A THRESHING BEE

By Staff
Published on October 1, 1986

Crestline, California 92325

Upon our arrival in Vista we just sorta followed the crowd. We
ended up in a big field if you can believe that in California.

The people were all dressed real strangemen had on
things called ‘bibs’, and the women folk were wearing these
funny little hats, the front of which were shaped kind a like an
old covered wagon, and these bright little dresses that went from
their necks to their ankles. It was obvious right off these folks
weren’t from California.

I finally decided that these people were from some sort of
fraternal order of inventors and had brought their inventions to
one place to put on a display. Some of these inventions were really
quite crude; some were painted up real pretty, and all seemed to
work or do something.

To top all this, there were about six or eight men in their
‘bibs’ standing by two big pieces of what appeared to be
scrap iron, held together by a long leather belt. The one piece of
scrap iron kept belching black soot and making a lot of noise. All
the while six of the men tried to hide this pile of yellow weeds in
the one end of the second piece of scrap iron. Whatever the second
piece of scrap iron was, it apparently didn’t like the idea of
hiding all the yellow weeds inside because it just kept spitting
them out. Part of the yellow weeds came out a stack on the far end
of this ‘thing’, and the rest, if you can feature this,
came out of a chute on the side while two grown men wearing
”bibs’ tried to catch whatever it was in a big cloth
bag.

We finally saw a sign that said, ‘Old Time Threshing
Meet.’ Now to me, an old time thrashing meet is when the
homeboys from the north end of town run into the homeboys from the
south end of town and ‘thrash’ for ‘king of the
turf’. By contrast, these strange looking folks, wearing the
‘bibs’ and funny looking hats and long dresses were,
according to the sign, ‘threshing’ and appeared to be
getting along, actually enjoying what they were doing. How
strange!

In fact, we really enjoyed ourselvesso much so that we are
planning on going back in October.

The above description was submitted by Ben Wilson of Hastings,
Iowa, Hootman’s uncle. The museum is located at 2040 N. Santa
Fe Avenue in Vista.

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