The Curmudgeonly Professor

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Memoirs Part 1: Things I Didn't Have When I Grew Up

I started thinking this morning about the things I didn't have when I grew up, especially those things that are largely taken for granted today and are considered absolute necessities, if not rights, by today's children.  Here is a partial list of things I didn't have when I grew up:

1. Inside plumbing.  Every bucket of water used in our house was carried from a pump 20 yards from the house.  We took baths in a round galvanized metal tub with hot water heated on a coal stove.
2. A telephone.  We still didn't have a phone by the time I left home for college at age 17.
3. Central heating.  We heated our home with two coal stoves and the coal fire usually died out about 2:00 a.m. even on nights that were 20 below outside.
4. A car.  Our family car was a Model A Ford until 1945 at the end of WWII since no cars were made until after the war.  We crammed all 8 of us in the Model A when we went to church or went on an outing.
5. Television.
6. Cell phone, thus no texting, thank heaven.
7. Computer.
8. A girl friend.  My 3d grade girlfriend abandoned me in the 7th grade for my cousin which was disgusting and I never forgave her.
9. A date for the senior prom.  My true love decided at the last minute to go with a real loser.  Of course, I was 2 years younger, and I'm  sure I seemed like a nerd.
10. A quick walk to school.  We lived 12 miles from town and road an  unheated school bus over an hour each way over rutted, rocky, snow drifted, and some times muddy roads to get to school and get home.
11. Participation in school plays and school athletics since we had no way to get home or get to town.
12. Clothes.  Maybe two pair of Levis, an FFA corduroy jacket, some tee shirts, and a pair of Sunday pants until I got my first suit at high school graduation.
13. A watch.  I got my first watch for high school graduation.  We told time by our shadows in the fields on the farm.
14. A social life.  We missed all the parties and kids' get togethers in town.
15. The Saturday afternoon matinees at the Teton Theater in Powell with the double feature westerns.
16. Little League, Pop Warner, soccer, volleyball, hockey, and any and all other organized kid sports that parents spend 20 hours a day hauling their kids to and attending games in today's frenzied world.
17. Boy Scouts.  I loved Boy Scouts.  I practically memorized the Scout manual.  But no way to get to troop meetings.
18. Big Macs, Cokes, fries, and any and all other forms of today's troublesome diets for kids and young people.
19. Piano lessons.  We got our piano just before I left home for college.
20. Thanksgiving turkey.  We had roast chicken.

Well, that was a preliminary list.  But lest you think we were deprived, we really didn't pay much attention to the fact we didn't have these things at the time and the fact that we didn't have them has only become apparent by historical hindsight.  To be continued . . . .

 

Random Photo from the Archives for January 8 2011: My Wife Velna as a Tow-headed little Girl on Old Blue

 

Writing Personal History

Several years ago, I wrote three volumes of personal history.  The first, "Echoes of My Wyoming Boyhood," took me from birth to age 16 when I graduated from high school.  The second, "September Beginnings: The Search for My Family Legacy" was a reminiscence of the gems from my personal and family background that made up my life legacy.  The Third, "Raggy Music: How I Got an Education at the University of Wyoming" covered my four years as a student at the University of Wyoming."  Thus, in several hundred pages, I managed to cover the first 20 years of my life.

At age 20, I graduated from college, had acquired a wife, was soon to acquire my first son, and was headed for Montana State University in Bozeman MT to work on a master's degree in agricultural economics.  And there my story stopped abruptly.  My family keeps asking me if nothing of consequence happened after age 20, like acquiring five kids, getting an M.A. and Ph. D. from Michigan, teaching in four universities, and all of the adventures and misadventures in between.

I tried to publish my three earlier tomes, to no avail.  My reviewers gave me high marks for writing and content, but, alas, I was a nobody and people want to read poorly written gossip by celebrities way before they read something of substance by someone unknown.

In any event, I have decided finally to move beyond age 20 and begin writing again, something I enjoy doing.  My memory plays more tricks than it did 10 years ago, but I have my wife to correct me, since we have been hanging out together since she was 16 and I was 17 and have been married for nearly 57 years come December.  I'm not sure anyone will care, but I found before that reconstructing one's life does, indeed, bring meaning and perspective to understanding who we are, where we came from, and the events and people who shaped our lives.  In my earlier writing efforts, I learned things about my parents and myself just by rethinking what I already knew but had long ignored or to which I had paid scant attention.  Some of these insights can be rather startling, some life changing.  I have read several books about the soul searching and life expanding benefits of seeking our roots and an understanding of our lives and of those who have been important to us.  So now I will begin again.  I may rethink publishing my first three volumes as ebooks.  A couple of hundred copies or so of my first volume are in circulation, and all are in Wyoming libraries.

