When I take time off for “A Glorious Preview of Retirement,” it usually takes at least 3 days for me to “unwind.” This is because, as I put it, “I’m wired for 110 volts in a 220 volt world and I work around a 440 volt! ”  (At least that’s my “current” saying, which I think is “amp”le enough without con”fuse”ing anyone). Since I took off a Friday and Monday, I felt relatively upbeat by Monday from my long weekend. I went out to help Tim mix cattle feed in his swell used power take off feed grinder and mixer. While listening to the corn fly around in the mixing chamber, we both commented on how much the sound was like that we heard as kids at Shinrock Elevator.  Going with our father “to get feed ground” at Shinrock was another “high point” in our young lives. The first step was to shovel the ear corn from the crib into the old Dodge truck, then go up to “The Schoolhouse” to bag oats. Tim and/or me would hold the burlap bags open while our Father would fill them by shoveling from the oat bin. We still recall the “Bringggg “ sound the aluminum shovel made as the oats fell from the shovel into the open burlap bag. The same shovels are still made today, but they don’t make the same sound they did when we were kids. We learned to hold the bags open just the right way. After filling several bags with oats, they were loaded on the back of the Dodge truck. Since they weren’t tied closed, they always fell over and spilled oats on top of the ear corn. Even then, I never understood why we went to all the trouble to bag them since they would be poured with the ear corn into the big pit with the shiny auger at Shinrock Elevator. The only reason I can come up with was that it was a way to somewhat measure the amount of oats in relation to the amount of corn. In fact, the more I think about it, this likely was the reason, in order to get the proper ratio for the feed mixture. Hmmmm, to think I wasted all that time in my “kid years” wondering about this!  Yeah, I know, I COULD have asked then!  Then again, the reason we didn’t ask was no doubt due to the fact that we were fully concentrating on “holding the bag right”! Our father had very little patience with most (i.e. EVERY) one and thing!  After the proper amount of bags were filled, we then hopped into the old Dodge truck and headed for Shinrock! When we got there, we sometimes had to wait in a long line consisting of various farm trucks and tractors and wagons full of grain or corn and oats. The great thing about this was, especially during harvest season, that we would get out of the truck and go to the little tavern that was right across the road from the elevator. We would sit in there and guzzle “Nehi” or “Mission” orange pop while our father or Uncle Ned swilled “Black Label” and/or “Old Dutch” beer. Occasionally, they would look out the window, and if the gap ahead of our truck were too wide, they would go out and move ahead in line. Once and a while some “Good Samaritan” farmer would move the vehicles up in line, unless THEY were with us in the little tavern too. When our turn came to dump our grain, the vehicle’s front wheels were driven onto a steel-barred slightly trapezoidal platform. It was then lifted a foot or so up and the “elevator guy” (usually Jake) would stand by a big red button and direct you either forward or backward to get the rear of the truck right over the round-barred wide-spaced bevel-sided pit. Dad would then get out of the truck and we would dump the burlap bags full of oats into the pit. Then Jake would hit the big red button again and the cabled platform would move up and the truck would end up at about a 45-degree angle, thus dumping all the contents. All of us would then take shovels, brooms, and sweep all the grain that spilled over on the floor into the pit. All during the times we were in the mill, the loud sounds of grinding, machinery, and blowers were omnipresent. You could also feel the vibration in your feet throughout the whole building too. The ground feed would be bagged in more burlap feed bags at the base of the big inverted cone. The cone was yellow and had metal sign with “Bumblebee” in black letters with a drawing of a bumblebee below it. It also had an oblong glass viewing area. We used to stand and watch, as the feed would slowly move past the glass as the cone filled up. After we arrived back home after all this fun, we would ask, “When are you going to get ‘feed ground’ again”?