A blank page

A little over seven decades ago, I arrived in a hospital in Nebraska as the son of two proud parents. When I arrived, I had two older sisters to dote over me and to spoil me. But when I arrived I was virtually a blank page. I had some characteristics of both of my parents. Both of them had blue eyes and were just over 5 feet tall and relatively chubby as I am to this day. Dad was bald, but I still have my hair even though it’s a little lighter than it used to be. Dad had really small feet and so do I. I can wear a 7eee but normally settle for an 8ee. Mom and Dad were good in math and so are all their kids.

I grew up in a really rural environment in Arthur County, Nebraska. At one time, it was the least populated county in the United States. When voting time rolls around, there are about 300 voters, which is pretty much every legal voter in the county. It was about 40 miles south to a city of say 3,000, 40 miles north to a city of 250 and 40 miles east to a city of 150. That’s rural, my friend. My best friends were my dog, my horses and my brother, who came along two years minus a month to the day.

A normal day for us would be to saddle up and head north or south and explore. We might look for coyote dens or hunt arrow heads or just ride and look. Never took along water or a lunch. I guess we figured there was always a windmill somewhere and we weren’t going to starve. Sometimes we rode colts, and other times it was an older horse, but as a rule they were colts. Always seemed like Mick’s colts bucked worse than mine. He had a couple that flat could buck. It would be fun to saddle up with Mick and go explore again for old time’s sake.

We each had tasks that we did on a routine basis. Hand-milked Jersey cows with Mom and Dad. Every day, morning and evening, we milked from 10 to 16 cows. If we had 14 milk cows Dad would milk maybe four, Mom milked maybe six and Mick and I maybe two apiece. Part of the time, we’d be squirting milk into the cat’s mouth. Boy they enjoyed that. If Mom saw us we’d get chewed out. But we still squirted the cats.

Started going to kindergarten when I was probably 5 or 6 and I went the whole year. I really enjoyed school Sometimes ,there were two in my grade but normally only one, just me. The teacher taught kids from my age up through the eighth grade. School was flat fun except for spelling. Wasn’t fond of spelling.

We lived about 4 miles from the one room country school and Mom’s parents lived about 2 miles north of the school. Grandpa and Grandma lived in an old sod house, and they slept on feather mattresses. When you laid down at night, you just kind of sunk down in the mattress and there you were. To top it all off, Grandma would cover you with a thick hand-sewn quilt that weighed a bunch.

You know when I compare my childhood to a good many in our world today, I was fortunate. I was born at the right time to the right parents who lived just miles away from my grandparents. I was fortunate being able to attend a one-room country school where the teachers emphasized the fact that learning was fun. I was fortunate to be raised around dogs and horses and cows and pigs and chickens and rabbits and even sheep.

Growing up like I did doesn’t guarantee a good outcome, but it increases the odds. But the one thing that stands out, that made a difference in my life is that I’ve always been treated as an individual rather than just another someone in the crowd. Mankind today hungers to be treated as an individual rather than another number.