HOW TO WRITE A FABLE

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

Once upon a time there was a farmer. He lived in a modest house at the edge of a great, dark wood with a wide field in front and a clear running stream at the bottom of the land. He had a young wife who bore him many healthy children and together they worked the land and tended their field. Life was good for them, with warm sunny days and bountiful harvests. There was always the sound of laughter and of puppies barking and cows lowing in the field. The orchard that they planted grew strong and the barn was filled with sweet hay to feed their livestock.

One day the farmer and his wife sat together and looked out upon their field with pride.

“We should clear some of the forest on the other side of the stream.” He said. “With the additional acreage we can grow even more crops and make a profit. I can sell the firewood that I cut and use the coin to pay for two more cows so we can expand our herds and you can churn even more butter and sell it in the village.”

And so they set out to clear the land and expand their farm. The extra work required that the children pitch in and so they did, eager to please their parents. The sons swung their axes and split the wood, sweating and laughing together as they worked. The Farmer tilled the cleared land and planted his crops while the Farmer’s wife and her daughters milked the cows and churned the butter to sell in the village. Soon they had earned enough to buy a fine new horse so that it could carry their wares even further where they would fetch a higher price and so increase their returns.

To do this though they needed a cart and so the Farmer worked his sons even harder and cleared even more land and they obeyed his instructions, although they laughed less often and only when someone hurt themselves or looked foolish. The Farmer was so busy with selling their wares and expanding his flocks and herds that he rarely had time to work with his sons and so hired a man from outside to see that they stayed busy and did not sneak away to swim in the stream or pick berries as they had in the past.

His wife for all of her efforts spent less time at home and traveled further away to sell her butter and cream and as she spent more time in the bigger towns she felt embarrassed by her simple clothes and dirty shoes, and so she spent their hard earned silver on clothes that would make her look as fine as the other ladies in the town who were married to judges and shopkeepers. Her daughters saw the finery their Mother wore and pleaded and begged for clothes of their own, refusing to help with the milking and churning until the Farmer relented to their demands. At first they were happy with their new clothes but soon went back to their sullen and petulant ways. “We cannot milk the cows in such nice clothes,” They said, “They will get dirty and be ruined.” and so the Farmer’s wife spent their profits on hired girls from the village to milk the cows and churn the butter.

The Farmer, who had seen himself as doing well could not understand why their profits were dwindling away and blamed his sons for being lazy. He worked them even harder now and demanded that his foremen put the branch to them if they complained. From the top of the hill there was the continuous sound of axes and saws, but never a laugh or pleasant voice was heard. The daughters were now dressed so well that they couldn’t even gather the eggs from the hen house, or pick the tomatoes in the garden, so even more help was brought in. Soon there wasn’t enough money to pay for the help, so the Farmer went to visit the Banker and take out a loan.

“You have done very well for yourself.” The Banker said. “You’ve cleared off your forest and tilled up your fields and expanded your herds, what you need now is a fine house to show everyone how successful you are and I will lend you the money to build you a new one.” The Farmer took out the loan with his land as collateral and with it he built a new house of stone and brick. He was so busy with overseeing it’s construction that he barely had time to sit with his wife in the evening or to listen to his daughters play their flute by the fire. His sons, exhausted from their work, ate their meals and went to their rooms without a word, their efforts barely noticed by their parents.

Soon the magnificent house was completed and they moved in, each member of the family to their own room where they spent their hours alone, involved in their own thoughts. The fields expanded, the animals flourished, the produce was sold and the profits increased. The Farmer could hardly believe his good fortune. One night he woke up trembling in fear from a dream. He had dreamed that there were men who would steal what was his and so when he awoke he hurried off to buy himself guard dogs to protect his home. These dogs were bred to be vicious and to have no master but one and they followed the Farmer wherever he went and when his sons would approach they would growls and bare their teeth.

This made the Farmer wonder if perhaps his own sons had designs on what he had acquired, after all it wasn’t their work that had given him all of these fine things, the great stone house and the thousand acres of profitable land, it was his efforts and his alone. And so he began to treat them with suspicion and told his overseers to keep a close watch on them and to never spare the rod should they complain or shirk. His daughters spent all their time dressing up and going to parties, for now the Farmer was well respected for what he had, the stately house, the fine horses and splendid carriage, the beautiful daughters and the haughty wife dressed in silks and satin. There was nothing that they could think of or desire that the Farmer would not grant them, but their appreciation seemed to ebb as quickly as he granted their wishes and their needs to expand faster than he could keep up.

One day they all sat together at the table in front of a feast. The sons all ate with their heads down while the daughters chatted excitedly about the things they were going to do in the city when they went together to shop. The Farmer noticed something was amiss and when it finally dawned on him he was angry.

