Polio and Thickly Peeled Potatoes
On Saturday when I was working with Garrett on his house, he made a comment that my dad had come up to help with some of the work as well. Garrett said, "Your dad is a hard worker."Yeah, that's very true. We got talking about strong work ethics, and where they come from. I told Garrett about how when my grandfather was growing up - in the Depression Era - his father (my great grandfather, of course) had polio, which left him crippled. He was a farmer, so being crippled was obviously a great hardship. (Somewhere, years ago, I remember seeing an old old video of my great grandfather feeding the chickens on his hands and knees)
But one of the consequences of my great grandfather's polio was that my grandfather had to take on a great deal of the responsibility for making the farm run. A heavy responsibility, and a lot of hard work. I'm sure that his work ethic was probably passed on to his children.
But the interesting thing was, after just talking about my grandfather and great grandfather on Saturday, my dad brought the subject up again during Sunday School. We were talking about being willing to put off short term gains for long term benefits, and dad talked some more about the Depression Era, and some of the things that happened during that time. He told a couple stories that I had never heard before.
One interesting story was that after my great grandfather had polio, the neighbors pitched in together to help pay the farm's property taxes for them. This was greatly appreciated, until the children went to school and were mocked for "being so poor". And great grandfather said, "Never again."
It's strange to think about how things like that can effect a person's outlook on life; when I heard that story, it didn't surprise me at all - just knowing my grandfather and his outlook on life, it made sense. Up until the very end of his life he had a proud and independent spirit which could probably be traced back to those childhood incidents.
The other story involved a year when the crops weren't good, and the family was running desperately short on food. The great dilemma was, they were running short on potatoes, and had to decide:
Are we going to eat the potatoes, or are we going to go hungry so we can plant them for a new crop this spring?
A terrible dilemma, which brings us back to the issue of short term satisfaction over long term benefits.
In the end, they did both. My great grandfather, when he told the story to my father, said "We ate the potatoes, but we peeled them with very thick peelings, and planted them."
And they had the best crop of potatoes ever.
Posted On May 9, 2005 at 4:10 AM
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