Dad's Lunch Bucket

Some folks may call it a lunch pail, a lunch box, but my dad always called it his lunch bucket.  He carried it everyday along with a thermos of hot coffee to work at the Sintering Plant in Saxonburg, PA.  For many years of cold winter mornings and hot summer days, the lunch bucket would make it's trip to Saxonburg from Meridian.  When we moved to the farm, the commute was longer and there were barn chores to do when he got home.  We all chipped in, of course.  Since my dad worked shifts, the three of us siblings would do the afternoon chores...bottle feeding the new calves, throwing down hay bales and making sure the water hadn't frozen over and the electric fence was on.  The several times the cows broke out, my dad was always working midnight.  He would come home to a worn out family who had been chasing cows all over kingdom come, laugh and go to check the fence and head for bed.

He did the majority of the work around the farm.  He worked two jobs and really loved the farm work best of all.  I believe it helped him relieve the stress of working at the mill.  The farm gave me the opportunity to watch and learn.  To work along side of him burning calves horns, mending fences, cleaning out the barn, working the top of the hay mow in July, and helping in the garden.

After years of constant use, the clasp on the lunch bucket broke, there was certainly no need to get a new one.  A big ole paper clip would fix it.  It would work until he retired.

When my mom was moving, I claimed the lunch bucket.   This is just one way we keep dad in our thoughts at Christmas.

All-wise God,
Thy never-failing providence orders every event.
   sweetens every fear,
   reveals evil's presence lurking in seeming good,
   brings real good out of seeming evil,
   makes unsatisfactory what I set my heart upon,
   to show me what a short-sighted creature I am,
   and to teach me to live by faith upon thy blessed self.

--a portion from Peril, from The Valley of Vision