“Where is my eldest son?” He demanded, for he was not at the table.

The next Son in line raised his face to his Father and said, “He has gone away to make his own fortune. Far away.” And he returned to his plate, wiping it clean with bread. The Farmer was incensed at this rebellion. Had he not given his Sons all that they could ever want, food, clothing, shelter and his protection? All he had ever asked of them was to work as he did on the land and to contribute their fair share and now they turned against him?

He decided to cut their rations and to move them out of the fine house and into the stables with the horses to teach them a lesson. Then he instructed his foremen to hire new men from far away to do the work his sons wouldn’t do and to make sure to pay them only what they needed to feed themselves so they would not grow indolent and careless like his Sons. Beside the Farmer at his feet the guard dogs bared their teeth when the sons stood up from the table and made their way to the barn.

The years passed and the Farmer grew older. His wife, once a great beauty was now grey and not as appealing as she had been when they were young, so he got rid of her and found a young beauty from a distant city to take her place. His daughters were spoiled beyond repair and had drifted off with a series of men and when he saw them at all they were alien to him, dressed in scandalous clothes, marked from head to toe and pierced with bits of cheap metal and colored glass. He could barely make himself to look upon them and it grieved his heart to see what they had become.

His sons, when he saw them, were hollow and shiftless. Their jobs had been given over to new men from far away who kept their distance and played more at work than they actually accomplished. The foremen were brutal and uncaring and his dogs had become bloodthirsty whenever anyone approached the Farmer’s house, snapping at them and drawing blood for pleasure. The Farmer himself had taken to spending more and more time with the Judges and the Bankers than he did with his own family or neighbors and when they got together they drank until they were half blind. They told fabulous stories that entertained themselves but were without truth, but what mattered was the status of the company, not the character of it.

One day the Farmer sat upon his porch and looked out upon his view- the trees were all gone now and there were no longer cool breezes to relieve the heat. The fine stone walls that had lined his fields were gap toothed and fallen and his workers seemed to always be on break though their demands for higher wages and more benefits grew by the day. His foreman stole from him his produce and sold it on the black market.

His maids listened in on his conversations and tattled in the marketplace when they weren’t pilfering his pockets and his drawers. When his statements came from the bank he saw that rather than being a wealthy man as he pretended he was, that his debts were monstrous and could never be re-paid. His beautiful young wife was never around, traveling into the city most nights with the handsome coachman and only his guard dogs remained close by, eager for the treats he handed out to them and a place by the warm fire to lay down at night.

As happens in every story the Farmer came to the last days of his life, alone in his bed, untended and unloved. All he had accomplished was returning to naught; the fields overgrown with weeds and saplings, the stalls empty but for a tired nag and that standing in manure up to it’s fetlocks. His loved ones long ago having turned their backs on the beloved Father who had become someone they could hardly recognize. His second wife- or was it his third?

Had taken everything that wasn’t nailed down and left with the Banker’s son. Even the roof leaked above his bed, soiled and uncomfortable in his old age. As he lay there drawing his final breath he heard a sound of feet on the stairs and in his mind he saw his oldest son returning from afar and his heart skipped a beat and his memory returned to those days when they were penniless but happy, their faces shining and the air filled with laughter. He saw his beloved wife again as she was on their wedding day and tears rolled down his cheeks.

“They have come back!” He thought to himself. “They love me still and wish to pay their last respects for all I have given to them, for all my hard work and leadership as a Father and Husband!”

The steps grew louder and it was not one, but many approaching his stately room to bid him farewell and he looked to the great door with anticipation. It was curious that the dogs made no sound, but then he remembered that even they had drifted off and gone away when he could no longer provide them with treats or build a fire to warm them.

He looked to the door with a tear streaked gaze and then it opened and the Farmer reaped what he had sown.

The End.


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KaD
KaD

A story well told.

hardscrabble farmer

Lloyd hasn’t gotten to the end of the story yet.

motley
motley

… and yer point is ?????

Full Retard
Full Retard

There are several points.
Greed comes to mind first. I think HF was addressing Starfuck’s bottom line orientation, the money angle.
Then there is the loss of purpose. Somebody just described it as being so focused on the goal that they can’t see where they are going.
HF weaves in the story of the prodigal son, Trump’s wives and Eccl 5:11 As goods increase, so do those who consume them. … who consume them multiply; what, then, is the profit to the owner, except to gaze at them with his eyes?
In this way, his seemingly autobiographical tale soon takes a turn from a proverb to a sort of Aesop’s fable. It illustrates the situation that exists not only in the vale but abroad. The leaven having mixed in with all the flour.

