Children as spy's

Ever since the Internet became popular, it's been common to hear that intimate details of our lives somehow end up on the web browsers of potential employers doing background checks. Now we have the over looming fear that our children, whose blogposts and instant messages may be a source of potentially incriminating information about our personal lives. Police have arrested a woman, using her son's cached record that is kept online about his mother buying him and his underage friends a keg of beer. Perhaps instead of blaming the ISP's for getting caught, perhaps these people should take a look at themselves first and foremost, since it was their own inappropriate behaviors that actually got them in trouble. Or perhaps you are in the camp that sees this kind of snooping as Totalitarian big brother type of a regiment. Do government officials really have the right to use any information gleaned form a child's work? Ethically , no. Legally, that is still up for debate. As long as the tax payers are content to just sit back and let theses things happen to them , then they will continue as long as we let them. Another solution is to not let your children anywhere near the Internet. Or encryption maybe the key. Anonymity can also help. Teach your children that we have to watch over our shoulder because the government is their enemy. You pick which side you want to be on. Remember, Uncle Sam is watching you.

The Old Milkhouse

The old milk house

 

Growing up on the farm, I had firsthand knowledge of the food chain and how we all had our place in it. Everything was grown or raised for a purpose, and that purpose was feeding us. From the stalls of their birth, to the end of their life in the old milk house that served as our butcher shed, all of the chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs would eventually end up on the table as a meal for us. That was the reality of life on the farm.

My grandfather was an enigma to me. He was a strong man, larger than life. He was a man of few words and even fewer compliments. Every fall, around the beginning of October, he would take the choice livestock to the old milk house where they would end their days and become our winter sustenance. Entering that building with my grandfather was a milestone for me. That would be the day that I would leave my childhood behind and take the first steps towards manhood. That day finally came in the fall of 1981.

At fourteen years old, I was in the crux of life that bordered on childhood and adolescence. Toys still littered the floor of my bedroom: matchbox cars, plastic army men, Star Wars action figures. In contrast, I also had Farah Fawcett, in two-dimensional life-size beauty, on the wall directly in front of my bed. It was her solemn duty to witness the transformation of Chucky into Charles. In silence, she watched as I crawled out of bed for the last time of my life as a child. Today was the day that I would be joining grandpa in the old milk house. Today would forever change my life.

In silence, we ate breakfast. My grandfather sat at the head of the table and ate his normal morning meal that my grandmother had prepared before I awoke. It was the same thing I had, three fried eggs with several pieces of crispy bacon. The only difference between our meals was the coffee in his cup and the milk in mine. Shoveling the last egg into his mouth, my grandfather rose from the table and gave me a look as if to say "Its time". He then went into the pantry and grabbed his stained baseball hat and with one motion set it on his head, opened the door, and exited the house. I had been hunting several times before and had shot my share of deer, rabbits, ducks, and squirrels. I was even a budding trapper, as the skins that adorned one wall of the cow barn could attest. I prided myself on the fact that I could make enough money selling fox and beaver skins to buy my own school clothes and I had even been able to purchase a Honda dirt bike, which I diligently took care of. Today I would not be killing a nameless wild animal; I would be killing a friend.

My grandfather always discouraged the naming of the livestock. He said it humanized them, made them pet's instead of food. However, I secretly had names for most of cows, and all of the pigs. Bumpy was more than a pig though. He was always following me around. When he was a piglet, he would nuzzle me and fall asleep in my arms. He would even come out to the bus stop and meet me after school. The thought that I would be eating him one morning never really dawned on me. Today it was Bumpy's turn to go into the old milk house, and today was the day I followed grandpa.

Grandpa met me outside and motioned for me to go in the milk house. He was going to get Bumpy from the barn, which was a short distance from the house, and meet me inside. The inside was typical to any other building on the farm, plain boarded with rough-cut hemlock. Various cutting and sawing tools adorned the wall. A waist high table, about eight feet in length and solid as a tree, was the centerpiece of the only room. And in the far corner was the hammer. The hammer was longer than my arm, and at the business end was a 16-pound piece of solid iron that would crush anything it impacted. Its job today was to crush Bumpy's skull. Tentatively I grabbed the worn handle and grunted from the unexpected effort it took just to lift it. At 14, my muscles were quite developed from the rigorous work of farm life, but this was a heavier burden than just physical weight. The very thought of what I was about to do exhausted me. The familiar snorting of Bumpy preceded the opening of the shed door as my grandfather stepped inside and was followed by the noisy pig. The morning light illuminated the spartan room as my grandfather took a pair of iron shackles off the wall and fastened them around Bumpy's rear legs. He then attached one end of a small chain to the shackles and the other to a waiting hook suspended from a pulley high above our heads from the rafters. Oblivious to his fate, Bumpy stood still and sniffed at the air, as my grandfather motioned for me to get the hammer. "Make sure you hit him hard enough to knock him out." My grandfather said softly to me. I conjured up an image in my head, one of me outside with an axe and a stubborn piece of firewood, and lifted the heavy hammer as high above me as I could. I found myself standing on my tiptoes as I stretched upwards. Down came the crushing blow, as I grunted from the effort, and made a resounding thud as the 16 pounds of iron met the thick dense bone that comprised a pig's skull. The pig immediately crumpled and sank to the floor. I felt the beginnings of tears as I looked down at my friend laying in that unnatural pose

Surprisingly, there was no blood. The only indication that something was amiss was the pigs tongue was hanging out of his mouth. Grandpa bent to examine Bumpy, and satisfied that he was completely out cold, rose and hoisted the unconscious pig up by the rope that hung down from the pulley. After a few tugs the pig's head was at waist, heighth and grandpa tied the rope to another hook that protruded from the wall. Now was the hard part. I had to cut the main artery in the pig's neck. This was done so that most of the blood would drain out of the muscle tissue, making the meat fit to eat. Choking back tears, I picked up the 8-inch machete and swallowed hard as I pressed the sharp edge against the tough skin of the pig's throat.

What happened next has replayed in my mind over and over again and has awakened me several times from a sound sleep over the course of my life. Bumpy regained consciousness mid cut and screamed. The sound of a pig in distress has many times and by many people been described as a woman's scream. That day in the milk house, I heard Bumpy scream. The scream was followed by the death throes of the pig, as he trashed about, suspended from the rafters. Blood sprayed out in a crimson rain, and soaked me from head to foot. A hoof had somehow found my head and knocked me onto the floor. It was as if Bumpy was getting even for the betrayal. Dazed, I sat there on the blood soaked floor of the old milk house as grandpa skillfully took over the job and mercifully finished Bumpy off. I felt the need to throw up, but I held it back as much as I held back the tears that inevitably came to my eyes. Without so much as a word grandpa let bumpy down onto the table, his lifeless body no longer an animal that I had fed and played with, but a pile of meat that needed to be cut into hams, bacon, and steaks . My job was done. I did not have the skill required to process the pig into the various pieces of meat, so I left my grandfather there alone and went into the house to clean myself up. My grandma looked up briefly from the breakfast dishes that she was washing and gave me a knowing look.

That day my innocence was gone. That day I had murdered my friend. In the following weeks, my matchbox cars and army men slowly vanished and were replaced by tools and clothes meant for work not play. Only Farah remained, silent in her smile. She would never again look down and see a child.