HomeMy WebLinkAbout30th Annual Huron Pioneer Thresher & Hobby Association 1991 Reunion, 1991-09-04, Page 18PAGE A-l8. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1991.
9[uron TioneercTfiresfi-er‘J{eunion 91
Threshing bees brought community together
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Are we really just nostalgic about the
days of our youth? Is that why we who
remember threshing days think things
haven't been the same since the combine
took over or was there something really
special about threshing?
I sometimes wonder if youngsters
growing up on the farm these days will
have as pleasant memories of the combine
as we who grew up in an earlier era have
of the threshing machine.
I think they won’t.
I grew up on a Kinloss township farm in
Bruce County in a period that spanned
both methods of harvesting. My earliest
memories are of the threshing machine
even though our family was also one of
the earlier families to switch to the
combine. Despite my pride in my family
being “progressive”, I somehow thought
we were missing out on something when
the threshing gang pulled in the lane of my
friends' homes.
Part of the feeling of missing out was
because threshing wasn't just harvesting, it
was a social event of the year. It brought
men together to swap tall tales and
memories. Il brought women together to
exchange talks about kids and men and
swap recipes. It brought all the young
bucks in the neighbourhood together to try
to outdo each other lifting whole stooks to
the top of the wagon and to flirt with the
younger girls helping serve the food.
Working on the combine, by
comparison, was a lonely job. It was as
dusty and noisy and hot as the worst of the
threshing gang but without the
camaraderie.
The big threshing gangs weren't part of
my early memories. Our neighbours had a
threshing machine so my father and uncle
worked with them doing their two farms
The work was hard in the days of threshing but there was the Thresher Reunion each year to see threshing
also a chance lor neighbours to visit. For oldtimers visiting demonstrations and more, it's a reminder of that time.
and our two farms. Still there was
excitement being around that machine and
we'd wait all day when we knew that they
expected to be finished at one of the other
farms and move onto ours. My brother and
my friend and I would go squealing
“they're coming” when we saw the
threshing machine coming up the road.
Then there was the magic of watching
them set up the threshing machine, hoist
the elevator, level her up, crank out the
straw blower and finally, lay out the belt
and manoeuvre the tractor into just the
right place to make it drive the engine
most efficiently.
I think that another reason today's kids
can never have as much fun remembering
combines as we had remembering
threshing machines is that, efficient as‘
they are, combines just don't have the
personality of an old separator. There
were so many gadgets and magical noises
on the old machines that they held all the
fascination for a youngster of one of those
Rube Goldberg inventions. That's why I
enjoy going back to the Thresher Reunion
year after year to hear the growing whine
of the separator as it speeds up, to hear the
whack of the belts when the tractor first
Continued on page A-19
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September 6, 7, 8,1991
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