Introduction-Remembering
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INTRODUCTION
Some time back, I was clearing dead wood and undergrowth from a small wooded lot. Part of the task involved cutting small trees, saplings, and other undergrowth. I was using an axe for this purpose and was expending a good deal of energy in so doing. Following each cutting, I would take time to catch my breath by dragging the cut pieces to the ditch. During one of these "catching-my-breath" periods, I had a flashback to a time of youth and recalled the words of my father...'How come y'er sittn' down?'...(my response) 'cause I'm restin'. - (Dad)’..well dammit!, cut some weeds while y'er restin'! My actions of this day had been a hold over discipline from training received during my youth on the farm. I wondered if my children or grandchildren would be interested in finding out how life was like when I was a kid. I certainly have been interested in knowing more about my folks early lives and the special events that surrounded their lives. Other than a few passing comments, it is unlikely that period of time can ever be captured to my satisfaction. I decided to perhaps start making notes and recording events that I could recall. How could I transfer the images in my head to the readers?
Imagination is a wonderful thing. They say you can use it to travel to any part of the world, climb a mountain, explore a jungle, or to simply envision whatever wonder your mind can conceive. In the days before TV, this was how we could "see" a radio program, such as "The Lone Ranger", "The Green Hornet", "The Shadow", "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon", or any other of the hundreds of radio programs of the 1940s.
I am going to challenge you to make use of your imagination to visualize conditions related in the story that I will be narrating. A story of family life on a small farm in Northwest Missouri (near Tarkio) during the 1940s. We were not unlike a lot of other families in the Northwest Missouri and Southwest Iowa area during that period of time. By today’s standards, we would be considered "poor", but at the time, we were rather "normal". Our farmstead was two and a half miles from a paved, hard surface road. Our house did not have any insulation. We did not have any electricity nor indoor plumbing. It is under these conditions that I now request that you call on your imagination to mentally picture
the conditions and circumstances that were simply a part of our everyday life. "Everyday" life - not just a camping weekend. It has always left me in wonder at the many generations that have come before and that have lived and endured under conditions that were many times worse than those that we faced in the 1940s. I have difficulty in "imaging" how the Indians could exist living in tepees with the winter conditions that were, and still are, common in the Midwest and Upper Midwest. Or how did the pioneers manage to travel hundreds of miles in wagons in the most severe of weather and environmental conditions.
Well, as I say, using one's "imagination" to place ones self into never-before-encountered conditions is, at best, very difficult. Under this realization, I am sure that it will be equally difficult to mentally picture what farm life was like on a small farm in Northwest Missouri in the 1940s. Nevertheless, I will attempt to paint a visual image of family life and conditions that we experienced. One thing that stirs me to this day is the closeness of families, including our own. Perhaps it was because, for the most of the time, we had little opportunity to be around people outside our own immediate family and closest neighbors. My brothers and sisters are still unbelievable close, and still manage to get together on many occasions.
I received a degree Northwest Missouri State, but it was in mathematics, not English. I was the one in high school that asked my English teacher (Mrs. Viner - Elliott IA) why I needed to take English, after all, I explained, "I can talk it!" Now I am the strong advocate of more English and speech and literature and reading - at all levels of education.
I started by saying to myself that I was writing this book for the benefit of my children and grandchildren...who am I kidding - I am doing it for myself. Having said that, I must also say that this is not a book about me, it is just that I do not have any other reference point. As we age, we get more nostalgic. "Remembering the Journey - the 40s..." is my escape to the past...reliving those times long gone - the good times and the bad times, the fun things and the sad things. I will even describe how to build a "hog tight" fence with hard ole crooked hedge posts.
Hope you enjoy…Bud