Butch Remembers Times ‘Down at the Barn’

   Sometimes I like to hop in the old truck and just drive around the neighborhood just for the heck of it. My Dad did the same thing, so it must be in my genes. One thing that I have noticed in recent years is that most of the older wood frame barns, each one interesting and unique, have disappeared. In their place are pole barns, metal sheds, and animal confinement buildings . . . all of which are boring and basically look alike.

   The farm that I grew up on had two barns, both located close to our house. The largest barn, located south of our house, was constructed with beams of yellow poplar, held in place by wooden pegs. Although it was used to store wheat, oats and hay, its primary purpose was to house the pigs after farrowing was done. A few years ago, I discovered that at one time that barn served as a stagecoach stopping station on the Lafayette-Jamestown Pike.

   The second barn was somewhat smaller and was located west of the house. Dad also stored wheat and oats in small bins inside, along with hay and straw in the haymow. The front section contained stanchions where Dad milked the cows. Across the aisle was a manger where feeder calves were housed and fed. A section had been added to the rear of the barn to hold ear corn, with space left over for machinery. The old Dodge truck could be backed inside to load corn to take to the elevator to have it ground into feed. Standing in the center aisle was an old hand-crank corn sheller. Just plop in an ear of corn, turn the long handle and out comes the shelled kernels . . . What fun! For a few years, we kept chickens in that area until a new chicken house was built.  To the delight of my brother and me, Dad had fastened a basketball hoop on the south side when we were just little tykes. We wanted to be like our heroes who played on the high school team. We practiced shooting our Spaulding basketball which was often covered in dirt and chicken droppings, but we didn’t care! On the north side, I drew a circle with white paint and practiced throwing a baseball at the circle . . . since I was our team’s pitcher. I also threw the baseball on the roof hundreds of times and caught it as it rolled off!

   As youngsters, we spent countless hours in those barns. The haymow in the small barn contained hundreds of bales of hay and straw. We often built a “hideout” and tunnels, sometimes three layers deep and used flashlights to crawl through these. There was a hay rope attached to a wooden beam, and we swung down and landed on piles of loose straw. In the evenings, or on rainy days, I sat by a small barn window, reading books and dreaming of many things. I also recall finding new litters of kittens every once in a while . . . how cute! I liked to watch Dad milk our four cows, and sometimes he squirted that warm milk right into my mouth! I tried a few times to milk the cows by myself, but never had much luck. He made trips to the local sale barns on a regular basis to purchase feeder calves, and it was my duty to mix up some powdered milk and “bucket feed” the calves when they were young.

   On many occasions, I climbed on top of the roof of the large barn, and just relaxed, while looking over the countryside. I could see the town water tower, which was three miles away, and many of the other farms around us.

   Some of these old barns have been kept in good repair and repainted . . . I think because they hold so many memories. But the large majority have been torn down, with a few still standing in disrepair . . . their red paint bleached out from the sun and roofs partially collapsed. When our farm was sold, the new owners bulldozed both barns down and buried everything. But when I drive by there today, I can still see those two barns in my mind . . . and I remember all of those good times I experienced as a youngster “down at the barn.”

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 36 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.