What I enjoyed most about childhood

I was alone most of the early childhood years. I played with imaginary friends. I had three imaginary friends. Their names were Gokey, Honey, and Little. I don't remember playing with them after age 10. I had moved to Sioux City and had made friends with the neighbors named Doug and his brother Bill. Bill was actually the first to come over and meet me and became my best of friends through High School and collage years. We did many things together until adult lives parted our ways. I kind of miss those times. The earliest I can remember playing under a porch with an old popcorn popper in the dirt. This would be about at the age of 3 according to my mother. I was a curious boy which got me into many situations such as in a freshly dug outside toilet hole, into a barrel of oil, and head first in a huge pig waller hole. Other stories that circulated the family were about stuffing my dad's watch down a rat hole and dropping my belt down the outside toilet hole.

Those were good memory years. Mom always had chickens, geese, and a big garden. I don't remember helping her in the garden but I do remember watching her plant, tend, and harvest the garden. I don't remember her processing any of the garden harvest but the under ground cellar always had shelves full of canned vegetables. Mom was a great cook if she stayed in the kitchen but there are many family stories about her failures when she would get distracted from the kitchen. Dad took everything in stride and never made a fuss about it. I think I have inherited that easy going life style from him. I don't get too excited about the journey of life and all the ugly things that pop up.

Probably the best thing I enjoyed about childhood was country living and the best thing about that was driving tractors. I don't remember the first time I got to drive a tractor but I suspect it was on my Uncle Don's lap. I rode the tractor many miles while he worked the land and soon I was doing every thing from plowing, disking, harrowing to cultivating, mowing and raking hay, and running the hay stacker. Throwing bales was hard sweaty work but Uncle Don always had a way to make it fun.

I suspect all that country Midwest farm expose fed the DNA that was already there. By the time I was in middle school Dad had me farming with the old time F20 and F30 tractors that started with a crank and had power nothing. One even had steel wheels. They had a whopping 15 and 20 horsepower. I have very fond memories of wrestling those tractors around the fields. Later Dad bought a newer tractor but still no power anything.

Life was good for me growing in the country.

Not all childhood was in the country Fifth grade through a Junior in high school was spent in the city. City life was different but still the place we lived had an acre of land behind the house and Dad convinced the neighbors to let him use the acres behind their houses. One year we planted potatoes, another it was sweet corn, and another it was field corn.