NONFICTION
Clay
by Carroll D. Yoder
For an Iowa farm boy, clay never had a very good reputation. Clay lay beneath our famous topsoil, that thick, black rug curling over furrowed hills each spring. Clay surfaced on the crests of steep hills wounded by too much erosion. It was blamed when corn yields fell short of our expectations, for it lacked the permeability and humus of topsoil. Clay was a cowardly yellow or a dull red, turning slippery and sticky when wet or rock-hard when it dried. In literature it signified inferiority or transience as in "feet of clay."
Only by firing it in a kiln, thus hardening its basic character, did we transform it into a useful and beautiful product. Clay paid for my college education from 1958 to 1962 when I worked for my uncle, Roy Yoder. Each year from early March until December, his Buckeye tiling machine crisscrossed the fields of southeastern Iowa.
Early mornings were a torture but by 7:30 I had downed eggs and toast, grabbed my lunch pail and a quart of ice tea, greeted my uncle and the other worker. Then, wedged into middle of the '54 Ford pickup seat, my knees dodging the gear shift, I was on my way to some farm five to fifty miles away where we would find our tiling machine in the field of a farmer who had enlisted the help of his sons, a hired man, a neighbor or his wife and whose prayers called for accurate timing of the weather — dry until the tiling was finished, abundant showers after the corn was planted.
Standing on a platform behind the machine, a foot above the bottom of the ditch, I lowered a tile, usually four or five inches in diameter. The foot-long tile found its place at the bottom of the ditch every five to ten seconds. I welcomed those sun-charged days. My tile hook with its wooden handle, sweat slick and hard, aroused a vague sensual pleasure as I nudged tiles into place, turning and tapping them to compensate for slightly bowed backs. The pale Rockford tile were my favorite because they were lighter than the angry reds of other companies.
I loved the job for its comfortable monotony and the regularity of our progress. Nine feet a minute and in my mind I flirted with the thought of a country mile that day. Sometimes we cut through shallow lines of old three-inch tile, half filled with dirt, mute witnesses of hand digging at the end of another century. The thought of so much effort come to naught didn't bother us; our precision work would endure. I see Uncle Roy sighting across the red and white targets that were drawing us across the field; we were confident of our course, never doubted the meaning of our task. Our handiwork lay hidden underground and the long scars across the fields would disappear within a year, but record harvests would remind the farmer of our passing.
Now, my son, Eric, born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where limestone would break the heart and equipment of anyone who dared to drain a field of corn, has returned to clay. Instead of hiding it underground, he holds it in his hands until the clay accepts its destined shape. Then he allows it to dry, covers it with glaze, thrusts it into a kiln as hot as a Babylonian fiery furnace and finally takes out the object, still warm, to place it in public view, still clay, now transformed into a treasure.
I grew up on a Mennonite farm in the '40s and '50s, deprived of television, nurtured by books in a one-room school. I spoke Pennsylvania German before English, attended church at least twice a week, rode my bike on gravel roads, washed dishes, ironed clothes, cut grass, made hay, hauled manure, milked cows and did a thousand other jobs around the farm. I left the farm, happy to enter the academic world. Eric was raised on the edge of a college town, traveled often, spent three years in Africa, attended a city school, fell in love with motorcycles, played soccer, fished, hunted and went camping. As a teenager he said one day, "Dad, I wish you liked to do the same things I do." My father must have thought the same thirty years before.
I used to think that my son had moved miles from his rural roots, from his thirty-some great-great-great grandparents, all of them Amish, who came to Iowa from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 1850s and 60s. Now I watch him bent over his wheel, his hands playing with mud, and I realize that we both understand our origins as creatures of clay, open to the possibility of surprising change.
Carroll Yoder, an Iowa farm boy at heart, retired recently after teaching French and English at Eastern Mennonite University from 1971 to 2004. He also spent five years teaching overseas in Central Africa and Paris and led four student groups on semester programs to France and Ivory Coast. He now enjoys writing, gardening playing with his grandchildren and traveling.