My Early Days

It was a rainy night in August when I sat on my front porch. The night was peaceful the sun had gone down a couple of hours ago. I remember when I was young, I did the same thing with my father. My father has been gone for forty- seven years. But those memories still live on. I was sixteen when he passed that was the saddest day of my life. He was sixty-two when I was born that was probably what gave him a stroke trying to raise me at that age. He did make it to seventy-nine.

Because of his age and his health, we didn't do a lot of things that most kids did with their fathers. I remember a day he took me fishing along with one of his friends. I was a little guy, so he made me a fish pole out a stick some line and bobby pin. We were there most of the day. He pretended to be mad at me when I caught a fish, and he didn't. It was only a small sun fish, but I was quite happy.

I knew he seen the smile on my face when I caught it. The place we went to was, an old beaver pond that not too many people new about. Another place he used to take me was Woods Pond. An old farmer buddy of his who's last name was Wood had it on his property. That was a great place to catch catfish.

Another memory I have was his shop. It was where he kept his tools and fixed things, or just hung old. I spend many hours sitting in there with him.

He also had a jackass named Pet that he used to plow the garden with and also pulling things. Old Pet had a stubborn streak once in a while. My father would be right in the middle of plowing the garden and Pete would stop. My father would scream and swear at him. Finally, he got smart and put a pair of blinders on Pet. And then hung a stick over his head with a carrot on a string. That dumb jackass would run like crazy trying to get that carrot. When he got to the end of the garden my father would give it to him. After he ate it, my father did the same thing again and again. Old Pet was one dumb jackass.

Our family lived on a small farm we had old Pet some chickens a pig and I almost forgot a cow named Daisy. It was so long ago I don't remember the pig's name.

We were a poor family I didn't know it at the time. I was just a young boy with not a worry in the world. The house we lived in was old when my father bought it in 1948. We didn't even have indoor plumbing. There was a hand pump in the front yard for water and an outhouse connected to the woodshed. We heated the place with two wood stoves. There was a wood range in the kitchen that we cooked on. And a wood stove in the living room.

When I got old enough to use a hand saw and swing an axe my job was cutting wood. Between that and mowing the lawn my summers were quite busy.

When I managed to get free from it, I would hang around with some of the kids from the Neiborhood. We used to play ball in the church yard. That wasn't a mile away from our house. There was one family I used to hang around with that had five boys. We had a lot of fun together. Wild apples used to grow in the nearby woods so we would have apples fights. Sometimes they really hurt when you got hit by one. Then we got old enough to have BB guns then we used to play Army. The rules wear, you couldn't shoot anyone above the neck or below the waste. To this day I still have a BB stuck in my right shoulder and I'm sixty.

Playing Army didn't last too long when our parents found out what we were doing they took our guns away until we were a lot older. I sit here writing and I can remember those days like yesterday.

Looking back at my life I know I had a very dysfunctional up bringing. Looking back, we were the poorest family in that area. My parents refused to get any help from Social Services. What little money we had we paid the bills with. And we ate whatever we grew or hunted. I swear my father had recipe for anything that walked or crawled the earth. If he didn't have one, he made it up.

My mother on the other hand hated living where we were. But there was no doubt she loved my father. I also lived with my half -sister. She was a piece of word. When God made her, he broke the mold. She used to dance to her own drummer. My mother her from a relationship she had before she ever met my father. There were days she drove me nuts, but I do miss her not being around anymore. The reality of it all no one leaves this world alive.

My mother kept our family together. My father wasn't a mean man but what he said he meant. My wife was just a housewife she took care of the house us kids and the cooking.

I was the baby of the family, but I sure wasn't spoiled. I worked hard for everything I got.

I grew up in the sixties and seventies. Long hair sex drugs and rock and roll. Some people say if you remember those years, you weren't really there.

I drifted through my teenage years. I partied a lot and got in my share of trouble. Just like most kids that age. I still remember those days and sometimes I wish I was still there.