Kippys Korner

What do you do for a man who has everything? Old Albert Larson the bachelor Dane of Hazel Del Township in Pottawattamie county Iowa lacked nothing. The chickens who wandered into the kitchen now and then felt just as much at home as any visitor except when his three fussy sisters came for their monthly cleaning. A sink full of dirty dishes, a dusty farm floor, and the web sites in the kitchen corners surpassed anything today’s computer wizards can conjure. Ethyl dusted the coal dust from last winter off of the sacred John Deere Plough and Wells Wagon Company lithograph which hung in a rightly place of honor. Thelma, (a conscripted sister in law) replaced the month old bed linen with a crisp white sheet

It was sister, Leona who traveled where no other person dared. Albert saved everything. Long days of childhood wants taught him there was always the slim chance that something might go askew with the machine age and there might be a need for tac and hitchins to go with a John Deere walkin plough. His refrigerator reflected that sentiment. Many furry things lurked in darkened corners. To Leona's delight she spied a small rose bud centered on a clean butter plate. How thoughtful of her brother to preserve such a treasure. She picked up the pink supple bud, turned it over and discovered a human finger nail. Leona was not amused.

Albert had been working with a piece of machinery which wanted the end of his finger more than Albert. The severed appendage got saved in the refrigerator. Albert had heard how they could fix fingers in town although he couldn't quite remember knowing any of his friends who were that fortunate. The stump got bandaged with some crude bindings and Albert finished his day's work. He never got around to finding a doc who’d sew it back on

When my husband's grandfather, Henry K. Larson, died his nephew Albert paid the full sum of $30 for all the old farm equipment sitting around the farmstead. Thirty years later Henry's two bottom plough rested rusting just where Henry left it. My husband made his first tractor purchase and drove his newly overhauled Ford 8N tractor 25 miles in a driving spring rain from Council Bluffs to Hazel Del Hollow for those of you who don’t know, that’s just north of Corn Cob Corners and south of the hang’n bridge. He though he was going to plow up the south forty, but found his grandfather's plough was gone. After frantic calls to neighbors alerting them that a machinery thief was pilfering 50 year old junk, Albert fessed up. He had found a buyer for the relic down in Silver City the week before.

Albert made amends by bequeathing the sacred John Deere Plough and Wells Wagon Company Lithograph to my husband. The print was thrown in the trash at the turn of the century and Hans Jensen picked it out of the trash, carried it on the train to Weston, hitched a team and delivered the prize. We just figured out that the Wells who was making wagons was probably the same Wells who teamed up with Fargo. Today it’s worth a little more than a rusty plough.

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