Story by Brian Swagerty
1960
Thanksgiving on the farm was a great time. The dairy farm was a great playland. There were acres of land on which to play. A lot of that playing involved running. My brother, Grant, was six years younger than I was. This particular Thanksgiving he must have been about six years old. He had a hard time keeping up with us. Being much older, we usually didn’t wait much for him. In fact, this particular time, we may have been running in order to avoid having him tag along with us. We had run through a grassy field and then we went along a drainage ditch that came from the dairy barn. We had crossed it on a board and was on the other side by the time Grant came into view. This drainage ditch contained all of the manure that had been hosed out of the barn. It was the same green color of the surrounding grass. I guess to Grant, it didn’t look any different from the grass, and he kept on running straight toward us and right into the goo. This stuff was pretty thick and oozy. Grant got far enough to get stuck in this stuff. When I saw him, his legs were buried. I yelled at him to stay still and I would get help. By the time I got around to the other side of the drainage ditch, he was to his waist. I ran like the wind to get back to the house where my dad and his brothers were outside. I remember the frustration in the time it took to let them know the urgency of the situation. When we got back, Grant had sunk to his neck. They pulled him out. I don’t remember who or how. I do remember that they took him into the barn and hosed him off. He had to change out of his clothes so that they could be washed. Clem and Effie and their family had spent the night, so Grant had to wear some peddle pushers and a blouse of Linda’s. This is when I discovered blouses button from the other side of shirts, and it was the final insult of the day for Grant.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 