The Cider Press

I don’t know why this was the thing I wanted to save from the farm but it was. As all the things were being packed up or sold off or thrown away, this was the thing I wanted to remind me of the farm I grew up on.

It’s not a very practical thing to lug around. It’s top heavy. It weighs a lot. I’ve pretty much lugged it around myself. I’ve never used it these last 20 years.

I remember when Dad got it in the summer of 1977, just before I turned 15. I don’t know where he found it or why he thought it was important, but I went with him to pick it up from a guy who repaired it on a farm a ways north of Highway 18 and a few miles east of Highway 15, just north of Whittemore, Iowa. I seem to remember Dad paid about $300 for it.

In hindsight, it was not a very practical thing to buy. In a few short years he would be getting eaten alive by 21% interest rates during The Farm Crisis. We only had two small apple trees in the backyard and only one made juice worth drinking. But for the next few years, for a few short weeks, the sweet, tangy, fleeting taste of summer ending was something Mom, Dad and I created and enjoyed together.

I’m at about the same age now as Dad was then. I was a small business owner when the economic meltdown of 2008-2009 hit and I got beaten up in ways I haven’t recovered from. The Farm Crisis of the ’80s was no more his fault than The Great Recession was mine, but it does seem like I’m reliving a pattern not of my making. I’ve been lugging that around for a lot of years too.

Once in a while I’ll get a brief flash of memory of what it was like to be that 15 year old who had potential. I suppose the hiring managers who are almost half my age are embarrassed for me now.

I’m not ready to give up even if others do not see me as having value. I’ll keep that cider press with me. It still has the potential to create something special.