Thresh'n: a Saskatchewan tale.

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 8:32pm
By noon the sun was as high as it was going to get and the wind was all gone and there was just heat and hard work for the rest of the afternoon. We finished up a little too early to go back to the office so we went to a water cooler in an equipment shed furthest from the boss and sat in the shade getting cool and rehydrating. There was old Wally and Hollywood and I and we sat quiet for a while and then Wally said to young Hollywood.

"I'm surprised a farm boy like you didn't tie that knot in a half hitch when we were up on that job."

The kid shrugged. "I'm a farm boy, not some wanna be fuckin' cowboy cattle hick running around chasing cows all day. We're grain growers." he said, and he said it tongue in cheek but with genuine pride.

"No cattle?" Wally said to him.

"Nope. My grandfather was actually one of the biggest grain producers in the province at one time...he had the first combine around our place."

The old guy squinted and wiped the sweat off his brow then chuckled. "My granddad had the first thresher where he farmed, fuck he was a rich cunt back in those days. He hired this Scotsman to come and work for him, to run the thresher, paid him 25 cents a day plus room and board."

"Don't let the boss know or he'll try to pay us that." Hollywood laughed.

Wally laughed too and then went on. "One day there was a fuck of a wind blowing, and this fuckin' Scotsman stops the thresher and asked ole gran'pappy "Where dae I take a shit?" and my granddad told him;
'First off, you do that in the morning before we come out so you don't fuck up the day. But since you didn't, you better go to the other side of the thresher there so it blocks the wind for ya.'"

Wally stopped to take a drag of his cigarette and I remembered how I used to hate smoking in the heat before I finally quit. He chased the drag with a shot of ice water, winced at the coolness of it, and continued.

"So this Scotsman goes around to the other side of the thresher and drops his coveralls and squats down. Well the other guys pushed a shovel under the thresher from the other side, right under this Scotsman's arse! When he finished taking his shit they pulled the shovel away and tossed it way off into the fuckin' field. Well that fucker stood up, looked down and didn't see any shit..." and here Wally was laughing so hard that he was coughing his cigarette back up. "that poor bastard looked under the thresher, and all around the ground, then started to tear off all of his clothes to see where the fuck it all went before the boys let him in on it. Jeezus did my Granddad like telling that story."

And that folks, is genuine Saskatchewan history