Y
es, I was that nerd in the fifth
grade. When the teacher as-
signed an essay reporting on
What I did on my summer vaca-
tion, my fellow students groaned – and
I did a happy little twirl. As
the proud owner of a Kodak
Instamatic (complete with
those little square flash-
cubes), I even had photos to
accompany the report.
Decades later, little has
changed (other than the
technology). I’m still report-
ing on what I saw this sum-
mer. The season started with
a jaunt to Lubbock, Texas,
to take in the Windmiller’s Trade Fair,
held this year at the American Wind-
mill Museum. The museum speaks el-
oquently about the role of wind pow-
er in development of the west. It’s an
unbelievable collection, a beautifully
conceived display, and the staffers are
so friendly you may suspect they’re on
the chamber of commerce payroll. If
you haven’t been, go. There’s nothing
like it anywhere else.
Museum exhibits focus on every-
thing from windmills to weights, tur-
bines to trains, millstones to memo-
rabilia. Visitors play an active role.
Old-timers’ recollections, preserved in
the occasional display, capture the es-
sence of a time now long past:Two men who lived next door to each
other were feuding. The feud started be-
cause one of the men, Mr. Barker, had a
squeaky windmill and would not oil it, and
it bothered Mr. Whitt’s family at night.
Mr. Whitt awoke one morn-
ing to see Mr. Barker climbing
his windmill tower. Mr. Whitt
got his shotgun and, after Mr.
Barker stepped to the next step
of the ladder, Mr. Whitt would
shoot off the step he’d just left.
Mr. Barker got to the top of the
tower and turned around and
yelled, “What are you trying to
do, kill me?”
“Nope,” Mr. Whitt replied.
“Just gonna leave you up there until you oil
that windmill.”
More about my summer later. In the
meantime, where’d your summer trav-
els take you? What interesting things
did you see? Let us hear from you:
We’d love to read your report! FC2 November 2018 Farm CollectorFirst Things
Memories Of A Former Kid®
Leslie C. McManus
[email protected]What I did this summer, Vol. 1
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Farm Collector ISSN 1522-3523 November 2018,
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