starfcker
starfcker

EC, i think you nailed it. The discussion we were having on the other thread was philisophical for sure. I’m a bottom line guy. No question. A lot of people’s lives work because of my focus on that. That’s not a bad thing. And i disagree completely that it gets in the way of enjoying life. I have more fun than probably anybody. I’m lucky that a lot of what i do to earn a living is what i love to do. HSF and i aren’t that different in many respects. I get lots of satisfaction in life from the same things he does. I just have an extra gear. My father was very much like HSF. How you performed a given task was as important as the outcome. He took great pride in everything he did. That can be a double edged sword. It can really slow you down. I try not to sweat the small stuff. I feel no guilt in nigger rigging something if it gets me where i need to go. My father was appalled by that sort of thinking. He loved his tools. He never had to deal with the concept of wearing tools out, like i do. They were lifetime companions to him. My abuse of tools bothered him on a deep level. When Ford started experimenting with aluminum beds in their trucks, they sent some out to their biggest fleet customers to see how they held up. One of them was Barrick mines. When they sent their engineers to check and see how they were doing, they were horrified. F150’s were disposible to Barrick. If a piece of equipment was down, and they could load in on that truck and get it to the site quickly, it didn’t matter if it destroyed that brand new truck. The down time costs were far more significant than the price of that truck.. That’s how i view tools. I don’t share my father’s moral leanings on that. I’m a bottom line guy

Unsettling
Unsettling

He who had both eyes on his destination, had no way to see where he was going.

Francis Marion

TBP is like a curio store full of stock from ancient to modern times, both new and used both useful and ornamental. You just never know what you’ll find – each visit yields something new and interesting. Great piece HS.

Homer
Homer

HSF’s story proves that hardwork and industry leads to a bad outcome. That’s not for me! I’m goina’ collect my Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, or anything else that I can get and go down to the beach and play my guitar. I mean, life is too short to spend it working. After all, aren’t we our brothers keeper? Just because I never learned a trade or educated myself and spent all my time with arpeggios and Mary Jane isn’t my fault. I had a bad childhood. Social Justice demands that the wealth of society be spread equally regardless of life choices and that’s the way it otta be.

I’m heading for the beach now!

Maggie
Maggie

Enough is all you ever need and it is a lot less than you think it is.

I know a few of those old farmer types. My cousin moved up here to the hills from farm country when her father-in-law tried to double the acreage they farmed in spite of his heart condition (my cousin’s husband). They sold out and set about enjoying life instead of chasing the price of soybeans.

It is a good fable, HSF, but it lacks a clear moral.

Personally, I think that the wife’s preoccupation with clothes spread to her daughters and that created an unequal distribution of work onto the male children. I believe the Federal Government could have delivered some high quality training in gender diversity and fair and equal treatment could have averted this catastrophe.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Maggie, after Simon Rodia built the Watts Towers, the locals asked, What does it mean?
They would have torn them down but found it impossible.
So they stand and morans keep asking, what does it mean?

Maggie
Maggie

comment image

https://archive.org/details/TowersTh1957

Ah, a much better mystery to ponder since it is obviously the result of extraterrestrial influence.

At least this guy’s wife didn’t insist on a new wardrobe.

frank
frank

My earthly father worked himself into an early grave turning a 200 acre farm into a 2500 farm. He was the proverbial workaholic and as his riches and fame spread he too became a mirror reflection of the farmer in the story, as did his family. I lost contact with him many years before he died as did the rest of his children. There was never any time for us, it was always about money for him. I call it egoruptcy. Well anyway, he is long since dead and gone, his children, all old now ourselves barely remember him. None of us attended his funeral, or mother’s. There has to be a balance on the seesaw of life if or else….

RCW
RCW

Frank:

You’re not alone regarding your experience with your Dad. Yin & yang and balance both come to mind. 🙁

starfcker
starfcker

Balance is a female construct. Every successful family, the kind that don”t have to start from scratch every generation, had the one guy who sacrificed to create something bigger than himself. Frank, not to knock you around, but that is the choice all men have to make. How many women want a man to make more money, and as soon as he puts his mind to it, start bitching that they aren’t getting the attention they want. Did you ever think your dad did what he did because he loved you?

IndenturedServant

We hoomans have a habit of living beyond our means in every way possible. And so it will be until extinction sets the Earth free.

RCW
RCW

Hi HSF:

I appreciate the fable but at the risk of appearing obtuse, the approaching steps not of one but many is confounding and vague; maybe a metaphor? Who or what was behind his bedroom door, aside from reaping the whirlwind after having sewn the wind? And instead of us surmising and since you’re the author, what lesson are you trying to impart and teach the reader? Thank you.

Maggie
Maggie

I think this might help RCW!

Full Retard
Full Retard

Maybe if we refer to T4C’s story of her dad in the Fudge Packers article, we might surmise that the old man is holding on just long enough to see his family and ask them for forgiveness for having lost sight of what is more important than money. If HF had gone on to finish that scene, he would have turned his moral into a melodrama rather than a fable.

