Growing up Fast in Indiana

I was going to skip out on you all today but what the heck here is kind of long one even needs editing but no grades are issued here...And I may come back and do editing later...Just finished reading that book "What a Life" wow, that guy has sense of humor and terrific writing skills...Randy Kington made me laugh out loud many many times..But he also made me cry as his last two chapters might be the best love story I ever read....

OK here is my goofy story.....

GROWING UP FAST IN INDIANA 05/14/04

By Jack aka Happy Hoosier


Life in the post WW Two days was a life of growing up fast. When you are born the last of eight in 1938, and your mother was 43 and your father was 47 there was not a lot of time lying around to waste. Everything seemed kind of normal to me because that was just the way it was it seemed like it always had been. But the last few years I finally admitted only to myself of course, that I may not have been the result of intense planning. Accidents do happen we know, but to be reminded of that in your younger years was a downer. So as I grew older and understood a little more about reproduction, I devised a come back story for my siblings that, hey maybe I was the only one that "was planned". Maybe the first few were the accidents, probably were and then my theory was that after veiwing all those attempts why maybe they just came up with an idea. OK, we have had all these accidents so now let us really put some good planning into this last one. Works for me.

I had a great mother and father, my mom was about as good a cook and house keeper as you will find. And my dad was about as hard a worker and provider as one could ask for. So what's my excuse? Well not real sure I need these but just for the fun of it I will try and recall some events that could have molded my life good or bad. But my parents saying they were the "best" may still miss the mark.

I guess some of my best early year times was getting fussy along about 2 p.m. and told to "hit the featherbed" kept lying behind the wood stove. Those were some good naps and somehow I awoke a couple hours later ready to see what's happening. Happening, was really the word for it one day, when I was upstairs playing and happened to recall some very naughty words that I had heard some older kids using the day before. Those words just seem to really stick with me and get my attention. They were adult words, and maybe I should just try them out. So I went down the stairs and stood in the middle of the room where my mother was sewing and my sister may have been helping her, maybe they were making a feed sack dress for her not sure. But I summoned my courage, and I said them in a medium voice. I know my mother would have liked it better if I had not said it, but did not respond quickly. But my sister Peg though, she did not let this bullet pass. She said, "Mother, did you hear what Jack just said?" So, my mother did not say a word. She got up and walked to the bath room. She returned with a huge bar of Ivory soap. I thought I was going to eat half of that thing before the wrestling match ended. But you know, I never swore in front of my mother or father ever again.

About that same age my father was an avid reader of the "Prairie Farmer" magazine. I would set on his lap as he would read it and look at the pictures as he read to himself. I recall one time he turned a page and there was a double page add for a tire company. And the logo or whatever for that tire company was a very scarry rough looking man or a tire with a tough looking face. I did not say a word, but knew that I needed to get out of there. I slowly slid down off my fathers lap. My father did like to play pranks and he noticed I was not to slick about my manuver. He waited a while, and then called me over and pushed the double page at me and said, "he's gonna get you". Well my little ticker went into high gear and so did my feet, it scared the livin jeebies out of me. Sorry to say that everytime a new Prairie Farmer came it was let's see this kid climb the walls time. Well dad had a good time with it and I survived it but for the life of me I should have wised up that it was not a real threat, but it took awhile. Some day I am going to visit the library and dig out an old say 1941 Prairie Farmer and just face off with this guy and get past this.

My older brothers were in World War Two, Bob was in the Army, joined up and entered Europe at Normandy Beach and was awarded a Bronze and Silver Star medal as well as a Battlefield Commission in the Battle of the Bulge. He once attended an officers meeting held by Gen George Patton as he laid out the strategy for beating the Russians into downtown Berlin. And brother Larry was a navy man serving his time in the south pacific on a hospital ship. So I remember we had a banner hanging in our front window with two stars on it representing my two brothers. I started my service life early about three maybe wearing a army uniform one day and a navy uniform the next. I guess I was early homeland security maybe. But did feel I was making a contribution with my attire. I wrote letters no one could read but they still went to Europe and the South Pacific. My mother said they would be home soon but waiting half your life to see what they really looked like was a long time. And then about this time I picked up a tempory baby sister as my older sister Francis's husband was drafted into the Navy and she moved back home with her little daughter Phyllis.

