Tales From a Family Root Cellar by Russ Cooper

The Lone Ranger, “Cheeri Oats” and the Radio Bible Club The Lone Ranger lived inside our radio. I didn’t really know much about what he looked like back then, because he was so small. But if you looked inside the back of our radio you could see those faint lights glowing inside those tall tubes which looked sort of like very dim light bulbs, but were coated with something gray or silver colored. When the radio came on, you could here the “dunta-dun-ta-dun-ta-dun” music, and then a voice telling us to eat our “Cheeri Oats” for breakfast. More music, and the Lone Ranger and Tonto would go galloping across the range, hooves clopping at a terrific gallop. If you walked around behind the table and peeked into the back of the radio, you could see those faint lights glowing, and you knew if your eyes were just sharp enough, you would be able to see the Lone Ranger on Silver, and Tonto on Scout galloping for all they were worth inside that glowing tube. You could hear them talking as they captured the bad guys, and then the ringing call, “Hiyo, Silver, away!” as they galloped off at the end of the show. This was their sign-off call, and was followed by another reminder to “eat our Cheeri Oats” (an admonition which has been taken very seriously by myself, even to this day). There were lots of other cowboy stories and adventure stories on the radio too. And, the Children's Bible Hour, where they sang "Boys and Girls for Jesus" and the other choruses we had learned in Sunday School, and which had Tales From a Family Root Cellar, 1-3.

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other adventure stories to tell us. I imagine those kids singing all of those Sunday School songs must have lived inside a different tube in the back of our radio, because they would always be getting in the way of all those galloping horses otherwise, and, anyway, on the Lone Ranger show nobody much went to Sunday School. <http://media1.cbhministries.org/classic/cst46-4.rm>

Later on, when I saw what the Lone Ranger actually looked like, I was not very surprised, I guess, so maybe I had been able to see him pretty clearly in the back of the radio after all. One thing for sure though, the adventures were a lot more 'adventurous' back then –for me watching them from the back of the radio– than they were later on when they’d figured out a way to make that glowing tube into a big window on the front of the set and called it a TV.

Russ Cooper rev 2011-07-04

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Homemade Ginger Ale During haying season it was the job of the little kids to carry cold drinks out to the fields to the workers. Cold water was always accepted gratefully, but on a very hot day my grandmother often made “homemade ginger ale.” Ginger, raw egg, and sugar were mixed with a bit of vinegar and a pinch of salt in a large container of cold water which had been pumped straight from the well. The ginger ale was then poured into those old two-tone brown crockery jars; you know the kind, the ones which had crockery lids and a wire bale on them, with another bit of wire which snapped down to keep the lids on tight. The trip to the fields was made by a couple of us little ones, maybe school age but if so, just barely, as the bigger kids were helping with bigger jobs. But, this was our job! Our jars were heavy and almost bumped the ground as we walked, but they were mysteriously cool and beads of sweat always formed on the outside of the jars even as we walked in the hot sun. We knew this was pure water on the outside, not ginger ale, because we would swipe it with our fingers, and taste it, and wonder how it had seeped thru the stoneware jar, or even collected there on such a hot day. We were still too small to ride the wagons or help with the haying otherwise, but it did not matter because we also had an important job to complete, bringing these special jars to the field workers! And we would trudge up the lane with our jars of cold ginger ale, following the sounds of the men’s voices as they drove the horses, knowing what would happen the moment they saw us coming. Someone might be mowing elsewhere, and where the hay was already dry someone else might be raking a section of hay into Tales From a Family Root Cellar, 1-3.

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windrows, with the dump-rake, but to us the magnet for the whole operation was the big wagon with the hayloader attached. Even later when there were more tractors around, the hay wagon was pulled by horses, because horses knew what they were doing, and the driver could hold the long reins even when sitting way up on the load of hay. And sure enough! someone would see us coming, and pretty soon they would all converge at the edge of the field, or maybe by the big wagon and hayloader, or under a big tree at the edge of the field. “Homemade ginger ale,” they’d say. “There’s nothing like ‘homemade ginger ale’ to quench your thirst on a hot day.” We’d never tasted any other kind, but we knew “homemade ginger ale” was pretty special, by the way they licked their lips and, then wiped their brows with their big, soft, blue and white bandannas. We’d joke around with the “rest of the crew,” until they would say “giddy-up” to their teams and head back across the field, the hayloader clacking as the hay flowed endlessly up, cascading onto the wagon. Back we would trudge with our empty jars to stand at attention before our grandmother, hoping, quietly hoping, that our next call to duty would be back to the fields again with “homemade ginger ale” and not be something boring like pulling pigweed in the garden behind the barn. It was satisfying and important work, “quenching the thirst” of all those field workers, but maybe next year we’d be able to ride on the hay wagon and do an even bigger, even more important job. Russ Cooper, 11-2000 Pix added 2011-07-04

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Sleigh Rides and Caroling The sleighs on the farm consisted of two sets of heavy runners, called “bobs,” which were joined together to form a rack or attached “box.” In winter they were mostly used to haul wood in from the woodlot at the back of the farm. My grandparents’ “back forty” was all timber except for a potato field in the middle, and in theory, every winter one cut enough wood ahead to burn during the next year. The firewood logs would be brought to the side yard, and later buzzed and stacked in the woodshed. Both men and horses can put in a lot of hours in the woods in winter. Horses work well in the woods and can snake a log out of a narrow place without disturbing much of the surrounding growth. The horses and sleighs in winter can make their own smooth road out of a very rough track and go through places that would be impassable bogs at other times of the year. Every few years though, winter would come early enough in December for the sleighs to be put to another use: Christmas Caroling. The team would be hitched up to the sleigh, which would have the box on it and lots of loose hay thrown in to sit on. Everyone would be bundled up warm, and there would be extra quilts and heavy blankets besides. The caroling troop would consist of a bunch of us cousins, with a few aunts or uncles mixed in, This bobsled snapshot was taken and Grandpa to drive the from the internet (Schultz family © horses. In the cold of the night, sleigh rides.) the horses were frisky and ready to go, and we would be off, with sleigh bells jingling to the beat of our songs.

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“Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh, we’d sing, “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.” At at least one destination we’d go inside and drink a cup of hot chocolate before bundling back into the sleigh again and heading back home for the rest of our Christmas activities. On other years, when winter did not come so soon, the sleigh rides might take us back through the lanes and around the 40 acre woodlot, or for a six or eight mile circuit around several sections of land along neardeserted country roads, smoother with their icy pavement than at any time in summer with its gravel and chatter-bumps. The men and horses worked the sleigh hard during the short winter workdays, but they took a farmer’s holiday when all the cousins came to visit, and traveled the same packed down lanes and roads with much laughter and shouting and singing. Russ Cooper, 11-2000

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