The Farm Chronicles: Bicycle adventures

Griffith Road is a diagonal one mile stretch between old route 627 (now 225) and McClintocksburg Rd. Our farm was located about in the middle of it. Growing up, it was a rare occasion to see two cars travel that road during the day. Might see tractors, even a team of horses pulling a wagon, or a loose cow or two meandering by the ditch near the hole in the fence they just created. Overall, it was a peaceful road with six farms feeding into it. Mom was concerned about me riding my bike on the road because she didn’t want me to get hit by a car. Little by little, I convinced her that I was responsible enough to watch out for the random car or farm truck that might pass by. This opened the door to many adventures.

I loved riding my bike down to the end of the road—either end. On the West end was Wilbur and Joyce Tomlinson’s dairy farm. Joyce’s birthday was the same day as mine, only she was about my Mom’s age. Joyce was a lovely woman. Wilbur was a hard-nosed, no nonsense farmer. During the summer haying season, my older brothers often would get a call to come help Wilbur get his hay in. They were very reluctant because he was such a taskmaster. Before you get to the West end Tomlinson’s, there was the McClure’s. They had land on both sides of the road and two houses. One house was rented and the other they lived in. These often were cookie stops along the route on certain days, maybe even pie.

Across from our farm was a large field. It had a rutted-out path from the road across the field, through a gate and into the barnyard of Clayte and Edna Jones’ beautiful Victorian farmhouse. It was sometimes really difficult peddling my way across the field, up a slight hill, then having to stop to open the gate, walk my bike through it, and make sure I close the gate so the cows didn’t get out. Then peddle the rest of the way up to the house. Edna—Mrs. Jones—treated me as if I was her own child. She loved to invite me into her kitchen, which looked like something out of the late 1800s with the old wood-fired cook stove. Now, those were some championship cookies that came out of that old oven. On the East end lived Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson, an older couple who had a small farm. Mrs. Tomlinson always appreciated me stopping by.

She, too, would have fresh-baked cookies and often asked me in for a visit. They also sold eggs and I was dispatched regularly to ride my bike there to get two dozen eggs. One time, no one was home. I knocked on the door. No answer. Through the glass, I saw the eggs on the kitchen table. I walked in, put the dollar on the table and fetched the eggs. When I got home and Mom found out what I did, she was furious. She said I had no right to enter anyone’s home unless invited and that I must go back, return the eggs and apologize. Mrs. Tomlinson was very gracious and understood the lesson Mom was teaching. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” To this day, I am respectful of people’s privacy and property because of that lesson. But cookies are still hard to resist!

Have a Blessed and Powerful Day!
Bill Wilson
www.dailyjot.com