Maggie
Maggie

No. The old man wasn’t going to admit he was wrong EVER. It was the Grim Reaper.

hardscrabble farmer

Well you know, I wrote it very early this morning after a particularly vivid dream. A day or so ago I made a comment that I should write a fable- and last night this one, or something close to it, played out while I slept.

The Ant and the Grasshopper isn’t really about an ant and a grasshopper and mine isn’t really about a farmer and his farm. I felt as if I’d been told the story rather than having made it up so I’m not precisely sure, but I think it’s about America. Or maybe it’s not. Who knows. It was a dream, after all…

I did finally write a fable even if the moral isn’t clear and like FR points out I lifted a lot of literary themes so it isn’t exactly original.

Hey, RCW, who do you think is behind the door?

starfcker
starfcker

Hardscrabble, there is hope. I went and saw Trump speak last week, nice crowd, they say 12,000. I didn’t see a single tattoo. And i know who was behind the door. Hillary

Full Retard
Full Retard

Starfuck, so you agree that the farmer is a Trumpian character while a legion of demons awaits behind the door? Do you see how HF suggests that when he says the moribund farmer reaped what he’d sown?
Trump describes America nicely. He arrived during the wild 80’s when morning in America turned the country into a ravishing high maintenance yuppie beauty and left the dowdy but practical housewife of the 70’s behind.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Starfuck, it was not a criticism of you, rather it was the observation that HF said he knows how to make money easily but he prefers to live life like they did in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s time. He has made a conscious effort to turn back time and pursue a life where the government is not the be all and end all of life the way it is today.

HF, you know that a good joke references the common knowledge of a target audience, excuse me for even pointing that out but the reason I liked your story is that like any good story, it includes references to other stories we all know since we were tots.

Eccl 1:9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Maggie
Maggie

It was The Grim Reaper aka Death. At least it is in MY version.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Halfway through the story you get the idea it is about America and all the diversions that took it from a country of workers to a country involved with itself and the glitter of glamour.

I read somewhere about the transformation from beauty to glamour. It is that realization that few of the glamorous people we see in the media are really beautiful. But there they are, looking all rich and smart while we keep looking for bigger screens and higher definition to take it all in.

Kim’s booty never looked so big, Trump’s hair never so divine. Melania was a revelation in white and oh so glamorous in high definition TV. All we needed was for Trump himself to dress in white so that we could get out our checkbooks and send a seed offering for the salvation of America.

So that is where we are now, the government and the church are one, our lives and freedoms mean little and we should be honored to sacrifice them to the candidates offering salvation to the masses for a mere vote or two or three. Whatever you can manage to ensure that Melania the Virgin and Trump the Only One Who Can Save us get to occupy the White House.

Anton Currywurst
Anton Currywurst

It was a lawyer from Monsanto asking why their genetically-modified pollen was found on his land. Cargil’s lawyer came along to offer the farmer a resolution to his patent infringement problem. They brought Homeland Security and BATF just in case there was any resistance.

RCW
RCW

Sorry for the delay in replying. The “Lord of the Rings” (there’s always hope) part of me would like to think that the 1st wife, his exploited sons & pampered daughters, all contrite and enlightened, are behind the door anxious to forgive & forget, to be with Dad during his final moments on earth; you know a cellulose happy Hollywood ending, but bear in mind I’m a sucker for John Wayne westerns, such as “The Searchers”. Regardless, I enjoy reading your stories and appreciate your candor and taking time to share your life on the farm with us here. Your maple syrup is tasty too. 😉

Dan
Dan

What a powerful story HSF. It seems to me that the beginning of their troubles was when the man and his wife looked at their farm with pride. Now, a small amount of pride is a good thing… there is nothing wrong in feeling satisfaction in good work/accomplishments. Where we get into trouble many times, is our pride grows and demands more, more, more. Or, it demands others recognize our accomishments. In your story, it seems that the family doesn’t mind expanding their farm business, but where they get into trouble is when they loose focus on each other and the unhealthy desire for material gain. A solem warning for all of us and our country

Maggie
Maggie

Excellent point Dan!

A serving of humble pie is valuable for all of us when we think we’ve done something of which we should be proud.

Unphilosophical
Unphilosophical

Based upon my own experience, I am starting to believe that some, if not most, TBP STM’s don’t care for fables all that much? Just a hunch.

But to me, the Farmer and his Family could represent Modern Man and how the Blind Pursuit of Materialism is like Sowing to the Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind.

The Footsteps Behind the Door could represent a Series of Revelations, one of which demonstrating how Blood is Thicker than Water.

