Last week our gravel road finally lost its coating of ice. Water drained across the country lane, finding its way toward the far-off Mississippi River drainage system. After the water left our roadway, a series of bone-jarring potholes appeared, as if by magic. I could hear my neighbor's pickup truck coming a quarter of a mile away. My teeth rattled on my way to work last Thursday morning. It was time to bring my "drag" out from the backwoods.

For those not informed on what kind of drag I'm talking about, well, it does not involve inhaling smoke of any kind. The drag I used on my road and the one I used on the farm sometimes is called a harrow. It's used to bust dirt clods and smooth a field before and after planting a crop. Not many farmers use drags anymore. They try their best to limit their time in a field to a minimum. They chisel, plant, fertilize and cover the field all in one trip. What were once individual tasks, now have become one, and the giant tractors pulling the equipment used today dwarf anything I grew up with.

Plowing a field with a two- or three-bottom plow was a monotonous task. Pulling two 16-inch plows around a field gave you 32 inches each round. When you looked back from the tractor seat at the overturned soil, it seemed as if you would never finish even a 20-acre field. Three-bottom plows were faster, but not by much. It took forever to plow a field.

After plowing we would disc the field to begin the process of busting rough plowing into manageable-sized dirt clods. Discing was a little better than plowing, but it could be rather rough sitting in the tractor's seat. Remember, these were the days of the steel seat, not the air cushioned ride that manufacturers brag about today. Discing was dirty business, too. One couldn't go too fast because of the rough ride. It seemed as if you were always eating a cloud of dust.

After plowing and discing were finished, it was my time to celebrate. The day my dad would tell me to go hook up the "drag" was much anticipated. We had a four-section drag. It would cover approximately 20 feet at a time, super-size swath compared to that two bottom plow. When you looked back at the ground you were covering with the drag, you felt as though you were really accomplishing something. You could see where you had been, and 20 acres could be covered in a short time.

We had an old "B" model John Deere with a high speed transmission. This tractor wasn't good for much except pulling empty wagons and "dragging." Its high rear tires gave one a commanding view of the drag being towed behind. More than once I was warned not to turn too sharply at the end of the field, lest I catch the drag's tow lines in the rear tire and bring the drag crashing up, over and down on me, the driver. It never happened, but it did lend a little added excitement to this high speed farm task.

I would pull back on the throttle of the John Deere as I neared the end of the field, push down with my farm boot on one of the brakes, spin like a ballerina, straighten out the drag, hit the throttle wide open and be off like a cat shot out of a cannon toward the far end of the field. Wind whistled through my hair, striped gophers scurried out of my way, I left a trail of dust far behind where it would choke me like it did while discing, and the little "B" popped merrily along, like it knew that it was made for this job and not many others.

As I was dragging our road the other day, a memory of dragging those fields, getting ready for corn planting, smelling the fresh spring air and knowing that I would be done in time to head into town and meet my friends, came flooding back. Even though last Thursday I was on a little 8N Ford tractor dragging a bedspring with four cement blocks on top to hold the spring on the ground, the chore of dragging didn't seem so much a chore.

We now have a moderately level gravel road, fewer chuck holes and an older farm kid who got his spring "dragging" thrill.

See you next time. Okay?