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The Tin Roof

On general principles I hate chickens. My impulse to hate chickens is a cosmic thing; cows poop nicely, chickens do not. Cow poop obeys gravity, least most of the time, chicken poop doesn’t. Cow, when it leaves the muzzle, heads directly for the ground where it lands with one of the most satisfying sounds known to nature.

I have never understood white noise. You know, that stuff recorded on CDs and cassettes and sold to people who can’t sleep. Waterfalls, rain in a forest, the wind among trees; white noise. They ought to try something more…rudimentary, cow poop, in particular the satisfying plop of cow as it lands. A durable noise it is, of something solid and reaffirming, of nature at work, the same as rain.

The problem with chicken poop is it didn’t plop, instead soon as it hit the ground immediately disassembles into tiny particles. As a result the atmosphere inside the standard chicken coop is 1 percent air, 99 percent poop and about as breathable as a hay bale, as explains why I hate chickens. Too late for revenge did I realize this admixture of airborne nitrate is about as volatile a combination known to exist this side of liquid hydrogen. The tiniest spark able to put a standard chicken coop into earth orbit.

As is the case of loathsomeness in general, the chicken coop had one all-forgiving delight, its asymmetrical roof whose north side was steeply inclined and coincidental with the highest grade galvanized crimp-edge roofing the farm could afford. An angle of roof just short of 45 degrees, in fact only 40 degrees but when combined with the slippery side of a pair of pants looked like 45 degrees. Kids of average intellect seeing this roof noted the point where the roof ended and the ground began was a long empty interval. One known without experiment to insult the human skeleton, that gap where the roof ended and the ground intervened. For some reason, maybe it was because we were farmkids in the first place, we didn’t comprehend this distance as anything particularly dangerous. Or if we did we thought to engineer a solution, besides, farmkids have a different kind of skeleton.

Then too, hay was in surplus. Was by hay we proved the distance between the ground and the chicken coop roof can be successfully negated. Assuming the hay is sufficient. We demonstrated this on numerous occasions in the haymow, when a leap that should have ended in sudden death was not death at all, not even smithereens, instead a short but intoxicating exposure to zero gravity. Neutral observers might note here the onset of a serious addiction. If not necessarily to street drugs, nevertheless an addiction to things that might by extension precipitate a life of disreputable association. Explaining why there is a surplus of farmers who don’t think they are having fun unless their ass is hanging out, that in turn explains dirt, grease, tractors, loud noises, skinny dipping, and agricultural surplus. The ghetto kid and farmkid share the same mental reference point as the wolf pup, and none are likely candidates for domestication.

The instrument we added to the smooth, shiny chicken coop roof was the common gunny sack. Like hay, we had a surplus of gunny sacks. Half the chores of the farm involved putting various feeds, grains and tubers into gunny sacks. The other half of the chores seemingly devoted to emptying those same gunny sacks. The word gunny is Hindu for burlap. Hindus believe in reincarnation. From the point of view of the gunny sack we already knew as much. It is also a point of interest to cite the common derivation of gunny sack and gunnery. The first practical device of fused ordinance was a standard road culvert primed with a sack of gun powder and pitch-blend on top of which was placed a missile. Later this mechanism was called a gun and not a culvert because of the gunny sack used to hold ingredients. To the purpose of a farmkid this is entirely appropriate, as we were about to launch ourselves off the trailing edge of the chicken coop aboard a gunny sack. A low quality missile contrived of crude ingredients still sufficient to serve delight that to others looked more dangerous than delightful but neither did it cost a dollar to try. Gravity requires no extension cord, nor a trip to Disneyworld. We did by this device learn the secret moral code of all farmers, how to survive a mean niche by doing what appeared to the average person as dangerous and just short of suicidal.

Children who want to advance their status as jet pilots and astronauts do not consult their mothers regarding the flight characteristics of a gunny sack. Mamas, it is my observation, lack the correct overview of the greater basic need for personal dismemberment. The plan then was to climb the ladder on the opposite side of the chicken shed. Cross over this shallow angle roof to the other kind, situate the gunny sack on the ridge row, place our hinnie on the same, grab the lip of the sack in our fingers and wiggle our hinnie sufficient to cause it to let go. With diligent practice it was possible to grab hold of the roof via the hinnie alone. Sadly farmkids are among the few individuals in the world equipped with this attribute. The ability to hang on with your hinnie, and I might add a better use for this over-size muscle than it is routinely put. As it turns out this experience also benefits the continued existence of those who go on to agricultural careers. Equipped as they are with a main muscle group trained to hang on, despite it doesn’t look like that articulate an apparatus.

The down side of riding a gunny sack off the quick side of the chicken coop roof was that the entire exotic thrill had to be conducted in absolute discretion. Not one sound of jubilation was permitted lest the mother animal hear us jubilating and on that principle alone come looking for the cause. A different kind of critter is that brought to delight by the soaring of a gunny sack on the tin roof, whose exceeding exaltation must be accomplished without notice. From this fathomless depth evolves the exact requirement necessary for a quality poker player, in the alternate case a sniper or one of the higher grades of corrupt politician. Richard Nixon might have retired quietly to his Presidential library had his staff included a farmboy who had once or twice a week been shot off a fast tin roof holding to a gunny sack and learn to utter no sound despite the zeal. Which in adult life translates as either state’s evidence or an autobiography. A strange kind of person is this. Who like as not will end up in the same exuberant career of their fathers but are hesitant to make a noise lest the authorities come to investigate.

 

Justin Isherwood is an award-winning writer, a Wisconsin farmer, humorist, author and contributor to numerous collections and publications including:  Badger CommonTater, Isthmus, and Newsday. He is an essayist for the radio program, BookMarks & Art, airing on a CBS affiliate in central Wisconsin. His books include:  Christmas Stones & the Story Chair, Book of Plough, and most recently, Farm Kid.