How’d I get here, you ask? Well, my old scouting buddy Wyatt told me to come to northeast Pennsylvania, since he knew I was looking for work – kind of. His family has a small farm, where they make apple butter in a big copper kettle, and something called scrapple. I love apple butter, and despite my incessant pleading, Wyatt refused to clue me in on what scrapple is. He said it was a surprise. I bet it tastes like apples. It literally has the word apple in it – tasty apple scrapple. He also mentioned something about light work around the farm until I could start making ends meet.
I’m no stranger to a tractor or a heavy machinery, so working with Wyatt’s family should be no sweat. I learned how to drive a grader when I was in the Boy Scouts (before they kicked me out) one summer when we were making a track with ramps for our dirt bikes. That’s the year One-arm Jake cut part of his pinkie off by getting it pulled in between the chain and sprocket while we were working on his bike.
We called him One-arm Jake because he was such a little sissy and acted like his entire arm was cut off instead of the very tip of his pinkie. I ended up getting my First Aid badge that year, too. For future reference, or so says the ER doc, a tourniquet above the elbow is not necessary if the bleeding on a pinkie is able to be staunched by a My Little Pony branded Band-Aid my little sister gave us.
I also helped my Uncle Bryan cut grass in the Confederate cemetery with an old Ford tractor and bush hog. He never let me drive it because he was afraid I’d knock over the headstones. But I watched him use the pedals and levers while we drank cold beer and smoked cigarettes. Can’t be that hard, right?
Road trip! Apple butter and scrapple, here I come. It’s not like I have a job, anyway, as I alluded to earlier. I got fired for no reason from my last place of employment. Apparently, people take issue with uncensored 80’s gangster rap played over the restaurant sound system. One can only take so much of Wilson-Philips, before you just want to come out of your shirt, throw your 40 against the cooler and cut some folks for messing up the salad bar.
I jumped in my beat up primer gray Lizard truck and set off from Colquitt, GA, where the local farmers grow cotton as far as the eye can see (well, as far as the next stand of trees) along with soy beans, corn, and peanuts. I’m leaving this gnat infested corner of Southwest Georgia for the land of milk and honey – apple butter and scrapple… good ole delicious apple scrapple, ya’ll!
Don’t ask me how I ended up in Ohio, instead of Pennsylvania. I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, but here I’m is… Stuck… At Casey’s… In Ohio… No gas for the truck… and broke. That’s right – dead broke. Not even a dollar in my pocket. Who carries cash these days, anyway?
I guess I should have told my girlfriend Ginger that I was headed up to see Wyatt for a few days and I’ll bring her back some apple butter and a bag of tasty apple scrapple. She canceled our joint credit cards, told me something like she was sick of my childish antics, and wished me luck. Whatever. She probably wouldn’t even like the scrapples.
The idea of working on a farm in Pennsylvania seems kind of cool. Ropin’ pigs, drinking moonshine out of a canteen, and riding a horse back to the farmhouse when Wyatt’s grandma rings the triangle on the front porch for supper. Ding ding ding ding! Yinz come an git it! That’s what I imagine her calling out to us, except she don't say the dings. That's the triangle thing she's banging on. Then again, she just might say the dings... for extra emphasis if we are running late, or something.
Mmmm…. A big ole pile of scrapple and apple butter in a bowl just waiting for us to dig in after we ‘warsh’ up. I wonder if they say warsh in Pennsylvania.
when a cold wind whips through the parking lot. It’s March for crying out loud! Why is the sun so weak here? Back home, its 20 degrees warmer this time of year. I briefly ponder what the difference would be in Celsius, and just as quickly dismiss such nonsensical high level calculations from my thoughts. Like momma used to say, ‘Leave the trigonomics and other maths to the poor kids that can’t afford no calculator’.
and John Deere 