Well that war did end and here they came my brother in law Ralph got home and my sister and neice started their lives in Indianapolis. Then came my two brothers home also. By then I was about 7 and the house seemed really rockin with all those folk running up and down stairs a lot. Of course they were getting jobs going to school as I was also by then. With the older ones present and full of ideas and pranks I became the lowest common denominator and thus the end of the prank chain.
One dandy was about the first week the soldier was in the house he found out that I had been wishing a long time my 2 little gold fish would have babies. So one day when I got off the school bus and came in the house they had indeed had babies. Yep, they had 10 babies but they were black and almost as big as the parents. But a brother who was worldly and knew everything and was to be trusted. I voiced my amazement of how big they were and not gold. I was assured that was a normal thing with gold fish and that they would be turning gold just any day now. I noticed too, that they had little whiskers thier parents did not have. Finally they began to die because of overcrowding and even the parents passed on, and after all the funerals I overheard him sharing the fact that he had gotten catfish out of the creek under the bridge. Wow!

Well the next one was my pop corn career. We ate a lot of pop corn at our house, and I had gotten old enough to load that old black corn popper with a scoop of lard and a cup of pop corn. And turn that crank, with the steam burning my fingers until she quit poppin and dump it in a big bowl an add some salt. Well these veterans loved popcorn, but really did not want to pop any. So they offered me a really sweet deal. A quarter was huge money in 1946 at 8 years old I was making big bucks. They could eat about 3 bowls each and so that's a buck an half a night. I was pulling down about 5 bucks a week, Huge money for a third grader. Well I had a small bank that shaped like a vault with a combination lock. So in went the quarters, night after night, week after week. One day I decided that I probably had maybe 30 bucks in that bank, and maybe with that much cash lying around not growing interest that I should move it to my little account at the small town bank of which I was a new member. So after checking no one was watching me doing the combination, I opened it up to bag up the funds. Maybe three dollars worth of quarters in that bank. I called in security, my mom, and reported the loss. She knowing her older sons much better than I, and for sure probably trusting them less than I, said "don't say anything just pop your corn tonight if they want any". So wanting to solve crime before these guys get married and move away I said after dinner, "boy some pop corn would sure be good tonight wouldn't it"? Well they took the bait and I fired up the popper and security was in the shadows watching this time. As I was attending my popper, my hero's of the war were taking a table knive and sliding into the slot of my bank as they carefully allowed the quarters to slide out and down the knive blade into their "loose corn money can". I should have known, especially when once in awhile they would even tip me an extra quarter, just to see my eyes really light up. Well, security moved in and charges were filed. A short trial was held and a couple guilty verdicts rendered, and then confessions were obtained. But, just like the CEO's of today once they have everyone's money they don't like to give it up. Of course no accounting had been recorded as I reaped these huge profits over the past few weeks. So I had no proof of what should have been there. I think an agreement finally was hammered out and I maybe I got 30 cent on the dollar and no one went to jail. But a lesson for life had been learned.

Oh, I almost forgot all that I was now learning in school. One of the first things I learned was that the English language in our house did not always match up with the rest of the world. Yep one day in the first grade the teacher held up pictures of vegetable to be identified. Well we were doing well pretty much in unison until a picture of a nice "tater" came up. They were saying potatoes which was greek to me, and I was trying hard to enlighten the class to the real name "TATERS". The teacher hearing such a slank word being used said, "class let's let little Jackie say it for us". So now not quite as sure of myself at this point, I said what we called them, in half volume, "taters". They all laughed and I maybe for the first time in life turned red and felt pretty hot. And hot I was not so I learned a lesson to let a little lag time go by before I jump into the bidding. And along about that same time in that first year we were lining up for recess on one side of the hall. Christmas was not to far away and that day the knowledgeable second graders were lining up on the other side of the hall. Something was said about Santa maybe coming soon. A second grader announced to our class that there really was not a Santa at all. Your mom and dad get that stuff and there is NO SANTA. Whoa, what the hell is going on here I thought. This bozo is a terroist and everyone needs to ignore this nonsense. But as I rode the bus home I thought gee, maybe that's true. So after thinking about it for a while I ask my mom, but I did not just ask her. I to seem knowledgable said, "mom guess what we learned at school today"? Mom said, "What"? I said, "we all learned today that there is no Santa", hoping she would laugh and reassure me so I could the other kids that there sure was a Santa. Well, you have to understand here that my mom had played this game a long time and was probably ready to get past it. So she said, "well you gotta find out sometime", or "well now you know". Not sure just which but regardless I sure was not quite ready to throw in the Santa Card. I went up stairs to think. Another light turned on. I figured out well maybe if this is a crock about Santa what about that Rabbit business, I bet that sucker is a phony too. So I went back down to test that water. I said, "mom guess what else we found out today"? She said "hard telling what"? I said, "mom we learned today that the Easter Bunny was not real also." And again you have to understand, mom had boiled a lot of eggs, she said, "well I guess now you know that too." So realitity was comming fast in those post war years.