But in the end, it all remains a Mystery and no different than Mexican Coyote’s Howling in the Desert regarding Great Walls and Populist Real Estate Moguls.

In other words, We must Heed our Better Angels or, tragically, Go Down in Flames.

But I could be wrong.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Unaccepted, your fable – like your jokes – was too advanced for mere mortals. Stucky told you to keep trying and stop dreaming of making a glory hole shot your first time out on the proverbial golf course.

Unphilosophical
Unphilosophical

Did I tell you I keep getting my golf and bowling scores mixed up?

Anyway, upon the mention of another monkey on another thread here, I bought and have been reading the book “Giants in the Earth” by O.E. Rolvaag.

The main character is a 19th century Norwegian pioneer homesteading in the Dakota Territories. Ironically, the antagonist in the story happens to be the guy’s wife. She is deathly afraid of the Prairie, because there is “nothing to hide behind”. She even fears the evening wind because it “stirs with so many unknown things”.

It’s a good book so far, and I know there’s a going to be fable in it as well. I can feel it.

Maggie
Maggie

Underdeveloped…
I think a good fable would help more than a few of us out, IF the moral was clear.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Maggie, Uncensored is not lacking in development, his old moniker jFish was a sly reference to his trouser trout, as in j[umbo]Fish.

Unphilosophical
Unphilosophical

Even if the Moral is Unclear, the Future Remains Unknown. In the meantime it’s important to do the “Next Right Thing” because Free Will is a Choice and Good Decisions are Rewarded and Bad Decisions, Punished.

Life is Unpredictable, so Choices Must Remain Fluid and “Plan B” must always be Waiting in the Wings.

This is why Left A Comment left and how the Whale spewed Jonah onto Dry Land. And, also, why Coyote’s Howl at Full Moons like Retards.

There is Symmetry at Play that remains Hidden in Plain Sight like the Morals in a Fable.

But I could be wrong.

Maggie
Maggie

If it is “comment count” that determines what is a good post versus the other kind? Well, I could post a story about my son here (who is doing very well at his follow-on internship at APL) and the TBP skank will rant and rail for at least a dozen or so comments.

Full Retard
Full Retard

Maggie, comment count don’t mean squat.
HF and Stucky are the only guys who can get away with a feel-good article.
You’ll notice BW is popular because most of the hillbilly comments are dire, negative and critical in a funny way. You don’t get a Loretta Lynn rags to riches feel-good story from the bard of the bayou.
Shoot for a story that will inflame the senses and if you can offend gays, beaners and liberals at the same time, you’d have a hit. Otherwise, it will go over like fish soup or in your case rabbit stew.
Hey, that’s your name isn’t it, Martha Stew?

Maggie
Maggie

EC? Didn’t I tell you one time how much I LOATHE being asked if I’m like that wench? I tell the people who insist on calling me by my given name (family) and discover what an excellent cook I am that to just think of me as “WAY better than THAT Martha.”

But I like Maggie.

Not because of Rod Stewart. Although that is one great song.

Unstoppable
Unstoppable

No one cares about comment count, so let’s take it to 300! Do it for Hardscrabble! Or do it for old times sake. Whatever! Be like Nike and just do it!

Maggie
Maggie

Something seems fishy about your proposal.

Not saying I won’t play… just saying.

thumper
thumper

?????? help us!

Maggie
Maggie

Why not?

I haven’t told you guys a story about my “boy” for a very long time. It has nothing to do with the skank (or the specific one of the regulars I suspect is a skankvestite) but I do really appreciate HSF’s writing and his willingness to share his wit, his farm experiences, his family anecdotes and his heartfelt INTEGRITY (all caps!) with us here. Oh, and his maple syrup which is consumed and was paid in full.

The young man got a follow-on internship at JHUAPL this summer. It wasn’t unexpected, but it certainly was great news that a huge research lab had found his first working efforts of high enough quality that they wanted to try him in another department where he might develop his skills further while he was learning a thing or two about what it is they do there. Those of you who understand what I’m saying here… great. Those who don’t? Do Not Care. You or me. Don’t ask.

Well, the weekend between his end of college year and his first week in Baltimore, our big dog had seizures , instantaneously altering our family “plans” to celebrate his last summer “home” into a 36 hour turns taking vigil beside a beloved pet whose transport from seizure to emergency hospital to veterinary clinic to home in varying states of agonizing illness broke our hearts. (Admin… your big dogs take care of this Platform as if they are defending your life against anyone with an insult that seems to be aimed at YOU. BUT, MY BIG DOGS? They would fight a bear and DIE for me. Literally DIE for me. Top that Stucky?)

