The Year of the Windmill Part Three

     Some mornings just before dawn I hurt so bad that I just have to get up.  Such was the case this morning.  I made coffee and got outside just before the sun came up.  There was a coolness in the air that I had not felt for months.  Sheila is in the process of painting the deck and all the rockers are at the deck of my shed studio. This area like most of the yard is covered in large oaks and pines. Squirrels were dropping pine cones and acorns all around me.  A few small ones landed on me and I was tempted to moved so I didn't.
     "If you are going to throw at me at least let it something good."  I said. Just then a couple of small cylindrical shapes of chocolate fell into my lap, just beside my coffee.  Looked pretty good so I popped it into my mouth.  Tasted ok, but had a hint of a taste of pine nuts.  After a few moments, I had the urge to climb a tree.  Something I had not done in fifty years, but it dissipated pretty quickly.  Good thing there was only a couple of pieces of chocolate.  Had there been more, I may have gone to the top of the pine tree.
     After an hour or so, I had enough energy to go and work on the windmill.  I have the head(gear box, blades and tailbone) mounted onto a 3 inch steel pipe so that I can work on it.  Inside the helmet on the bar that houses the yoke, there is a date stamped.  It was produced in June of 1938.  In 1927, daddy was born in Midland City.  That made him eleven years old when this mill was erected.  When I walked up to the mill this morning, I looked at all the 22 rifle shot holes in the blades.  The tailbone had been shot with a shotgun and looks like hell, with holes, dents and lots of rust.  I wonder how many of those holes belong to daddy?  I would almost bet money that most of them belonged to him.  I also would not be surprised if the shotgun blast on the tailbone did not belong to Daddy Frank.  There is a lot of history tied to this windmill and I am glad that it wound up here.
     I am not mechanically inclined and have had to redo a lot of the things that I did to the mill.  To send the gear box off to be repaired, I had to remove the sails, three at a time.  I did mark the front of each sail, so that I would put it back as it should be.  There are six arms on the front of the hub and six arms on the back of the hub.  According to the directions, the rear arm should go on the outside hole of the outer band and the front arm should go on the inside hole of the first section.  You then reverse this on the next section.  There are six sections and on the third section, I realized that I had forgotten to reverse.  I had to backtrack and do it right.  On the sixth section, before you can join it, you have to reverse the first section.  That was a job.
     After that was completed, I wanted to be sure I had done every thing right, so I sent a photo to Miller's Windmill service.  His reply was, everything looks o k except for the rear arms should be straight.  I told him that they were bent like that when I started to work on them.  I even told Craig, when he welded them to make sure they all had the same angle.  Evidently, when the tornado blew the mill down, the rear spokes bent the same all around the hub.  I was disappointed but, I removed the sails and the spokes to straighten them.  That took another two afternoons to fix.  It has become a conflict between me and the mill.  Very close to the end and I wonder if I or the mill will win.

The Year of the Windmill Part Two

     Every year in the fall, Dothan has the National Peanut Festival,  It is a huge ten day event that celebrates the farmers and the peanut industry.  Over the years, it has become more and more a social event, with recipe, arts and crafts and beauty contests taking over more and more of the festivities.  Of course the parade on the last Saturday of the event is the highlight and for a couple of hours everyone forgets their problems and enjoys the atmosphere.  When the festival moved to the Houston Co. Farm Center Daddy carried me, Benny, Wayne and mama to watch them set it up.  At the entrance was a big Pepsi bottle tied down with ropes.  I had never seen an inflatable before and it was an amazing sight.  You could actually see the giant sweat drops running down the sides of the bottle.  I don't remember going back after they opened, but I an sure that we did.
     As I am walking through the midway this year, it is in a strange place and the light is slightly different.  The crowds are the same, walking in all directions, bumping into each other and not even realizing it.  The sounds of kids' excited screams, parents scrambling after them, trying to keep up.  The clanking of the roller coaster chains, the game vendors barking at you from every direction, "come on over, knock the balls down and win".  There must have been hundreds of them, and that awful music.  Confusion reigned supreme.
     I began to notice that at every game tent, one of the workers was out of character. He was quiet and unassuming, but his eyes were cold and dark.  It seemed that he was only looking at me with no expression.  I grew concerned as I could not shake him.  I tried to escape by getting out of the crowd and going behind the tents.  It as darker here and I thought I could escape.  Not running, but walking briskly, I headed toward a utility pole in the distance.  There I thought I could lean against it and have my back protected and be able to see what was coming at me.  I made it, looked around and leaned up against the pole.  Regaining my breath, I began to feel foolish at being afraid.  From behind the pole, I could feel the terrible grip clamp down on my throat.  Already afraid, I struggled valiantly against the hard boney fingers and felt the finger nails dig into my flesh.  I could feel the blood run down my chest.  As everything went dark, I gave a final hard jerk, twisting my body into his thumb and as I fell to the ground I could feel his grip was broken.
     As I awakened , the alarm clock was making an awful noise.  I was at once awake, in sweat soaked sheets and knew I would not be able to snooze.  I felt like destroying the clock, but realized that it had awakened me at just the right moment, so I gently turned it off.  Not wanting to dwell on the night's events, I tried to think of the fact that the new gearbox for my windmill was to arrive today.
     I had sent the old one to Miller's Windmill Service in Indiana to be rebuilt.  I knew it was in bad shape, but he thought he may be able to repair it.  The shaft had worn through the bearing and most of the snout on the bottom side.  I could feel the shaft turn when I turned the hub.  When Mr. Miller received the box, he informed me that the top of the snout was worn through also.  When he tried to force the shaft out, it snapped the snout, and the photos he sent showed that only 25% of the metal remained of the snout.  However I was concerned about welding cat iron so I was o k with purchasing a new gear box anyway.

