I have very few things from my folk's house. They didn't have much. There were five children so there wasn't a lot to go around. My two prized possessions are: A double-barrel shotgun from my dad, and a dinner bell from my mother's daddy's farm. Neither of these have great monetary value. That makes no difference to me.
Saturday afternoon the old bell acted up. Emily reached to give it a ring and it came tumbling down, barely missing her. A bolt that could easily be a hundred or more years old has rusted through. I made some repairs and it is hanging once again, but not the same with a stainless steel bolt running through it's heart.
I barely remember as a little boy answering that dinner bell as we kids were following a mule as it plowed up Irish potatoes. We followed along behind with metal baskets picking up the taters. When a bucket filled we took it to a machine that culled the taters by size. We would receive a cardboard "coin". At the end of the day we turned in our cardboard for real money. Not much, but more than we had when we started. It spelled an RC cola and a candy bar for sure. Maybe two! It was fun to crawl along in that cool, newly-plowed earth grabbing those taters. Ever so often there would be an unwelcome guest lying in a potato vine. The sound of the dinner bell was a welcome sound. There was always a generous serving of food for the "hands", mainly kinfolks of my Uncle Charlie. He was the farmer. My grandfather died one month before I was born.
The sound of this old farm bell is a plain one, but it is a beautiful one-note melody that takes me back in time to being a freckle-faced, barefooted boy living a simple life with very few earthly possessions. One of those possessions was knowing where the blue hole was on a nearby creek. A dip in there was better than a bath any summer day. Bong!
