lot of it. Circumstances required that we spend time alone while herding along the roads and of necessity we learned to consider our own company worthwhile, a valuable lesson in itself. 

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Miss Bennett was a great teacher.  I liked her feet.  She wore pretty shoes; up until then our teachers all wore sensible,  laced  up brogans.  Miss Bennett occasionally wore red shoes and on red shoe days my spirits soared.  I loved her red shoes!  I thought I learned better when she wore them.

     At the Alcester County Field Day the year I was an eighth grader, I was fourteen years old, had a waistline, some breasts, was tall for my age and on the lookout for good-looking boys. This was before the time of specialized clothing for specific sporting activities, and for this sports event I foolishly decided to wear a dress with a dirndl waist and my little black, church pumps.  I felt grown up and glamorous. But not for long.  Miss Bennett made me compete in the foot races.

     In my dirndl dress and my Sunday shoes, there I was, lined up at the start line with twenty-five or more 8th graders making ready to sweat my way down the course.  The starting gun went off and we pounded down the field.  First one little squirt passed me, then another, then another, until all had passed me by.  I was the tallest and my legs were the longest, but I couldn''t seem to move as fast as those fat, little, stumpy-legged Norwegian kids zipping past me.   I came in last.  My hair was a mess, my shoes were dusty, and I felt like a dolt.  Anyone with Lykken blood can''t run fast, I knew that!  I would have rather been shot, than run that foot race in my glamorous finery.