In the good old days, we used to learn by watching

No book, no blackboard, just grease, tools and a man waiting for a boy, to figure out what a half-inch wrench looked like

Article content You know, folks today figure if you want to learn something, you go to school, find a book, watch a video, or ask somebody to explain it step by step. Now, thinking back to my younger years growing up on the farm, most of my learning never came from any of them. Recommended Videos

So how did I get my learning? Well basically it all boiled down to this. I asked a lot of questions, which ... were hardly ever answered.

The real learning came from watching. For the most part Reg and Laura, the folks who raised me, and my old Dad later on, never made a lesson out of anything. They would just say, “Get your boots on, George, we got work to do.”

And, well ... I followed along. I remember one hot summer’s day our old tractor wouldn’t start.

Dad stood there lifting his cap off his head, wiping the sweat from his brow, saying, “Figures, just when I want to get things done up early.” With that, he said, “George, hand me that half-inch wrench from the tool box.” Which I did.

He took it, looked at it, and said, “Nope, not that one.” So back to the tool box I went. No book, no blackboard, just grease, tools and a man waiting for a boy, to figure out what a half-inch wrench looked like.

The barn taught me too, as I learned real quick which cow might kick ya, just by watching how she stood, and the same went for the rest of our critters, as if one weren’t feeling well, you could see it in the way they held their head, or how they stood off by themselves, or not coming to feed with the rest. Weather was a great teacher too. Many a day Reg and Laura would look up at the sky in a way I never understood at first.

Then they would look toward the bush, smell the air, and say, “Well, best we get things done, storm moving in around noon. The thing was, the sun might be shining nice and bright, but they knew a change was coming. Cows lying down meant something, and a ring around the moon meant we would be talking weather before morning.

They never needed a person on the radio to tell them what the sky was already telling them. Hay taught me plenty too, as lots of times I watched Reg grab a handful, twist it, smell it and see if it would snap or bend. Too damp, you left it.

Dry enough, well, that meant we had better put our hats on and get to work. Even the house had lessons to tell. You pulled your pockets out before wash day, or Laura would find nails, hayseed, oats, washers, and maybe a bit of baler twine rattling around in the machine.

You turned socks inside out, you hung clothes on the line in winter and brought them in stiff as boards. I also learned what barn clothes were, what town clothes were and you did not mix the two unless you wanted to hear about it. Oh, I could go on here forever, but the message I wanted to share is this.

I learned more by watching hands than I ever learned by listening to mouths. Dad’s hands on a tractor. Laura’s hands over a washtub.

Reg’s hands testing hay. An old neighbor’s hands tying a gate with binder twine in a way that held for years. Nobody called it education, but well ... it was.

Makes me wonder sometimes if we learned more back then because folks didn’t hand us the answers, before we had a chance to figure some of it out ourselves In closing I would like to wish you well. You can reach George Walters at: stories@keepingnotes.com.