One thing we did not learn at our school was the second grade. It was 1945 and teachers were scarce as hen's teeth, I think was the phrase. Our school finally hired a needed second grade teacher. A 70 something grey haired granny brought out of retirement. It was a blast, we had to be givin a big kiss each day as we arrived, we mostly just played and then would take time for recess to play outside. After recess we just kinda played around inside till lunch. Did lunch next thing you know it was time for a big kiss again as we left the room to get on the bus. We did not know we had wasted a year nor did our parents know either. But I remember the third grade teacher asking the principle Mr. Landis to set in on our class one morning as she asked us questions we should have know. It would have still been unknown if I would not have been a good listnener. As we left the room to go to lunch I lingered in the cloak hall as I heard the teacher say, "well Mr. Landis what do you think?". And I heard Mr. Landis reply, "well all I know is you are going to have the job of teaching this class the second grade and third grade at the same time." Amazing at what little ears will hear and understand. The rest of the class never knew and it's funny, I don't even think I shared it with my parents. Nothing could have been gained and we did learn fast and had an excellent third grade teacher.

Good discipline was a plus in those days, most of us were told by our parents that what ever punishment we ever warranted at school would be applied at home on a larger scale. It was amazing how one that had been told that, and believed it, did not get into much trouble. Our first male teacher in the Sixth grade pulls out a tennis shoe sole the first day and pounds his left palm of his hand with this thing. I guess some of us had stated to look a little challenging by then. I saw a couple come under the shoe that year and was not anything I cared to experience. And as bad as that would have been the home version would have been maybe more. It's a big problem in schools now I guess, and I don't have the answer. But it may lie in the few lines above but we will never see it again.

I want to wrap this story up with a couple instances where God seemed to have his hand on keeping me around for further work. Freshman year in school I was able to obtain a Whizzer motor bike. They were cool just a bike frame with a small engine and gas tank would run about 30 mph. I used it to work for other farmers during the summer to get back and forth. They get 100 mpg of gasoline. They made them from about 1938 to 1952. They started to make them again in 1998 and I currently have a 1999 model just for fun. Or maybe I am trying to finish the job, I jokingly say. The job being that one day at about 15 I followed a car through our town slowly but the line was yellow so I did not pass. As we left town the path was clear so I tried. He turned left without signaling, into a cemetery and I came in full contact with his torn left fender. It layed my right leg open from the knee to the hip all the way to the bone. I slid accross a gravel drive into the cemetery and stood up. I looked at my leg I could see the leg bone. I took the two halfs and pressed them together and the blood started to roll. Everytime my heart beat it seemed a cup of it came out. I was a gonner I figured. A nurse lived across the road. She was there in a flash took one look at me and ran back to her house. Returned with a wooden soap spoon and a towel and applied it to my hip area and shut off the blood. I still thought I would die before the ambulance got me to the hospital 10 miles away but since I am still typing here obvoiusly I did not.

About 4 years later having joined the Marines I met a class mate in Oceanside Califonia the night before I was to board the train for my first leave back home. He said he was going home tomorrow also and that he was going to catch a "hop" out of LA, which was a free military plane to Chicago and he would be home 2 days sooner and not have to pay the 60 dollar train fare. Said I could go also, plenty of room on the plane. It just did not feel right, don't know why. Ten day leave and I was going to spend four days of it on trains. I thought about it and then just told him I wanted to ride the train and see the west that we had flown over coming out to California. The plane hit another military plane on take off all were killed. I found it out when I got home from a taxi driver. A couple big time blessings on the way to growing up fast.