What Would You Do If You Were Seventeen Again?

Here's a post that will require some group (blog viewer) participation if it is going to be any fun at all.  USA Today had a feature today in which they asked several celebrities what they would do if they were age seventeen again.

I turned seventeen the September after I graduated from high school in 1949.  At seventeen, I was a freshman at the University of Wyoming with a room in the hayloft of the sheep barn provided by the University for student workers at the University Livestock Farm.  I left home near Powell WY with my last paycheck of  $75 in my pocket.  I received no other help through all my years of college.  My clothing, of course, absorbed every iota of sheep smell.  The weather in Laramie was 20 or 30 below on mornings when I and my roommate got up to go help milk cows at the University Dairy barn.  I had a 1941 Ford to get to school, a couple of miles away.  I met a blonde girl on a blind date to a square dance the first weekend I came to Laramie in January 1950.  Neither of us knew that we would be living together fifty eight years later or certainly the little blonde girl may have thought twice about risking that blind date.  On the other hand, I have no idea what I would have done if she had turned me down for that date.  I would never know how to pay the monthly bills or fill out the income tax forms.  I don't know what I would have done differently, because I had no alternatives and I was absolutely thrilled to be in college under any circumstances.  And I did quite like the little blonde girl, right off.

Now it is your turn, so don't just pass this request by.  Tell us your age 17 story.  It's time for my viewers to contribute something to this blog

Memories of Spending Winters in Snow, Ice, and Whiteout Blizzards for Seven Decades

People who discover that my wife and I are "snowbirds" often reply by saying "How I envy you.  I hope I can be one someday."  We paid our dues, however.  Oh, how we paid our dues!  Thirteen years in Laamie WY, and my wife was born and raised there besides.  Legend has it that the chain on the flagpole in front of the Half-Acre gym on the University of Wyoming blows straight out in a windstorm.  The wind does not just blow in Laramie, it howls and  moans, noisily reshuffling the snow into deep drifts and plastering the roads with ice and frigid ruts.  Depending on whether you like the noise of the wind blowing around the corner of your bedroom all night long, or whether the wind drives you insane, you may have a varying opinion of Laramie.  While at the University, I often had to travel around Wyoming, including the short drive up Sherman Hill, which is the steepest slant on the entire Union Pacific Railroad, just east of Laramie.  In olden times, so to speak, you just took off, hoping you could see the reflector poles through the blinding snow.  Now, in more modern times, the Highway Patrol actually closes I-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne, Laramie and Rawlins, and Laramie and Fort Collins to the Colorado line.  What wimps.  Memories of the wind are enhanced by periods when the thermometer plunged to 30 below zero, sometimes more, sometimes less, thus necessitating covering your nose and face when going outside so you don't freeze your lungs.  In contrast, Laramie summers were beautiful, albeit plagued with mosquitos as big as antelope who survived every attempt to spray them into extinction.

Our three years in Cheyenne was marginally better, and our ten years in Fort Collins, 65 miles south of Laramie, were significantly better.  But both were still plagued with icy and snowy days more often than we liked.  Ann Arbor Michigan presented a gray and dreary landscape, hiding the sun for weeks on end, with more snow and ice than seemed civilized.  Penn State had its share of black ice and snow, but spring came earlier than we were used to with blizzards of falling pink and white tree blossoms to ease the pains of winter.  Washington, D.C. was a laugh to anyone from the snow belt, as everyone panicked with a couple of inches of snow, closing schools, sliding off roads, banging into each other.  I note that D.C. and local area residents still are witless when it comes to snow.  Bozeman MT was the coldest.  I honestly thought I would be hauled out of there frozen before the spring thaw came and the snow drifts melted.

So now people envy us when we tell them we spend the winters in St. George.  I would actually like to go back to Salt Lake, but who wants to go when they are still getting inches and inches of snow?  It has snowed a couple of times in St. George, occasionally sticking to roads and driveways for more than a couple of hours.   Again, there are no snow shovels in St. George.  No 4-wheel drives except for people who explore the redrock backcountry.  No Ice-Melt at Home Depot or anywhere else.  People have no clue that you should slow down.  Same on the highways, like I-15 between St. George and Salt Lake.  Drivers are stupid, intentionally or otherwise, in respecting the dangers of snow and ice.

But meanwhile, we are happy that, having paid our dues, we have lilacs, redbuds, crocus, and all of the other colors and blossoms of spring.  We just feel sorry for the people in Salt Lake, North Dakota, Minnesota, and other places dealing with snow, rising waters, and flood conditions.