By Neal Wooten
Growing up on a small farm on Sand Mountain meant learning how to do a multitude of tasks; skills I assumed would serve me the rest of my life. I’m glad to say they did not.
Chopping wood. When I was 13 years old, I rode with friends and their dad to visit their relatives. A storm had blown over a medium-sized tree across the driveway and their uncle was wailing away at it with a broadax. He just kept hitting it in the same place but was getting nowhere.
I asked if I could relieve him and he gladly agreed. I did like I was taught. I hit the trunk at an inward angle about six inches from where he had been chopping. My next stroke was about six inches on the other side, also at an inward angle. A huge chunk flew right off. I continued hitting one side and then the other making a smoothly-cut V shape until I went all the way through in a matter of minutes.
Splitting wood. I remember when we finally got a chainsaw. Now we could cut down much larger trees, meaning each section had to be split into several pieces to use in our Ashely heater. For that I used a maul, a thing that looks like a sledgehammer on one side and a wedge on the other. I was a whiz with this thing. The first time I saw a hydraulic splitter, I was in awe.
Boom Dogs. I’m not if the old timers on the mountain said “boom” or “boon” since I can’t find it anywhere online, but it was basically a chain binder or load binder we used when we cut pulpwood and loaded it onto a flatbed truck. It looked like a Come-along but could only be pulled once, but it would sure tighten a chain.
Siphoning gas. Whoever heard of driving all the way to the gas station just to fill a small jug with fuel to fill the lawnmower? All you needed was a six-feet-long section of old garden hose and every vehicle parked on your front lawn became a station. And our front lawn always looked like a small car dealership.
The trick of course was to suck on it just enough to get the gas to the point where it would flow on its own as you stuck that end into the jug. And trust me; that rarely happened. Forget coffee. If you want something to really wake you up, there’s nothing like the taste of gasoline in the morning.
These are just some of the things I remember doing that I’m thrilled I don’t still have to do.
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