Witness Of Combines [Paperback]

Kent Meyers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wind, weeds and worries are the lot of the small farmer, and this memoir of a Minnesota childhood doesn't glamorize the details. Meyers baled hay, pitched silage, welded machinery, fed cattle, cleaned chicken coops, shoveled oats, and thought that a town kid who could claim to have as many chores as a farm kid was, in playground parlance, a Retard. Meyers, now (safely?) a writing teacher at Black Hills State University and author of The River Warren, was one of nine children of overworked parents. His mother, who had lost a lung to TB, canned hundreds of quarts of her own produce every year, and outlived his father, who died when Meyers was 16. These essays pay tribute to his parents' diligence, honesty, and selflessness. They also affirm the compensation of farm life?neighborhood solidarity in the face of calamity, children and parents getting to know one another as they work side by side, and the intimate connection to the physical world. Fortunately, his own material breathes life into these oft-exalted themes. He writes tenderly of the fleeting beauty of baby chicks, wryly of getting stuck in a snowdrift or of hurrying to sweep flies off the porch just before company arrived. The generally earnest tone may not win everyone over, but unhurried browsers should find healthy pickings in this little garden.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Meyer here reminisces about growing up on a 200-acre farm in the southern Minnesota prairie during the 1960s and 1970s, depicting a youth filled with curiosity and fascination about his world. He describes his experiences with prairie geography, planting, harvesting, machinery, livestock, chickens, plowing, floods, snow, flies, birds, silage, the values of hard work, home life, and the joys and disappointments of those years. He was 16 when his father died, leaving him to run the farm, along with his mother and eight siblings. But his father looms large in his stories as a mentor and teacher who shaped his love of farming and his attitudes toward nature and people. One can sense his sadness when the farm is sold and when he revisits the dilapidated site some years later under the new owner, who does not farm. Meyers is an author and writing teacher whose storytelling skills will captivate all readers as he recollects farming and rural life in Minnesota. Recommended for agriculture and rural sociology collections.?Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Lib., New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press; 1 edition (August 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816631050
• ISBN-13: 978-0816631056
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kent could be my brother, November 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Witness Of Combines (Paperback)

A friend of mine recommended this book. I grew up on a farm in central Nebraska. When I finished reading this book, I called my mom and asked her if I had a brother named Kent that she never told me about. I started reading her excerpts from the book and we were both astounded by how closely it matched our own lives on the farm in Nebraska, including the blue-speckled canning pot and pressure cooker sitting on the stove all summer! I found particular delight in the essay on the work of "town kids" vs. "farm kids." I look back at all we did, but it never seemed like work. It was just our life, one I wouldn't trade for anything. Like the author, I've been through my father's death, the sale of the farm, and in the next few weeks my mother will be moving off the farm and into town. Loved this book!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for farm boys & farmboy wannabees., September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Witness Of Combines (Paperback)

If you, like me, grew up on a "real" farm in the Upper Midwest, this book will take you back to the sights, sounds, smells and memories of your childhood. You'll smile, nod your head in agreement, and sometimes even cry. You'll read paragraphs aloud to your wife who did not grow up on farm, and she'll say "that's nice" but not quite get it. If you did not grow up on a farm, and would like a better understanding of farm boys, this is a must read. I'll read it again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly captures the disappearing Midwestern farm life., April 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Witness Of Combines (Paperback)

_A Witness of Combines_ was difficult for me to read. Kent Meyers so perfectly captures what it was like for me to grow up on a north central Iowa farm, that it feels like he was one of the neighbors. The final chapter about returning home is unbearably vivid. I, too, am off the farm because of governmental policies and their effects on farming. If you want to know what it was like, and why we ought to try to preserve it, read this book.

If I ever write this well, I shall be well-pleased.