By: Jim Fitzpatrick

Email: jim@nunica.com

Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer.

Along Brandy Creek

By Jim Fitzpatrick

 

The Coopersville Observer  June 10, 2003 - - No. 12

"Oh yes," said Ed, "I can remember well the days when that new looking Model A truck would show up at Grandpa's place.  They came all the way from Chicago to his farm which was right there by the old cemetery on the river.  I was only eight or ten years old during those days of Prohibition, you know!"

 

The Polkton Farmer stood there in the shade of his neighbors yard, listening intently, as the man relived the story of his Dad and Grandfather from years past.  As the story went, Grandfather and Son worked the land together.  In addition to a variety of other crops, they grew a pretty good patch of potatoes each year in those days.  For some of those years, the two men were involved in a rather lucrative partnership with three brothers from just across and on the south side of Grand River.  Yep, the brothers made the "stuff" from corn on their own farm and bottled it up right there on the place.  The night before one of those fancy trucks was due to arrive from Chicago the three of them would haul a batch of it across the river to Grandpa's place.  It didn't take long to nestle a bottle or two into the bottom of each potato basket and then heap it up nice and full of spuds for the trip back to the big city.

 

So the income on Grandpa's farm was a little better than usual for time.  It gave Ed's dad a few extra bucks in his pocket too, now that he was raising a family and had his own place up along 96th Ave. - right there on the ground that Ed still lives on today and was telling this story.  The only trouble about the whole business came about when finally the three brothers got caught up with and had to go off and spend some "time" elsewhere.  Those boys connection with Dad and Grandpa's potato patch never did come to be known by the authorities.  It wasn't long before work and income went back to normal there on the farm.

 

Ed finished the story with a gleam in his eye.  The Plokton Farmer went along home trying to imagine just what it would have been like to have lived back in those times.

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