Well, we brought him home the day before my son ABSOLUTELY needed to drive himself to Mordor. My original plans had been to go to D.C. with him, borrow his Jeep and visit an old friend in New Hampshire, pick up another gallon or two of maple syrup from a farmer I hearde lived closeby and return to BWI for a flight to St. Louis. After the Big Dog changed our plans, we waved goodbye and promised to nurse his dog, who has been HIS dog for more than 5 years!, back to health while he jumped into adulthood. [FYI? My husband and I secretly agreed that if the J-Dawg DIED, we would send old photos to him in texts and act like he was getting better. At least until his “sudden and unexpected turn for the worse” the week before he came back for his final semester. Those who do not know… my son transferred from junior college in Oklahoma to Missouri S&T so that his father and I could pursue our goal of becoming semi-hermits out in Ozarks of Missouri raising chickens, rabbits and a few goats where we do not have to look at people unless we want to. The dogs were originally purchased to GUARD livestock. We are now their slaves.)

So, it has been an eventful summer. I joined him out in Mordor shortly after he started the summer, driving out to visit old friends there the following week, bring him his retainer (hahahaha) and hopefully make it to New Hampshire. However, the week I arrived, Nick called me with tales of a dog slipping downhill and I could hear in his voice that he wasn’t coping well with taking care of house, home, chickens, rabbits (two litters of kits!) AND dogs. I cut my visit short, foregoing the maple syrup adventure and came back to a very stressed husband.

Since then the dog has good days and bad days. I have learned to respect GREATLY the caregivers at my dear father-in-law’s assisted living and then nursing home facilities. He had the wherewithal to pay the huge monthly “rent” for the facilities and Nick and I had no qualms about spending his money on his care. Nick’s brother wasn’t happy about it, since their father was a veteran of Korea and he was planning to just drop him into a VA old folks home for free and pocket the money. Nick flew to the state where his father lived and brought him to Oklahoma. After less than a week, we discovered the meaning of the “wheelchair” accessible living space and had to find adequate assisted living for him. And once we informed the nurses and staff that his residence came with his own private TEAM of helpers in the form of myself and my son, they were ready to bend over backward to assist my Poppa G in any way they could. Since there was no argument about whether Medicare/Medicaid was gonna pay the bills, he pretty much got very special treatment.

[ALL OF OUR ELDERLY CITIZENS SHOULD GET THAT KIND OF CARE. FUCK THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHICH CORRUPTS EVERYTHING OF ANY VALUE WITH ITS RULES, REGULATIONS AND “CONDITIONS” FOR PAYMENT.]

Now, the Big Dog Jake was in his first year of training then. He came to visit Poppa G and was a big hit at both the assisted living center and the nursing home (though he had to stay outside at the nursing home to let Poppa pet him in the courtyard.) Pyrenese are naturally gentle with people and the old women in their wheelchairs would bend over and bury their faces in his furry neck and hug and pet him with abandon. He was/is a natural therapy dog, with a natural understanding that these people were fragile, unlike his “boy” who he could jump on and wrestle to the ground. My Poppa G was pretty popular with the “ladies” because of me and the Big Dog. I also used to put a drop of Geranium Essential Oil behind his (actually Jake’s AND Poppa’s) ears for him, calling it “old lady bait.” We had fun my FIL and I.

As the months went on and my Poppa G got weaker with his COPD, he had to move to the nursing home. We still had good days when he could go into the courtyard or to the dining room where the grand piano sat and I would play for him and whomever gathered to hear me play. (Not bragging, but when people saw me pushing Poppa to the dining hall, a crowd usually gathered.) I even had a few who would sing along with the hymns I would play. Poppa liked songs from Sinatra and Jerry Vale, so I would practice a bit and see if I could find volunteers to sing. One time a nurse told me she’d seen a woman singing along with “Blessed Assurance” who had not said a word in YEARS.

YEARS. Apparently, she’d been a preacher’s daughter and sang in the choir as a child. So sweet and so very rewarding for me. I tried to talk to her and brought her to the piano with me one day. Not a word when I tried to talk to her. But I played the intro to Blessed Assurance Jesus is Mine and she sat upright in her wheelchair and sang in perfect harmony to the piano. My Poppa G wasn’t a singer… he was a dancer. But he sat at the table beside the grand piano and grinned like the proudest poppa in the world.

So, in the last weeks of his life, when he could no longer leave his room, he asked how the Big Dog was doing. Several times, as his mind was slipping, he asked about “Jason” the big white dog. At first, we corrected him, telling him our dog was Jacob or “Big Jake.” Then, we would just tell him Jason was great.

About six months after he died, a friend contacted me and asked if we were interested in adopting a rescued Pyr. Jake was over a year old and with Joey in junior college and working to save every dollar he could save for Missouri S&T, he didn’t have his boy to play with very much. We gave the rescue a try and within ten minutes, the fighting stopped and playing began. Then wore themselves out the first evening and except for one time I gave them both raw bones without designating who owned which bone, they haven’t really fought since.

