Because writing is a solitary pursuit, I’m not accustomed to having anyone to chat with while I eat lunch. That’s one reason I enjoy working at the Putnam County election office during early voting. Plenty of lively conversation takes place around the big table in the break room during the mid-day meal.
Take John’s cow- milking story, for instance. John’s granddaddy, whom he called “Pap,” left Cookeville for factory work in Michigan in the 1930s so his family wouldn’t starve to death. He suffered a horrible accident—John is unsure of the details and Pap is no longer around to tell the tale—that cut off seven fingers. Only his left pinkie and both thumbs remained. An insurance settlement allowed Pap to return to Tennessee to farm.
“He could milk a cow as well as anybody—probably better—with those three fingers,” John told us. “Every morning and evening, Pap milked four cows and my grandmother milked three.” Five-year-old John learned to milk while perched on a low stool placed between Pap’s feet. “He showed me exactly how to do it,” John said, “but my hands were small so I used all ten fingers.”
Though he hasn’t milked a cow since he demonstrated the skill at the Tennessee State Fair in 1978, John is confident he could still hang in there with the best of them. “Milking is like riding a bicycle,” he said. “You never forget.”
Then there’s Margaret, who showed up on the first day of early voting with her left arm in a fearsome-looking cast. We were all eager, of course, to learn what had happened. “It all started,” she told us, “when my neighbor across the street called to say she had two dozen farm-fresh eggs for me if I’d meet her out by the road to get them.”
Margaret gratefully accepted the eggs, which were piled high in a plastic bowl. Because she was already out by her mailbox, she gathered what was in it and headed across her front yard to the porch. With the eggs in her right hand and the mail in her left, she made her way up the porch steps and reached to open the front door.
That’s when things fell apart.
“Somehow, my toe caught on the threshold and I fell,” she said. “All I remember is seeing eggs fly out of the bowl and through the air, like something in a cartoon.” She landed on her left wrist and, unable to stand, knee-walked to the doorbell and began mashing it. Her husband, who uses a Rollator to get around, at long last came to the door. “Get the broom and dustpan!” Margaret hollered at him (because he’s also hard of hearing). “I have to get these eggs off the porch before they start to fry.”
She eventually struggled to her feet and swept the broken eggs, which had indeed begun to set up on the scorching hot concrete, into the trash. Then she made her way to the spigot on the side of the house and dragged the garden hose to the porch to squirt off what remained of the mess.
Four days later, Margaret’s daughter, who is a registered nurse, persuaded her to have the wrist X-rayed. Lo and behold, pictures showed a hairline fracture of the left ulna.
But the injury didn’t keep Margaret from coming to work at the election office. It didn’t keep her from traveling to help some voters cast their ballots off-site one morning. It did, however, keep her from buckling her seat belt in a timely manner on that trip. When her traveling companions—including me–heard a loud and increasingly insistent DING-DING-DING originating from the back seat, we asked what was going on.
“I guess I’m kind of like John’s granddaddy,” Margaret said with a laugh. “I don’t have the use of all ten fingers.” As to whether she could milk a cow in that condition, she didn’t say.
(August 3, 2024)