Cold as ice

Last week, we looked at the subtle signs of fall’s approach.

Wouldn’t you know that the next thing we would experience would be a week of blazing heat. Of course, the news media and weather forecasters played the heat for all it was worth as usual. I can only guess it increases viewership.

I had a friend who send this text ... “You would think by listening to the news that it’s never been hot in August.”

An old-timer said, “You know what we used to do when it got this hot in August?”

I responded, “What’s that?”

He snarled, “We went right ahead with what we were doing.”

Over the weekend, before the heat eased off, I had the opportunity to take a long walk in the evening in a nearby city. I realized after the first mile that I should drink some extra water. So, I stopped and purchased a bottle. The water was ice cold, and I don’t especially like drinking really cold water.

So, for a moment, I pretended. I pretended I was in a corn field, or a hayfield, or in a tobacco patch many years ago. I thought of how hot it was and how refreshing a cold drink of water would be. And I remembered how head-splitting cold the water from a water jug was. I drank the whole bottle.

In days gone by, we took water to the fields in a big-mouth, glass, gallon jug. We filled the jug with ice cubes (from ice trays) and finished filling the jug with water. It was well water. Then, we wrapped the jug with old newspapers, and slipped it into a big, brown grocery sack. If the top of the sack was folded down tightly, the ice would last all day. And the water? Cold as ice. The first water from the jug had to be sipped slowly unless you wanted a headache.

My friend, Dr. Paul Enoch, tells of back when he was a boy how that he and his father were suckering tobacco on a miserably hot day. Paul kept begging Mr. Enoch to let him go back to the house to get water. His father refused and insisted they keep working. When they came to the end of a row, his father spotted a water jug from days before resting in the shade of a tobacco plant.

Of course, the temperature of the water was that of the air outside, and anyone knows water left in the field for days takes on a musty smell.

Paul, desperate for a drink, removed the top, and exclaimed, “Daddy, this water is hot.”

His father replied, “It will put out a fire, won’t it,” as they continued working.

My brothers and I had the privilege of working side-by-side with our father for some of our best years. Of course, as boys are prone to do, we complained. We complained about the heat. We complained about the sweat bees. We complained when we finished a row and he insisted we do another. Complain, complain, complain … his patience seemed unending.

One day, he had had enough. He threw down his hoe in the corn row, and with disgust, and said, “Well, let’s just let the Johnsongrass take the corn.”

With that said, he started walking toward the pickup truck. He was not bluffing. Or maybe he was. It took some begging on our part to get him to come back and continue chopping Johnsongrass. That ended the complaining.

I’ve noticed our grandchildren run out of gas very quickly when called to a task. Whether picking up sticks in the yard, unloading wood, or generally cleaning up, they don’t last very long. I sometimes wonder how they will do when life gets hard for them. And I often wonder what they have on their minds ... how they are being conditioned by the world.

The other day, one asked me, “What would happen if the world blew up?”

I thought, “What a heavy thought for a little boy.”

I reminded him of a song titled, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

Hartsville resident Jack McCall is an author and motivational speaker.

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