I was 16, and had gotten a summer-long job working for a very busy local dairyman. My official job was to cut hay, and in between that do whatever was needed on the dairy. He had a really nice new self-propelled John Deere swather, and being able to spank down huge fields at pretty high speeds, spinning 180° at the ends of the rows, was a huge treat after only using a pull-behind Hesston mower-conditioner. It was sweet, and typically occupied me for 6-7 days straight of 12-15 hour days to knock down about 400 acres of alfalfa, then do it again 28 days later. Other jobs in between included hauling chopped alfalfa to the silo blowers, or even baling or stacking small bales if they needed some baled hay in the barn for winter feeding. “Grandma” always made sure I had a good breakfast (including fried blood sausage every day) before I hit the fields. I worked alone nearly all the time, and one day I was blowing alfalfa haylage up one of the three blue 24’X80′ Harvestore structures. I knew that first unit was nearly full, so I started the electric blower, set the wagon to unload at a reasonable pace, and headed up the 80′ silo to check how it was filling. It was about 6′ from the center hole, and you shouldn’t fill a Harvestore tight full to the top. There are two holes on the top of a Harvestore, one in the center where the product fills, and one nearer the edge that functions both as a ventilation air release and is an access option if you fill tight up to the hole in the center. It was getting close to being filled, and if the flow was stopped even momentarily, the pipe would have plugged immediately, all the way to the ground, and with the blower and wagon running without supervision, there would have been no way for me to have scrambled 80′ down before VERY significant damage was caused to the blower and unloading wagon below. I started in the center with my pitchfork, tossing haylage out toward the sides while the blower kept blowing it in fast, first from outside, on top of the structure, then I scurried down the outside hatch and furiously pulled haylage toward the outside while the blower poured it in the center. There is always the possibility of either running out of oxygen in a silo, and fermentation gases have killed more than a few people who have entered silos. I was 16, ok? Anyway, it was fast and furious work, but in the end, the load finally ran out and I was ok.
So, then what happened?
So I dragged myself out the side hole, back up onto the roof of the Harvestore, and as we were definitely done filling that one, the top needed cleaning off. During filling, dust and chaff and leaves blow and build up on the roof of the unit, and we kept a small push broom up on top just to be able to push the stuff off and clean up a bit. No one ever intended that it would be used while standing outside the protective railings which parallel and encircle the access areas. Yes, let that sink in a minute. Outside the railings. The roof of a Harvestore structure is like the sides – shiny glass fused to steel panels, held together with bolts that have a round-headed cap nut on each one. I know the design down to the threads. So I started out pushing just a little further with each broom push, keeping one hand on the railing and pushing the broom one-handed with the other. Keep in mind that these structures are 24′ in diameter. And I was trying to reach the edges with a standard little push broom. So my 16-year-old brain (having survived the filling scare) let me let go of the railing and put one foot each on the rows of bolt heads proceeding out from the center like radiating wedges. Sweeping ahead of myself worked great for a few minutes. I was proud of my fine cleaning efforts. Until a foot hit a patch of the chaff and my body flipped 90° instantly and made me think I had broken my tailbone. But only for an instant, as I was sliding at breakneck speed toward the edge of the 80′ tall structure, only to have my jeans snagged by a bolt head with both legs hanging over the side. Yes, hanging over the side. Both legs. All by myself. Tractor and blower still running below me.
I just sort of hung there for a minute, contemplating my mortality, then gradually started inching my way backward, creeping back using the row of bolts for traction until I reached the access platform and railing. I went back down the silo, moved the blower to the next unit, and went for the next load, saying nothing to my boss.
Thirty-plus years later, I shared this story privately with my dad when we were talking one day. He stopped me cold, and made me promise that I would NEVER tell this story to my mother. Dad passed away a few years later, and then mom four years after that. I never told her.
Someone was watching out for me that day.
I went to our place up north to work by myself on several projects, and one of the chores to finish before I went back home was to mow the lawn. Simple enough, and normally goes pretty quick if all the equipment runs well. Some of the grass is out in the open, and some is under some good-sized trees, and there are a couple acres to take care of. On this occasion, I was in a bit of a hurry for some reason, but just going about my business. Mowing one of the paths between trees, and with trees overhead also, I was cruising forward when suddenly I felt pulled backward physically, like a hand had been placed on my chest and pulled me backward while my head echoed with a voice yelling “BACK UP!” I instinctively stomped on the hydro drive pedal in reverse, and narrowly, I mean by a couple inches, missed being slammed by a long log the diameter of my head, now lying in the path in front of me. Shaking, I got off the tractor and wrangled it back off the path and into the woods. It was heavy, and unexplainable. I hadn’t seen it when it was in the air above, and I couldn’t really tell even where it came from. All I know is that I was pulled back, physically helped, that day.
