My Tribute

Ed's note: This is the column that will publish in the Wednesday, Jan. 14 edition of the Piscataquis Observer. Since most of you don't read that, here's the free link.

‘You take care now’
By Josh Salm
Staff Writer
CLEVELAND, Wis. — That damn belt. You think John Deere would have created a better pulley system to attach a snow blower to the front of a small lawn tractor than this thing.
It was the Saturday after Christmas. My father and I went up to the Salm Family Christmas an hour early to help my aging, and ailing, grandfather get a new belt put on the lawnmower so he could clean the snow out of his small yard with it.
We were just up days earlier, putting the old, frayed belt back on the machine. It didn’t belong reattached. It was pretty much shredded, but it only had to make it a couple days until the new belt came down with Keith and LuAnn from the Riesterer and Schnell dealer.
We got the belt back on and Grandpa looked at the two of us and said, “Hey, listen, I’ve been having some chest pains lately and I want you two to know that the 60 is all yours.”
The 60. The John Deere 60. The first antique tractor the family got since the farm was shut down. There was something special about that tractor.
The Salm family is one that has a love for John Deere tractors. I think it started with Grandpa. He has a picture of all the old tractors he had on the farm. A 4430, 4440, 4250, 4020 gas that never ran right I don’t think, a 2520 and a 2440 with a loader that was the first tractor I learned to drive. We’re a green family I guess you could say.
That 60 has been my Dad’s pride and joy, because out of the four the family has it was the only one set up to take to the track at tractor pulls. I remember the day a few years back he won with it at the Rustic Iron antique show in Newton, not too far north from the old farm.
That 60 is a sweet little tractor.
….
For the first time in two days, the sanctuary in St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church was silent. The line of people that came to pay their respects had taken their seats – or in the case of some people, stood in the back – and bowed their heads as the robin’s egg blue casket was closed for the final time.
That was the first time I began to tear up a little bit, that moment the casket closed. Even though that casket had stood open for the past two days as the children and grandchildren walked past it during the visitations as they shook hands of the hundreds of people that came to pay their respects, when the top of the casket was brought down it hit me that this was actually going to happen.
The rest of the service was a blur. The father spoke about the loss and of Heaven. Mary Lou gave one heck of a eulogy, speaking about the man that we laid to rest that day. She made us laugh, made us cry and made us all remember the man for who he was.
The part that stuck out the most for me was the moment I would just stare out the window at the John Deere 70 my father and I parked out in front of the church. At times it was hard to make out the tractor through the snow that was falling.
It was strange – it seemed the skies had opened up during the service and mourned his loss too. The skies were been crying hard that day, but the cold January weather turned the teardrops to snowflakes by the time they hit the ground.
….
I knew the moment I saw the missed call on my cell phone something wasn’t right.
It was a call from my father. Most days, that’s a normal thing where the two of us end up talking about anything from the Green Bay Packers to soybean prices to hunting.
But the 6:40 a.m. phone call was not normal, considering it was an hour earlier back in Wisconsin and we didn’t normally talk until the late afternoons or early evenings. Never in the morning, at least not that early.
The missed call was coupled with a voice mail. For the first time in a long time, I dreaded hearing that steely woman’s voice in my voice mail tell me I had one new message. I pressed the small, black number 1 button on my thin, blue LG phone and waited for the sound of my dad’s voice.
He spoke very few words, but the tone of his voice said everything.
“Chief, this is Dad. When you get this message, call me. Talk to you later.”
….
The funeral director stood and called forward the pallbearers. Six grandchildren stood, one from a different son or daughter in the family. I was one of them, making my way through the chairs lined up in the sanctuary and toward the casket, the front of the line on the left side.
“Place your hands on the casket and just guide it along,” the director said.
The casket was cool to the touch. Maybe it had to do with my hands being all clammy. Maybe it had to do with the fact that this was the first time I was coming to terms with what was happening.
….
The phone call I got from my old man on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 6 was about my grandfather. He had a massive stroke the night before. Doctors said that morning there was a lot pressure built up in his brain and they didn’t think it looked good. The family was all there in Oshkosh in the waiting room, waiting to hear what the doctors had to say.
That was the report I got at 7 a.m. as I drove up Route 15 from Bangor to Dover-Foxcroft to attend a meeting of the Piscataquis County Commissioners and get our paper laid out. The rest of the drive from that moment on was a blur.
My phone has sat silent next to me for the rest of the day. I’d hit the volume button on the right side of the phone every 10 minutes or so to make sure no one had called. Nope, the LED screen on the front of the flip phone still showed the time and that unmistakable old-school Milwaukee Brewer Ball and Glove logo.
The hardest part of the next two days was waiting hundreds of miles away for some sort of news out of Oshkosh. I was too afraid to call back on my own. I didn’t want to be calling at a bad time.
….
The cemetery was cold, with a north wind pushing through dropping the temperature down even further. All six pallbearers stood on the opposite side of the casket as the family gathered to lay Francis Raymond Salm to rest. Atop the casket was a boutique of flowers. Fran’s 11 children received a red flower, and the grandchildren a white one.
I took my white flower and held on to it as my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmother said their last words to Grandpa Fran.
When it came to my turn, I placed my hand on the casket and just wept. It was the first time since Tuesday that I openly cried. I couldn’t help it.
After I said my final prayer for the old man, I placed my white flower in the vault and walked away. The grieving was over. Now came the time for healing.
….
The Salm household is full of old farming photos and John Deere memorabilia. There, on the picture frame where all the old John Deeres were displayed from his farming days, is a row of the four pictures from the Silver Dollar Days parade in Howards Grove last year. The first one is me on the 720, towing Frannie in his 420 on tracks in the trailer behind me. The second photo is my Grandpa driving the 70 with my dad right beside him, while John and his daughter Ally were on the 60.
That was a hot, muggy July morning after a long, festive party the night before. My body told me I didn’t want to be there, but my head told me I had to. It was a chance to drive the tractors again, and to spend some time with Grandpa.
I’m glad I went.
….
As I got set to take off for the night from Salm Christmas, I made the customary rounds of good-byes, hugs and handshakes. Grandma wished me a safe drive home and told me to be good. Grandpa had just a few short words for me, but the tone of the voice said a lot.
“You take care now.”
That’s what he said at the end of that night before we headed out. Those were his last words to me.
….
It was 10:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7. My friends pulled me out of the house and took me to the Riverfront Pub a few blocks away to put a beer in my hand and get my mind off my grandfather. At moments it worked.
My cell phone was set on vibrate. It would buzz once when it received text messages, something I received a lot of that night as friends and family gave their condolences. It was that fateful moment, 10:15 p.m., when the cell phone buzzed a second and third time. This was a phone call. I looked at the front screen.
“Incoming call. Dad.”
Grandpa had passed away that night, two days after suffering his stroke. He went peacefully, the way he wanted to go. Grandpa Salm was prepared for this day. He said so time and again. He was ready. The rest of us were not.
….
Following the funeral, the family went to Grandma Salm’s house to divvy up the flowers and food. The minute I walked through the door, I headed straight for the drawer Grandpa kept the playing cards and grabbed a deck, sat down and started shuffling. Grandpa loved to play Sheepshead, and I knew he’s be upset with us if we didn’t get a good game going that day.
We had to do it.
It’s what he would have wanted.