The new dog’s name was Charlie, according to my friend, who had tried to rescue him but found he was bored in her little back yard. We decided to rename him as Jason, as a tribute to Nick’s Dad, who wasn’t WRONG when he asked about our dog… he was just early.

And now after the tick disease and the seizures and a tidy sum of money to the emergency vet and the local vet? The big J-Dawg is healing. Some days he knows who we are and some days he just wanders around the back yard trying to figure out how he got here and how to get home. I told the vet who saved him last week that he reminds me of an elderly woman named Violet who lived in the same hallway where my Poppa G stayed in the final months of his dear life. We would see her daily, because she walked around the hallways almost nonstop and when you saw her coming, you were supposed to stop and inform her that her room number was 122B if she asked. That was one of the first things we learned about the nursing home we chose for our dear Poppa. That is Violet and her room number is 122B. You were also to tell her that her sister was waiting for her there in 122B so she would (hopefully) head toward that room. Of course, if she turned a corner or passed someone in the hall, it would slip her mind and she would ask the next person what her room number and if they’d seen her sister Mary. [I had an amazing conversation with Violet one day when I decided to take her arm and take her into the courtyard to see the flowers instead of letting her roam the halls. If interest is there… I’ll tell that one too.]

One of the first things we learned upon moving Poppa G there was what Violet’s room number was. And that she’d lost her sister two years ago, but didn’t know. We grew very fond of Violet and I hope and pray she has finally found the room where her sister resides.

I told the vet that our Big Dog Jason reminds me of that woman and she told me that dogs, unlike humans, can recover from senility and some minor brain damage that seems to render humans incapable. We told her that if she thinks he might have a chance at having a good life, we are willing to try and to give him time to figure out if he wants to hang around with us or go find whatever or whomever he is looking for at his old place. She was so relieved she told me that it was awesome to hear that… so many people can’t cope with a “recovering” dog who may or may not make it. She said that she feels like the Grim Reaper most weeks. I told her that if the J-Dawg makes it, I will write a story to try to tell a few people what it means to give their sick pet a chance.

We are hoping Jason sticks around. We have grown accustomed to his face.

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My son took on an additional project to “try out” for a job after graduation so he won’t be back for school until the last possible second.

One of my favorite “kid” photos of my son at Christmas.

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starfcker
starfcker

Maggie, you have good instincts about stuff. Watch your dog closely. Do what you think might help him. I’ve cured several animals of maladies that were misunderstood from the start, and considered incurable. Bad premise from the begining, and the science never advances, bad theory piled on bad theory. I have two cats at the house that multiple vets told me i needed to put down. They still have issues from time to time, but i know how to respond, and any disruption is minimal. Conventional wisdom was of no use to them. They’d be dead. Keep the faith.

Maggie
Maggie

Thanks. I made some edits above… shared some comments by our private Vet. I truly believe my discussion with her when my son was trying to explain to her the intricacies of J-Dawg’s personality… telling us both that while Big Jake is the “perfect dog”, willing to please us with his perfect training and courteous behaviour, that Jason, our rescue dog who was trembling on the table with the IV sedating him… well that dog was a very good person, better than most because even though he’d been abandoned and thrown away by the people who took him from his mom, he had come into our lives and learned to love and trust us.

Profound, my boy. And my Big Dogs.

starfcker
starfcker

Maggie, i had a virus sweep through my farm cats in 2009, i lost 9 of them. I had a tiny kitten, it’s mother and littermates died, it was two weeks in an incubator, and it pulled through. A couple of my fishing buddies are vets, and take great care of my animals, the cat gets fluid in the lungs a couple of times every year, and we use a human drug, childrens azithromycin, to get her back each time. Another cat had a mysterious condition called feline hyperesthesia, i contacted researchers who had studied it for 25 years, they were convinced it was neurological. Cat would sit staring in the corner, suddenly fall over convulsing. They would treat the condition with psychotropics and barbitiates, with limited success. It took me all of ten weeks to figure it out. Cat’s spine was out of whack. On my third attempt to massage it back into alignment, the cat jumped up and has been fine since. I figured it out by watching the cat’s behavior. What researchers concluded was a nuts cat biting imaginary fleas was an animal with stabbing back pain and no way to fix it. That cat lost half it’s body weight, looked horrible, i was told putting it down was the best thing i could do. Glad i didn’t. The cat is fine, and now they know how to treat that condition. Your dog is much more family than those cats. Have patience, you never know.

