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The 29th Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion, 1990-09-05, Page 6PAGE A-6. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. 1990. Changing technology changed rural society BY KEITH ROULSTON Looking back 30 years now, as a member of a generation that grew up at a time when the harvesting of grain changed forever, I can see that it wasn’t just a technological change when combines replaced threshing machines, but a change of an entire way of life. Both the threshing machine and the combine played a part in my early life. I can remember the excitement in my really young days, of the news that the threshing machine was arriving that day. Even as a teenager I worked during the summer on some of the last farms in our township that stuck with the old ways. In between came the period when my own family switched from the threshing machine to the com­ bine. As a member of a family that often had fewer possessions than our neighbours, the arrival of that Massey-Harris combine on our farm was a real moment of pride for me. It wasn’t new or shiny. It had already lived a useful life on somebody else’s farm before we got it. But at a time when we considered any car less than 10 years of old as “new”, the machine was an exciting new addition to the farm. It was made more so because several of our neighbours still were “old fashioned” and using the threshing machine. I was pretty proud when I got to ride around on the combine, standing on the little fenced-in platform with my dad, taking the bags of grain away from the twin grain spouts, tying them, then sliding them down the chute to the ground where they’d be picked up later with a wagon. It wasn’t very efficient because it still took my uncle to drive the tractor pulling the machine and my dad to bag the grain but it still used a lot fewer people than threshing. And yet, once the novelty wore off, I found I envied my best friend who lived on the “backward” farm across the road where they still threshed their grain. In fact my friend’s father ran a really old-fashioned operation. Every year he cut his grain with a binder (in my earliest Schedule of events memories I think he still used a team of horses), then stooked it and then loaded it on wagons and transferred it, using slings, into the barn where it would sit until the threshing gang arrived, often after they’d already done all the other farmers who threshed straight out of the stook. My first earnings were made helping spread those sheaves around the mow on my friend’s farm, the sheaf often being as big as I was. It was my introduction to being part of the threshing gang. Later I would drive the tractor while the men picked up the sheaves in the fields and the load was built higher and higher behind me. Later still I drove the tractor for the first step in harvest, cutting the grain. I learned to fix the cantankerous binder (perhaps the last piece of machinery I could make logical sense out of). As I grew older the sense of comradeship the operation of threshing brought grew as 1 took my place with the gang stooking or loading wagons (threshing disappeared from the scene before I became senior enough to be around the threshing machine). Stooking was the most fun when there was a group of people working their way across a field. It was often a leisurely activity especially if there were older hands present who knew it was better to pace themselves for a whole day’s work instead of rushing across the field, seeing who could finish a row first, as was often the case with teenagers. Today, I suppose, we’d be so addicted to prepackaged entertainment that we’d all be wearing Walkmans while we stooked but then the entertainment was talk. Talk about the old days, talk about what this or that farmer was doing to improve his yields, talk about girls (for the young ones) and for everybody, more time than probably should be, talk about gossip. It was like that when it came time to bring the sheaves in for threshing. Aside from the steady purr of the tractor, there was little noise involved so conversations could still be carried on. There was a subtle ineraction between the generations as well. The fathers and grandfathers would shake their heads as they