Anne said, "Back then,
when we were still Williams Brothers,
everything was done by intuition."

Now it is all computers and numbers.

In those days, Roscoe would open
roll-stands and grab handfuls
of flour, "It's a little dry boys,
better run more water on the wheat."

On days like today, 53 degrees,
early June rain, Roscoe squeezed
flour. If it balled-up,
"Back the water off the wheat, boys."

Roscoe was born youngest of ten
early in 1900. Anne said,
"One day his father got onto a train
to look for a job in Akron
and never came back."

Roscoe

squeezed, ground, blew,
packed, stacked, sifted, lifted
and loaded flour for 55 years.

Towered on wheat bins,
alpenglow in Kent, Ohio.

The Blind Man's Rainbow, Volume IX, Issue I (Autumn 2003)