Don’t Leave Your Endgate Up

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Brett from Arcadia, Indiana.

Hiya, Brett. Welcome.

Hello, Brett.

Thank you.

Well, my question is, my great-grandfather, he passed away in 2002.

But I was thinking the other day during one of your shows about something he used to say.

Instead of saying goodbye or see you later, he would always say, don’t leave your end gate up.

And no one really ever knew what that meant, and obviously I can’t ask him now.

And so when I heard you guys talking about that the other day, just things our grandparents would say that we didn’t understand, I thought I’d give you guys a call.

Don’t leave your end gate up?

Yes, correct.

End gate, like E-N-D-G-A-T-E.

Yes.

Brett, do you have any idea what he might have meant?

Well, there are a few theories that I’ve kind of come up with.

The first is, like on a pickup truck, you have the gate on the back, and if you’re driving, that can kind of catch wind and keep you from going as quickly as you possibly can.

And so it’s kind of a drag to have that up.

That was one thought I maybe had.

Another one was kind of in a different direction.

Kind of like people used to wear one-piece kind of pajamas that had, like, a gate on the back.

If you had to use the restroom, you’d open it up and use the restroom.

And you wanted to make sure that you did not leave that up when you used the restroom at night.

Or the app house.

Well, the other way, you don’t want to leave it down when you leave the restroom, right?

You want your end gate in the right place at the right time.

And so I had no idea what that meant, but I thought you guys might be able to figure it out.

Boy, those are both good theories.

I have no idea.

Tell us a little bit more about your great-grandfather.

What did he do?

Well, he was a farmer, and so there could be reference to gates.

Like, he was a cattle farmer.

When he was, I want to say, 36 or 40, he bought his own farm just north of Huntington, Indiana.

And my grandparents, they kind of lived on that farm and raised my grandfather.

And my mom even grew up on that cattle farm.

And just within the last, I would say, 10, 15 years or so, they ended up selling the farm.

But he was pretty much a farmer his entire life and a real simple guy.

You know, I have an idea for you.

I was looking for what you said.

I was looking for the fact that he might have been a farmer.

Because there’s a type of wagon or truck these days, but a wagon where the gate in the back doesn’t fold down like the tailgate on a pickup, but it pulls up.

And these are usually grain trucks for corn and stuff, and sometimes for cattle as well.

And what this allows you to do is to back the truck up to, say, to some kind of bin or some kind of, like, chute or something else to let the grain out or the cattle out.

And what you do is you just pull the rope or pull the pulley, and the gate flies up, and then the cattle go.

So there’s nothing to swing to the side, and there’s no chance of the grain or the cattle getting away.

And so the thing is, if you’re hauling animals or you’re hauling grain, you do not want to leave that gate up.

So the advice of don’t leave your end gate up would be pretty good advice for a farmer who could see his livelihood spread out on the road, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

So that’s my theory there.

If you Google that, go to images.google.com, and Google end gate is one word.

You’re going to see some pictures of some wagons and some trucks that have gates exactly like that, and you may see something that looks familiar to you.

Yeah, I mean, I know exactly what you’re talking about because we used to use those types of wagons.

There we go.

Yeah, and those are called in-gates.

And a wide variety of gates are called in-gates, and sometimes it’s just the gate on the end, but there’s some specific technical uses as well.

Well, he sounds like he was a great guy.

He really was.

I was really fortunate to get to know him.

Usually you don’t get to know your great-grandparents that long, but he was a great guy, and I was glad to talk with him.

All right, well, I hope I helped you some, Brett.

You did.

You solved a family mystery, and I appreciate that.

Well, best of luck to you, Brett.

Thanks for calling today.

Okay, bye-bye.

Take care of your time.

I appreciate it.

Bye.

If you’ve got something that Grandma and Grandpa used to say that you’re not quite sure what it means or where it comes from, by all means, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.