The Year of the Windmill

     Sitting in my studio, I can hear the water dripping onto the tin top.  The hard rain had just ended and the leaves were shedding the excess moisture.  I love a good rain at the end of July.  It gives welcome relief to the heat and oppressive humidity of the Dog Days.  The rhythm of the drops was slowing to a stop and lulling me into a peaceful state.
     "Charles, go to the store and tell them to not put so much juice in the tomato's."  Mama said.
     "I will."
     It was the first time I had seen her for almost two years.  She was standing in front of the stove, where I had seen her many times.  Her body was young and vibrant and her hair was a deep auburn, almost black, with not a hint of grey.  Her body was not bent and frail as it had been.  I had longed for this moment since she had died.  And this is what she said to me?  Even as I was disappointed at that, I realized that for her it had only been a few minutes.
     "How have you been, mama?"  I asked.
     "Nothing has changed in the last few minutes."  she answered, puzzled at this question.  "Your father is young again and is free from the arthritis that has plagued him for years."  "As a matter of fact he and Daddy Frank are off squirrel hunting in the lower forty."
     "That's good, Mama." I replied, strangely aware that I was much older than she was.  Now according to her I was older than daddy.
     "What about grandpa, grannie and Maw?" I asked.
     "Grandpa is pulling weeds in the garden, grannie is painting a portrait of her black cocker spaniel and Maw is fishing in Spurgeon's pond.
  We talked for a while and each of us enjoyed the visit.  It was easier for us now, we had never bonded in the past and things were hard for us.  The closest thing to this was the summer that I moved to Mobile to go to college.  I worked at the peanut mill in Headland, moving trailer loads of peanuts from the line to the dryers.  On the last day, she brought me lunch and stayed with me while I ate.  I always treasured that.
  I could hear a low tapping sound coming from the back room.  At first it was not bad and hard to discern, but it steadily grew into a crescendo.  I got up from the table to go open the door to the room and mama rushed to get between me and the door.  "You can't go in there yet, it's not time." she explained.
     She faded away and everything became dark.  The dripping of the drops had stopped and I opened my eyes.  The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds as I went to the barn to gather my tools to work on the tower of my windmill.  It had been given to me by Fred McKay.  He had gotten it off a farm he was renting near Midland City.  According to him, a tornado had knocked it down years ago and every piece of angle was bent.  I had always wanted a windmill on the place and I was glad to get this one.  As we looked it over, we discovered, stenciled onto the angles, DR. C. ESPY MIDLAND CITY, AL.  This was especially exciting to me because he and my grandfather were good friends early in my childhood.
     On Sunday mornings a group of farmers and merchants would gather at Nook Gary's store on 134 in Midland City.  Doc Espy owned several stores in the area and had a large work force.  The other farmers would tease him saying, "If you will fertilize your peanuts, you'll make more."
  "I am not trying to make peanuts, I'm trying to make money." was his response.  Grandpa told me that story several times and always with humored respect, for one thing that Doc Espy made was money.  I feel grandpa's and Doc's conversation in heaven led to my getting the windmill.