Ozone-degraded nostalgia

Sunday, October 12, 8:33 AM

My back is sore as hell; I walked like a little old lady to the bathroom this morning. I knew this would happen and yet I don’t mind. It comes with the territory. It’s not because I’m getting older (though it's surely a factor). It’s because I spent the better part of yesterday at the Holm farm in Big Lake, MN, where my in-laws live.

Saturday, October 11, 7:52 AM

We pull into the dirt driveway; the sun is up and at ‘em, effectively blinding eastbound traffic on county road 4. I’m sipping my Holiday-brand French vanilla cappuccino; it’s the first warm coffee-like drink I’ve bought all year, and at under $1.50, it’s a bargain. I’ve got all the gear I need; old gloves, a hat, a scarf, and layers of clothing. I haven’t done this in a while, and by this I mean hard, manual labor in 27-degree weather. Yep, I’m kind of a weenie; I may hold three different jobs, but all of them are inside and involve and desk and a chair. I don’t get to roll up my sleeves all that often and do real man’s work. But today I’m helping my father-in-law Doug (along with the help of my brother-in-law Wes) tackle the arduous task of chopping up a shitload of tree logs. After all, winter is coming.

my father-in-law Doug Holm

I brought my wife, Tate, with too. She’ll stay inside and keep her mother, Val, company. At this point she is still very much pregnant, and I discourage any manual labor she attempts, including whining (just kidding, honey). Me and the guys mosey outside and head out back behind the barn. The structure blocks the sun for the better part of the morning. What at first feels too cold eventually becomes optimal working weather; you don’t sweat too much, and the legions of mosquitoes have already fallen victim to Mother Nature’s changing of the guard.

To help us with our work is a heavy duty pickup truck with a dumper box in place of the regular, stationary bed. We’ve also got a diesel-powered Bobcat to aid in our efforts. There are two chainsaws, but one isn’t functioning, and it’s the new one (go figure). The heart of the operation is definitely the trusty, gas-powered, hydraulic-utilizing log splitter. It’s old; if it were a person it’d be old enough to earn a driver’s license. And it’s already had one heart transplant (the engine was replaced a few years back). But it still works; it works damn well, in fact.

Doug's trust ol' one-ton pickup

All around us are piles of wood; big piles. There’s still lots of work to do. Big fat trunks need to be sliced up with the chain saw then moved over to the splitter to be incrementally chopped up so as to fit into the wood stove that helps heat the Holm residence. It’s tedious, not to mention tough. Some of these chunks are quite heavy; some even require two men to move. But the single-minded nature of the work brings a certain pleasure to the experience; you know what you have to do and you know how much there is to do. As the hours pass and the fruits of our labor become more evident, continuing not only seems logical but preferable. Why stop now when we can get more done!

The log splitter rarely meets a tree limb it can’t muscle through; the put-put-put of its small engine providing the backing soundtrack to our work, kinda like the rhythm guitar. The lead guitar then would definitely be the chainsaw. Much louder, it draws attention as it eats through the trees, spitting sawdust every which way. Its exhaust is seemingly more prevalent as well. And when I catch a whiff it floods me with that small-engine nostalgia that could only come from the kind of pollution generated by internal combustion engines. It makes me think of the snowmobile we had growing up. Funny how the smell of deadly exhaust fumes can be so intoxicating. OK, intoxicating may be a bit too romantic a word for this subject. Let’s go with alluring. Satisfied?

my work buddy, the log splitter

Between Doug, Wes, and me, I think we made a pretty good team. And before we knew it, it was lunch time. Hooray! After debating on whether or not to invade the pizza that Tate had picked up from the local Pizza Pub, we decided to take our fiendish hunger elsewhere. The three of us hopped into Doug’s bright red Silverado pickup and headed into nearby Zimmerman to dine at Papa’s Italian. I love Doug’s new truck; it’s big and cushy, and comfortable even in the back seat. And when it starts the 5.3Litre V8 kicks out a guttural grumble thanks to aftermarket dual exhaust. It’s enough to remind you of its power, but never gets annoying, like the pipes on those trucks with bumper stickers that read “loud pipes save lives”. Codswallop; loud pipes only tick people off, even motor heads like me. Chest-pounding males have struggled with their own various inadequacies for centuries, millennia, even. And the automobile has often served as their manifested Napoleon complex. But that’s another blog…a long blog.

Doug's 2010 Chevy Silverado

At Papa’s Italian, Wes and I order calzones, and Doug orders lasagna. And damnit if they didn't have the best tasting fountain Mello Yellow I’ve had in a long time. That alone was worth the trip. We talk about this and that, and frequently about the automobile. On the ride back to the house we see a 1967 Chevy Impala.

Doug's toys: '49 Chevy Pickup, '79 One-ton, 2010 Silverado

Despite each of us stuffing ourselves at lunch, our work ethic appears intact. Besides, there’s only about another hour of work left for the day. The last sixty minutes comes and goes quickly, and by the time we’re finished we’ve chopped a mountain of split wood; we even split enough wood to get casa de Holm through an entire winter.

roughly half of our finished wood pile

But as the work stops, the tire of our toil sets in. I ask Tate to drive, but she doesn’t want to. It’s OK; I’ve got just enough juice in me to get us home without dozing off. I’m fully prepared to pass out in bed for the next two hours as we walk through our doorway, but Tate politely asks me to rid myself of the working man’s perfume: A petrol-burning mix of diesel and gas-fueled exhaust. A shower is in order.

The future may consist of the images we see in the movies, where cars silently roll around, powered by batteries instead of internal-combustion engines. Where the gardeners use lasers to whip weeds and Bobcats are replaced by hover-dollies. Whatever our bright future holds for us, if it’s without gasoline and the various engines it powers, it just won’t be the same. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, or maybe you’ve never taken a whiff of snowmobile exhaust; and if so, that’s your loss.