Growing up “country bumkin” style
Some people were gifted with an amazing capacity of a memory bank. My dad has an incredible memory. He can tell stories of his childhood, and he’s about to turn 96. A number of years ago, I helped him publish his memories in a book for our family, and I was amazed at the details he remembers. Perhaps he kept all those memory genes to himself because really, none of us kids in my family can remember childhood to the extent and as clearly as he does.
Most of us have little snatches of memory from early childhood—not a continuous story, but bits and pieces that have stuck with us somehow. I don’t think I have many clear memories of my childhood; but if I stop and think long enough about something, or if someone in my family mentions some of the details, I can generally recall something of what they are talking about. Perhaps a lot of what I think I remember is just from hearing someone else tell the story.
Keep in mind, as I tell a few stories here, that I was the only girl. My two older brothers were six and four years older than me, and they kind of delighted in teasing me and getting me to cry. It worked most of the time. The good thing was, I was never the one that got in trouble.
For example, here’s an experience I don’t remember, even though it was probably traumatic. It happened when I was very young—let’s just say “a toddler,” because I was walking. It happened on the farm when I walked into an electric fence that struck me on the top of my head, and I plopped down onto the ground. When I stood up—still right under the wire!—I got shocked again, and plopped right back down on the ground. I don’t know how many times I did this before someone came to help me, but to hear the story told, it sounded like my brothers allowed this to go on for awhile, much for their own amusement, before they pulled me away. I was the one crying; they were the ones laughing. And they were the ones that got scolded.
My two older brothers attended a one-room school across the section from our farm and would walk the distance of about two miles to get to school. The building was there for some time after it was no longer a school, so I think that’s mostly what I remember. But I do remember going there for a program of some sort and playing on the playground. When it was time for me to go to school, I got to attend the new Goessel Grade School and rode the bus to and from school.
Our telephone was one of those big, wooden boxtype phones with a cone-shaped mouthpiece on the front to talk into, an ear-piece on the left side that you would remove and hold to your ear, and a crank on the right side of the box to dial the operator. Living in the country, we were on a “party line,” and by that I don’t mean cake and ice cream. We were grouped together in the neighborhood, each neighbor with a unique ring. I think ours was “one long, two short.” I think the idea was that you were supposed to answer only if it was your unique ring, but that didn’t mean anything to our old neighbor to the east of us who would pick it up no matter who it was for. I remember my mom saying, “Well, I can hear Dan’s clock ticking, so we’re all here.”
Saturday evenings, after baths, we would go into Goessel for groceries. That usually meant a treat of some kind. And many Sunday evenings, especially when it was warm outside (or cooler outdoors than in the house) we had neighborhood get-togethers. The highlight was usually homemade ice cream.
I guess I remember more than I thought, as I’m going to call this Part One. Come back next week for, as Paul Harvey always said: “The REST of the story.”
