My Childhood

When I was a kid, my mom and dad used to send me spend the summer with my Aunt and Uncle in Arkansas.  For 2 years, my older brother went with me.  After that, it was just me.  I read a lot of books those summers, I read all of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, and several dozens of others.  I helped my Aunt, Uncle and their sons on the farms.  Farms, plural as two of my cousins were married and by that time and had their own farms.  I spent a lot of time reading, fishing and shooting.  I also spent some time picking apples, milking cows, feeding hogs, cows and chickens.  I learned to drive a tractor, then a pickup truck with a 3 speed manual on the steering column.  It was 3 long miles to the nearest store and was almost always hot with no air conditioning in the house, only in my Aunt's Crown Victoria.  And she rarely used the A/C.  When you wanted to make a phone call you had to make sure one of the neighbors wasn't using it as it was a party line.  No one had cell phones, though we did have a few C.B. Radio's  there were only 2 channels we could pick up on the Television and one of them only when the weather was just right.  No VCR's, DVD players, or cassette tapes.  8-tracks though all 3 of my cousins had those in their truck.  Along with tapes by Merle Haggard,Waylon Jennings, Wayne Newton, Willie Nelson, Crystal Gayle, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

I could walk into the Western Auto in town and as a 9 year old boy buy a 100 round box of .22 ammo for .79 cents.  No questions asked.  I could buy .410 shells the same way.  If I wanted .30-06 or 12 gauge shells they would ask if my uncle or cousins knew and had sent me.  There were still hitching posts in front of the court house and many of the businesses in town.  And some people would ride horses and a few drove horse drawn wagons right into the town square.  If I had $10.00 dollars I could buy a Red Ryder BB gun and 250 BB's.  Just walk in, set down my money and walk out with it.  And no one thought it was strange.  In fact they would give me an old box to shoot at and several paper targets and empty soda cans to shoot at as well.

This formed part of who I am today.

This house on this farm.

My Uncle has passed, the farmhouse has been sold, but for almost 8 summers that farm helped to form the clay that was me.  To this day when people asked where I was raised, I say, Born in St. Louis but mostly raised in Arkansas.  I'm not denigrating how my parents raised me.  In fact I'm glad they sent me to spend my summers on the farm.  I learned how to shoot, how to fish, how to clean the fish I caught.  How to ride a horse, how to drive, how to pick good apples and how to peel an apple with a pocket knife my uncle said every boy needed to have and know how to use.  I also learned how in times of trouble, such as when a tornado touched down a few miles away, neighbors helped neighbors.  I helped my Aunt cook several casseroles, oh yes I learned the rudiments of how to cook on that farm as well, for those afflicted by that storm.  I learned how to bale hay, and how to throw it so I didn't hurt myself.  I learned I can't lie worth a darn and it wasn't worth the whuppin I'd get when I did it.  I learned that if you gave your word, you better live up to it.  Because in the end, that is all you ever really possess that cannot be taken away from you.

When I was back up in St. Louis with my parents and by the time I was 10, two brothers.  One older and one younger.  I always wanted to be back on the farm.  However events conspired against me.  and once I was a teenager, my visits to the farm were short and limited to when my mom and younger brother would go.  Sometimes my dad and older brother would come down also.  I missed the days when it just me down there.  I could go fishing when I wanted if I had done the chores assigned to me.  I could walk down to the creek and try to catch crawdads with my hands.  I could set out the fish trap to try to catch minnows for bait.  Because you know live bait catches more fish.

That was part of what made me what I am today.  And I wouldn't trade it for anything.  All of my lumps and scars and things learned and experienced along the way, lead me to today.  There are a few things I wish had happened different.  I wish I hadn't busted up my leg or my back.  I wish my dad hadn't died when and how he did.  But even the sad times and bad experiences have built me and my mind.

And I hope I am better for them.