"Abrasha" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:


The following day, they would all go into the field to look for the lid.


Ah, a romantic life of simple pleasures. g Did they ever find the lid?

--
Ed Huntress



Yes they did. In fact, as the can in question was no longer suitable
for milk collection, they used the same can and lid every year for many
years.

Not to diminish the interesting story you related after that paragraph, but
I'm struck by the idea of the traditional Dutch "Blowing Up of the
Milkcans," in which you blow the lid off of one of those suckers with a big
charge of carbide. I imagine the milk cans being passed down from generation
to generation...everyone gets out their ancestral wooden shoes to prevent
sparks...the charge is laid while cherub-faced, cherry-cheeked Dutch boys
run laughing, clop, clop, clop...the charge goes off; the light from the
explosion reveals plowed fields, distant, contented cows in their barns, a
"mooo-oo" is heard from the distance...and the lid comes down somewhere with
a "clang." The boys prick up their ears, trying to determine where the lid
has landed, so that, tomorrow morning, before the adults are out of bed, the
boys are out combing the fields, playfully tossing cow pies at each other
while trying to be the first to find the milk can lid...a challenge for the
prize, unspecified, unknown to outsiders, mysterious...but motivation for
generations of cherubic Dutch boys who aspire to nothing so much as being
the First to Find the Lid...

Carry on. And Merry Christmas.

--
Ed Huntress