My cousin’s wife contracted pancreatic cancer in her 30’s. They had 3 beautiful young daughters, and the fight was gallant, but in the end she lost the battle. Seeing her at home in a hospital gown, IV’s wheeling around, trying to go about her day, was a hard thing for everyone to experience. She never gave up, and my cousin, Andy, was so full of faith and grace and hope all during the year she was undergoing treatment. He is a great inspiration to me and many others, as his faith is so solid.
On one of my China trips, I finished my China business in Shenyang, and had the weekend before I continued on to Japan on Monday. Easter weekend as it turned out. Now Easter is not a huge holiday across China, but this one was an especially reflective and spiritual one for me as it turned out. I took a short train ride from Changchun to Shenyang, and I had read ahead about a very special museum located there. It is the home of the 9.18 Museum, a chilling museum which tells such an important story, commemorating September 18, 1935, the day Japanese forces invaded China and subsequently occupied Shenyang and the surrounding peninsula. It displays disturbing photos depicting the carnage of war. The exhibition is cruel, but it tells the critically important history of the early-mid 20th century between Japan and China and how important the peace is. I visited the museum on Saturday and it was a somber learning experience with my Chinese guide. He really did not want to take me there, but I wanted to learn. I now can completely understand why the Chinese are distrustful still of Japanese people.
Shenyang is also the home of the largest Catholic cathedral in China, the Sacred Heart or NanGuan Cathedral. It turned out that it was only two or three blocks from the hotel I had chosen in the heart of the city. Friday was Good Friday, and I walked over to the cathedral to check it out and say a quiet prayer. When I got back to my room, it was just coming up on sunset, and through the incredibly dirty windows, I looked out on the silhouette of three construction cranes that instantly had me thinking of the three crosses, outlined at dusk. Easter Sunday service was the absolute most packed, standing-room only service I have ever experienced, the organ music was great, and I stood out like an albino moose in a herd of reindeer, head and shoulders taller than any other person there, and easily the whitest. They were kind, but that is most certainly not the way to just “blend in” with the local population.
After a year of enduring a multitude of procedures, chemo, and radiation for his bladder cancer, Dad was sent home from the hospital with hospice support after his ureters became blocked in the end. Doctors estimated he had a week as his kidneys backed up, but he had decided, with a great deal of discussion and forethought, that if this happened, he did not want any more surgeries or the rest of his time to be spent in a nursing home. His call.
Having just returned from a trip to Utah, my brother-in-law brought a 6-pack of Wasatch Brewing’s Polygamy Porter to a big music jam that we held in our backyard. It’s apparently a very dark beer, and uses the catchphrase “Why have just one?” I thought it was kind of unusual (the beer name, I mean), and no, I had not had it nor heard of it before (the beer). Our Pub Cabin Music Jam was publicized via invite over a couple months, and I worked to get local musicians to join us just for some good food, drink, and making music. Over 100 people attended.
Mikel had a very slight build, I guessed 25-ish, with an engaging smile and an earnestness about him that I found difficult to ignore. While I usually quickly say “No, thank you…” to the credit card promoters in the airport terminal, or just try and avoid making eye contact, Mikel was serious about wanting to engage people. After I spoke with him a bit, his earnestness might also be able to be seen as unusual drive to make his day happen. I sensed that he had come from a state of very deep poverty, and I was correct as I learned more about him. He asked what I did, and when I said that I was in my own business as a consultant, he right away asked how I might help him be more successful in his own quest to be a global consultant, that he was trying to get started. I tried to share that my own network of contacts that made up my initial business came from 35+ years of work in a somewhat specialized field, and that you can’t create that experience any other way than by a lot of years doing something, but that he should believe in his own success as very possible if he keeps engaging people the way he did me.
I think from time to time that we all need to ponder whether our life is or was planned, our experiences through childhood considered by our parents, what God’s plan is for us, and how much we’ve taken the best advantage of the gifts of all kinds that we’ve been granted. We are all left to wonder whether our circumstances and experiences were random? Fate or destiny? Planned?