Al's Coat

I have an old coat that I wear around the farm; it’s a little big – but that’s how it came to me. It used to belong to my wife’s uncle, Al on her mother’s side.  Albert, Al for short, is a little shorter and a little smaller than me. So, I‘ve always wondered since the coat is too big for me – how did Al ever fill it out.

I like to wear the coat instead of coveralls in the warmer weather.  It’s light enough, yet it protects me when I am crawling around in the dirt and rocks under a tractor or mower. It has some holes in it, and the inside of the collar is frayed and worn from me shaking my head trying to solve a problem. I think of Al whenever I put it on, hoping some of his mechanical skills came with the coat.

Al’s mechanical skills are legendary, and that is not an exaggeration.  Men who work on tractors and implements still talk about him, who is in his nineties, with great respect and high regard. The mechanics who worked with Al had to learn from watching instead of questioning because if you asked him too many questions he would say, “You’re just like the ladies, always asking questions.”

The hay baler, an especially complicated piece of machinery, was Al’s specialty. His sharp eye and ear could often diagnose the problem before he ever set his hand to the task. So vast was his reputation that men would travel from South Dakota on a Sunday to his farm in Carver County asking for help. For his trouble he would often come home with an old truck or tractor that had been left to rust in the weeds. Al would get them running again though.

A few years ago I went with my wife to Al’s 90^th birthday party. One of the stories I heard that day happened during World War II. Al was driving a truck filled with German POW’s; because he could speak German fluently, he and the prisoners talked easily back and forth between the cab and the cargo area.

I don’t know what happened, if Al got distracted or if the road conditions were poor, but the truck got stuck. Some of the prisoners suggested that Al release them so they could push the truck out. Al knew, even with his rifle and his sidearm, he would be easily overpowered with over a dozen unarmed men. But that was what he did, he let them out.  When the men pushed the back truck back on the road they climbed back in, and Al shut and locked the door again.

After the war, he came home to Carver County and got a job fixing farm equipment, which is something I will never be able to do. I got reminded of that this weekend when I was working on my mower. I have to get the lawn mowed soon before the rains come, otherwise I will have to bale it and I don’t own a baler.

I had on Al’s coat when I was crawling underneath the mower taking the blades off to sharpen them when I bumped my head. That’s when it hit me: the coat will never fit perfectly because I will never be as big a man as Albert.