Versatile Tractor

Yesterday when I came home from a meeting with some of the teachers at the high school, a semi with a long flat-bed trailer was parked near the machinery shed. Behind it was a mammoth tractor with four huge tires leaning against a nearby fence post--the second half of the duals that were already partially in place. It was Lowell's "new" tractor.

"You got your new tractor!" I called out.

"Should've bought a whole load of them," my dad added, from where he was standing surveying the beast.

"Why?"

"Because it was cheap," Dad said.

"Now don't go telling people how much I paid for it," Lowell added quickly.

"Why do you care?" I asked.

"How much debt do you have?" Lowell responded.

"I don't know."

"How much money do you have in savings?" he continued.

"I don't know."

"Some of us don't care to have our financial affairs public knowledge" he went on.

"That's obviously how you feel about it."

"All those hours on the internet on your computer paid off, and I got this tractor from an auction in South Dakota."

I went on into the house, remembering this earlier conversation about my brothers and their tight-lipped-ness on money matters.

I think it's a silly game lots of Mennonites play--having a lot more to do with false Anabaptist humility or maybe the American independence ethos than allowing others to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep.