In My Youth

I was raised in a small, country town where everyone was semi-to-permanently poor. That was an adventure, and early education in itself. No one cared if you had an outdoor privy, or wore patches on your clothes in those days. Shoes were worn during school months, and the rest of the year, bare feet prevailed. We considered callused soles to be our “fair-weather” shoes since we ran on gravel, and field-stubble without any pain.

When we were small, my younger brothers and I were bathed together in a galvanized washtub set smack-dab in the middle of Mom’s warm kitchen. Eventually, age and modesty changed that ritual.

Everyone had to pitch in from youngest to eldest with assigned chores to keep life running smoothly, and literally to have enough food to eat. We kids learned how to muck out stalls, milk cows, get feed to animals (winter & summer,) hay, drive farm equipment, help with wrapping meat on kill day, pick fruit and vegetables, can, etc.

We had great fun too! Before the phrase, “Free Spirit” was coined, kids in rural America, LIVED IT! We were as wild and free as the birds and bees. We roamed where we wished, and had no fears whatsoever. We didn’t have to be warned about being alone on a dark street. There were no worries about pedophiles kidnapping or abusing children back then. People minded their own business, and handled their own problems. When needed, swift punishment ensued for serious infractions of the rules both in moral and civil life. All authority was respected.

Playing “pretend,” and “make believe” games were what dreams were made of. They built strong character, and a creative mind. For instance, my brothers and I discovered if we walked one mile to the city dump with a wrench and screwdriver, (borrowed from Dad’s tool box without permission,) we could find real neat stuff, and build a go-cart. Several more trips to that hallowed ground rendered parts to assemble a miss-matched bicycle. We never owned a store-bought-bike.

Believing in Santa was not encouraged in our house, since Dad would announce just before Christmas every year, “I’m Santa Claus, and this year, Santa’s broke!” He wasn’t kidding, and our meager gifts proved it, but we were just as excited at the holidays as kids are today.

Snow was thirty feet deep in the woods during winter months, so Dad’s logging operation was always shut down. That meant everything we could raise, can, or preserve we did just to ensure survival ‘til spring. Each fall, we helped can at least three hundred quarts of various fruits and vegetables, plus spuds, carrots, and onions were harvested and taken to the root cellar. Next we butchered a pig, and prepared it for freezing. Then came the “chicken brigade.” Now, if you’ve never killed and picked chickens, I can tell you it’s a job right up there with diggin’ ditches!

Here’s how it was done; First, Dad ran down a few fat hens in the coup, laid their necks across our old choppin’ block, cut their heads off with one swift swing of the axe, and released them to flop about in the field. We kids gathered their lifeless bodies into the wheelbarrow, and took them up to the house. We then rolled up our pant legs over the knee, set on chairs encircling two tubs of boiling hot water on the back porch, and started dunkin’ and pickin.’ After they were de-feathered, Dad would light a newspaper on fire, and singe off the pinfeathers before gutting, and cleaning them. We then double wrapped each one in butcher paper, and took the whole batch, (numbering thirty) to a rented cold storage unit in town. I can smell those wet, dirty feathers, and bloody chicken carcasses yet, and remember well the backbreaking work it entailed.

By early March, the snow was still deep, and the cupboards were gettin’ as bare as ‘Old Mother Hubbard’s,’ (we sure could relate to that fairy tale!) That’s when I figured out “poaching” did not mean coddling an egg! What it DID mean was survival! Another name for it was, “Flashlight Huntin’!”

How it worked was; on a cold winter’s night when the whole family was sick of eating chicken, or brown beans with pork,) Dad and Uncle Bob would leave the house after dark with a rifle, hunting knife, and flashlight. They drove to parts unknown, (especially to the Game Warden,) and bagged a deer. Upon their return, they looked like they’d wrestled a Grizzly. There was blood up to their elbows, and a hairless, headless, gutless deer securely hidden in the car trunk. (He sure didn’t resemble Bambi anymore!)

Mom was quite creative with the many ways she could make venison taste like beef, but when all was said and done, it was strictly good ol’ survival food, and not much more.
Finally, the warm days of summer would arrive. We found lots of entertaining ways to busy ourselves, and never let Mom catch us loitering. The word bored never crossed our lips or she would put a hoe in our hands, and send us straight to the garden to work in the blistering hot sun.

We lived in swimsuits with shorts pulled over the top as we rode our rickety bikes, or ran barefoot on hot pavement from one neighboring farm to the next playing with friends.
Meeting up with pals, we usually floated down the irrigation ditch with various water snakes passing us by, or jumped off the top fence rail onto an unsuspecting horse to ride bareback across the fields. We returned home only when hungry, but rarely let Mom know we were around. Unbeknownst to her, a saltshaker was kept in the barn to season stolen delicacies from her garden such as rhubarb, sun-ripened tomatoes, or fresh peas.

During quiet moments on those hot days, we kids sat beneath shady elms in the front yard, peeling dry strips of skin from each other’s sunburned backs.

Those were the carefree days of country living we still reminisce about at family gatherings to this day. Times were tough, but we youngsters had no real concerns. I only wish today’s youth had it as GOOD as we did on a little farm in Twisp, Washington, in the nineteen-fifties.