Odd Off
There was a 1938 Dodge WE truck on the New Jersey farm. WE is the military designation for ''weapons carrier.'' lt's basically a three-quarter ton, four wheel drive pickup truck. Vehicles similar to this World War ll Army surplus vehicle appear regularly in military machinery collections and displays. lt's that truck with a canvas cab roof and bars in the front grille reminiscent of an old county jail or bank teller's window.
lf l had ever seen the truck running, it would have been as an infant (me, that is, not the truck ) in 1954 when it was being used around a building site in our creekside pasture that would become my homeplace. After the building was completed and the debris hauled away to a fifties-style sanitary landfill (i/e a handy revine or gully on the farm) the truck was driven about a quarter-mile to the far corner of a hay field and abandoned at the edge of a dark forest of oak, ash, birch, maple and linden.
Throughout the late 1950's and into the 1960's, the inoperative truck became a ''play station'' for my cousins and l, a meeting place from which numerous childhood projects were launched. Later, when we found our respective fathers' wrenches, the truck became a sort of vocational pre-school where we would undo bolts in order to see what would fall off.
A few weeks ago, friends brought us four stout locust posts which would form the gate post and corners of a garden fence. Using a ''diggin' arn'' or shale bar depending upon where you're from, the Old Hippie (wife Stephanie) dug the four post holes. Nursing a lifting injury, l was employed only to help stand the posts or ''lwojeem'' (my term) them into their holes.
The Old Hippie then showed up with several bundles of shiny green and white metal fenceposts and a post driver borrowed from the same folks who had brought the fence posts. For those who may not be familiar with a post driver of this type, it can be described as a two-foot long thick walled steel tube with a heavy plug welded in one end that also serves as a weight. Loops of steel bar stock are welded to the sides opposite from each other that form comfortable handles. The device is slid over the top of a standing metal post then raised and brought down with force enough to drive the post into the ground.l operated the tool while Stephanie kept the posts plumb using a spirit level. You might never know it to look at the fence now. Underground roots and rocks have the final say as to how the posts will stand. Whenever burdened with a boring or repetitive task, l make it bearable by letting my mind wander, perhaps to another place---but always to another time; l don't mean to speak ill of the dead but my sixth grade teacher was a Nazi. There was no such thing as a small infraction in her classroom. (This individual is not to be confused with another of my teachers, Frau Linda Nodekker who, though professing to be a National Socialist, was nonetheless an excellent educator.)
A fellow student showed me a cute phrase that he had written on the inside cover of a school book, an infraction just short of firing squad severity in this classroom. lt went as follows; ''Odd Ogg--half turtle--half frog.'' l thought it would be cool if this little phrase would appear anonymously in several more school-owned books---kind of like ''Kilroy was here'' or that mysterious rail car graphiti.
Eventually, we were caught. My classmate did an admirable job of lying his way out of the situation, leaving me to take the full rap. ln addition to two days out of school suspension, my parents were charged $9 to cover damages. My father refused to pay, insisting that l pay the school myself---an example of the style of object lesson popular at the time.
lnstead of my suspension being spent as a windfall vacation, l was to use these two days to dig up 20 metal fenceposts from the woods for which Uncle Pete would pay me 50 cents a piece, for use on his farm. l was issued the necessary tools. Digging up the posts was indeed strenuous and l certainly learned my lesson---but not necessarily the lesson that my father meant to convey. l DID make $1 clear profit after all, probably my first. The lesson that l took away was that l liked to work outdoors and that l could make money doing so.
l began to wonder if there were any more steel posts out there and if l hadn't already saturated the Uncle Pete market. Because l had learned that l prefer to work outdoors, this lesson would greatly interfere with my being groomed to work in the family precision metal tubing business. As it turned out, l found a few more posts. lnstead of paying me in cash, Uncle Pete allowed me---at my request---to swap the posts for an antique gasoline engine he had tucked away in his barn. This probably didn't help my father's cause, either.
Taking a break from driving a post while Stephanie checks it for plumb, l think back and wonder about those metal posts l dug up so long ago. l never noticed a post driver like the one we were currently using anywhere on the farm. So, how did they drive those posts? Access to that area was too steep for our Allis Chalmers WF row-crop tractor---so how did the posts and wire get out there? And why was there a random 120 feet of barbed wire fence in the middle of the woods in the first place?
My mind formed an image of the de-commissioned Dodge weapons carrier ladened with fencing tools and supplies, as well as the requisite beer and Lucky Strikes, at the site. My dad or one of my uncles, all very strong men, probably stood on the tailgate and sledgehammered the posts into the ground. The creek wound in and out of our property and our cows were likely wandering onto our neighbor's land to water and making the standard bovine mess. Our neighbor, Mr Heinke, a gentleman farmer was always kind and amiable toward us. However ''good fences make good neighbors'' so my grandfather very likely ordered the boys to fence off the bend in our creek that extended onto Mr. Heinke's property.
l'm only a marginal entrepreneur and that only out of necessity. l'm not a team player, so l can't hold a real job. Still, though it hasn't always been easy, l wouldn't trade my self-employed adventures for the world. Odd Ogg is to thank for getting me started and giving me the determination (along with the help of a wonderful wife and patient and understanding collegues) to repetedly make something out of nothing. Nothing----like a row of unlikely and forgotten fence posts in the woods.
As for my former classmate and Odd Ogg's presumed creator, the vibe l get is that l'll someday find him on that long, black granite wall in Washington, D.C. Maybe l'm wrong. l hope so, anyway. lt would be great if he and Odd Ogg were still with us!