Maggie
Maggie

Thanks. We all discussed it (son included) and decided that these two dogs are an integral part of the family. I used to make a joke that Jason, the sick one, was not OUR dog at all, but was Big Jake’s pet dog. When he was sick and the three of us (Nick, Joey and I) were standing at his “bedside” at the emergency animal hospital watching the staff shave his legs and put IV lines into him while he bucked and jerked in fear, we realized we didn’t want to go home without him.

Call us nuts, but that event turned us into crazy dog people.

RiNS

You are not nuts Maggie.

The Dogs are part of your family. People who love their dogs are usually kind in heart and caring of others. It shows one’s humanity.

Now Cat people… They are crazy as a bag of hammers.

🙂

p.s. we have two cats at our house.

TPC
TPC

I love stories like this. Happy endings are for hookers and children, the rest of us are just doing good if we can find a slice of contentment here and there.

@HSF – A small detail….your story is closer to being an allegory than anything else. A parable would have a more defined “moral” of the story, and a fable would involve talking animals/objects.

I only bring this up because I know you are an excellent writer, and I think knowing the distinction between the three styles would help you sharpen up the ending and really drive home the message to the reader.

Rise Up
noname
noname

The foot steps are the bankers coming to take the land and home from him.
He gave up everything of real value for desires of meaningless value.

RiNS
DRUD
DRUD

Great story, HSF. I read it as the process of money/power corrupting. Ultimately, as Dan points out above, both of these are really about ego. The farmer starts out with industrious (perhaps even noble) intentions, but before too long his ego takes over at the cost of all that truly matters. I think that this is how the vast majority of our rulers got the way they are. Most are not inherently evil or even bad, they have just let ego take over. It would seem that like fire, money, government and a long list of other things I’m sure, ego is a useful servant and a dreadful master.

Ms. Ciscero
Ms. Ciscero

Excellent. The wisdom of the parables of Jesus and the lessons and history of Pearl S. Buck, rolled into one great food for thought buffet. I love it! Thank you for sharing truth and wisdom.
Cat’s In The Cradle

Sensetti
Sensetti

Wow, inflation has reared its ugly head on TBP, cost of doing business has gone from 10k a year to 15K a year! Maff is hard, can anyone calculate what percentage increase that is?

Maggie
Maggie

When Admin put the meter up, there was a suggestion he double it to 20, but he found a happy medium with 15. My bet is that barely covers some of the expense, but I have noticed it has been stuck for a while.

We need a good money raising article.

Or a billionaire STM.

hardscrabble farmer

Que pasa STM?

Maggie
Maggie

You know what is weird about this edit feature? You can both SAVE the edit and POST the revised comment at the same time. This is one of the accidental posts.

Maggie
Maggie

Con Queso Salsa! [Shoutout to one Alejandro Rangel, with whom I “crewed” with for a half-dozen years, making so many trips across the pond together to the Kingdom we can’t remember which time we drank too much German beer at the refueling stop in Rein Mein, Germany and almost missed the crew bus. After many inflight hours trying to teach me a bit of Spanish so I didn’t look like a hick around his wife and friends — wink, Alex… you and me know that’s BS –I informed him that everything he was saying to me sounded like something I might find on my favorite restaurant’s menu [the original Cocina De Mino over on 29th Southwest just past 35 which was simply a house an enterprising family from Mexico turned into the best damned Mexican food place EVER. After they allowed their name to be used and expanded all over the Greater OKC region, the food was never as good nor the atmosphere as wonderful.] So, whenever Alex would say Que Pasa to THIS Shit Throwing Monkey, I would respond with one of the dishes served at the restaurant.

sss
sss

Good story. The usual amazing comments from a community unique on the Internet. You all help to keep me ………… sane.

Maggie
Maggie

JDawg is recovering his memory. Today, on our walk, he took time to double back and “re-mark” anything Big Jake pissed on.

He also caught and ate a little bunny that got out of one of my cages.

It is a miracle.

Ghost

HSF… I just wanted to let you know that I am a tiny bit jealous that so many lurkers mentioned your writings about life on the farm as what led them here. It isn’t that I think I can write like you do… I just know how hard it is to put your heart and soul into a story.

I hope that you continue to tell us myths, legends and fables here. I hope that your days are filled with the sweet scent of freshly mowed hay that dries well and can be baled before the rainfall ruins it (like here in Missouri this year!) I hope your children continue to thrive in the agrarian lifestyle you’ve gifted them with and that your neighbors continue to be respectful. In the end, it is more than many of us can hope for… to leave in peace in a place of our own choosing.

I found it interesting that so many lurkers were/are drawn to the site by your prose. Yet so few of them comment out of fear that the “regulars” will attack them.

Just a little note because even though I’d hoped when the weekend arrived, the TBP skank would see my challenge and take the bait, things change.

I won’t be playing any games on your interesting fable.

Maybe someone else will play with the skank and its pet.

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