watched the young bucks competing to see who could pitch the heaviest loads up onto the wagon. For the young men, lifting an entire stook or five or six sheaves on the end of a pitchfork to the top of a high load was an envied show of growing strength. To the elders, it was s sign of young foolishness and they’d warn the day was going to be a long one. The contrast between the modern rural life and the life of that time seems to begin directly with the decline of things like the threshing gangs, wood bees, silo filling and other activities that brought people in rural communities together. With the coming of more and more one-man operated farm machine, it was no longer necessary for farmers to get together to accomplish their work. Today each farmer works away in his own little world. Opportunities for neighbours to get together are fewer and fewer and often Hensail Livestock Sales Ltd. Year Round Order Buyer for Stocker & Feeder Cattle Owner, Manager Sales Representative Barry Miller Zehr 235-2717 887-9599 Clinton Community Credit Union wishes the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association great success on your 29th annual Reunion in Blyth 374 Main St. S. Exeter 235-0640 Proud to be working with the people of Blyth and area since 1952 events must be purposely planned in order to bring a neighbourhood together. Ironically, in view of the fact we can now instantly get telephone calls from the other side of the world or watch live television from space ships, farm families have never been so isolated from their neighbours since the early pioneer days. The sadness of this becomes most evident when a farmer gets in economic trouble as many have in recent years and carries the whole burden himself because neighbours aren’t close enough to be confidants anymore. Just as tragic is the fact that if one farmer does something desperate, his neighbours are often the most surprised because they didn’t even know he was in trouble. It’s unlikely farmers will ever go back to threshing gangs or any of the other ways of farming that brought neighbours together. If not, however, they must find other ways of bringing neighbours together, of know­ ing that each is there for the other if needed. FALL STOCKER & FEEDER SALE SAT. Oct. 6 1:00 p.m. 1200 HEAD EXPECTED 70 Ontario St. Clinton 482-3467 THURSDAY: 8:00 p.m. FRIDAY: 9 - 6:00 1:00 -1:30 2:00 - 2:30 3:00 - 4:30 3:00 7:30 - 1:00 a.m. 4:30 SATURDAY: 7:30-11:00 11:00 1:00 1:00 1:00 2:00 1 - 4:00 4:30 2:00 - 3:00 12:30 4:30 SUNDAY: 7:30 -11:00 10:00 11:00 2:00 2:00 4:30 12 - 4:00 Fiddle Jam Session Steel Shed - Lois Hodqins M.C. Crafts - in Arena Sawmill demonstrations Huron Strings Entertainment Huron String Entertainment Local Talent Musical Get-Together Grain Threshing Demonstration Fiddler’s Jamboree Daily Parade Pancake Breakfast - Fire Hall Dave Chittick Band Official Opening Belt Setting - tractors Belt setting - steam engines Old Tyme Fiddler’s Competition, John Brent M.C. Heritage Fiddlers No Notes Jug Band - Goderich Clown & Puppets Shows Bean Pot Daily Parade Pancake Breakfast - Fire Hall Interdenomination Church Service Dave Chittick Band Step-dancing Competition, John Brent M.C. Log Sawing & Bag Tying Daily Parade Dusters Band We’re pleased to extend our best wishes to our many friends in Blyth and area for a successful 29th Reunion SEE US FOR YOUR HOME AND FARM BUILDING PROJECTS Boyfield Rood CLINTON OPEN: Mondoy Io f rldoy. « o.m. . 5:30 p.m. Saturdoy, 8 o.m - 4 p.m. 482-3995 X QUALITY PRODUCTS X QUALIFIED SERVICE Mt COMPETITIVE PRICING X JOIN THE CROWD FOR BLYTH’S 1990/91 FESTIVAL OF ENTERTAINMENT Call 523-9300/9225 Adult Series S35 00 for 4 Shows Single Tickets SI5 00 each Children's Series S20 00 for 4 Shows Single Tickets S6 50 each FAMILY FAVOURITES HAGOOD HARDY 'Canada's popular composer September 29, 1990 - 8 p.m Gordon Pinsent’s A GIFT TO LAST’Musical Sunday, November 18. 1990 - 8 p.m. SINNERS ’Hilarious Mystery Saturday, February 16, 1991 - 8 p.m. NATURAL ELEMENTS ’Music from the West Saturday, March 23, 1991 - 8 p m JUST FOR KIDS ERIC NAGLER ’Musical Fun Saturday. October 20. 1990 - 2 p.m JOIN HANDS PUPPETEERS Saturday, November 10.1990-2 p.m PEPPER THE CLOWN Saturday March 10. 1991 -2pm LAND OF TRASH Saturday. March 30. 1991 • 2 p m