Tag: childhood

Barn Cat Hijinks

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We had a lot of cats when we lived on the farm. Most were wild, though two or three were tame enough for me to play with. The wild ones generally stayed around the barn and didn’t come near the house except when Mom fed them.

Chaos erupted one day when one of the wild ones slipped into the house as someone opened the back door. He had never been inside before. Terrified wild-cat behavior ensued.

I remember him streaking through the house like his tail was on fire. Mom sent me into another room, but I watched from the doorway as the cat tried to escape through a closed window.

Wild-eyed, he began climbing Mom’s new sheer white curtains, shredding them as he went. She was not happy — to put it mildly.

There was no way to catch him bare-handed without inviting great bodily harm.

Careful to keep herself between me and the cat, Mom opened the door and tried shooing him onto the enclosed porch. He was having none of it.

Seeing no other solution, she grabbed a throw rug from the floor, wrapped up the cat — still clinging to the curtain — and hurled the whole furious bundle out the back door into the yard.

The curtains were ruined. It wasn’t long before we had new ones.

After his traumatic eviction, the cat was never brave enough to try the house again. In fact, I don’t remember seeing him near it after that — though Mom said he walked funny for a while.

In the Kitchen with Captain Kangaroo

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Most mornings of my early childhood began in the kitchen, sitting in my little upholstered rocking chair, watching Captain Kangaroo.

The kitchen was the warmest room in the house in winter, and it was where my mother spent most of her day. While I watched television, she cooked, baked, and moved quietly around me. The air always smelled of something good. I felt safe there. Cozy. Loved.

I don’t remember the house being cold — but I suppose it must have been, especially the floors. Instead of slippers, Mom bought me a pair of ankle-high fur-lined snow boots to wear in place of slippers. She had a pair just like them in her own size. We matched. I liked that. 

Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabbit, Grandfather Clock, and Dancing Bear felt like members of our household. They were part of my mornings, part of my growing up.

Our farmhouse had no central heating, like many rural homes in the 1950s. Two oil stoves heated the main floor — one near the bedrooms, one in the kitchen — and none upstairs, which we used mostly for storage. Winters were cold in the Midwest, and that was especially evident in our living room, caught between the two stoves. So my parents brought a television into the kitchen instead. A portable set with rabbit ears. And a child-sized upholstered rocking chair just for me.

There was a long counter along the west wall with no cabinets underneath. That became my little house. I played there for hours. Close enough that Mom could see me, far enough that neither of us would trip over the other. I didn’t know it then, but it was the perfect arrangement.

Where my mother was, I was.

And where that little rocking chair sat — that was home.

Bloomers

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Dad used to buy livestock feed in colorful linen bags, which he saved and brought home to Mom. She loved to sew, and she turned them into pretty and useful things for us and for the house.

I remember once she made some bloomers for me. That’s what she called them, but they didn’t look like the old-fashioned type that girls and women wore under dresses in earlier eras. I would compare them to the little matching panties that are sold with toddler dresses today.

They were pretty and ruffly, and I loved them. I was pretty proud of them.

One morning, I followed my brother to the bus because I wanted to show the kids my pretty new bloomers. I think that was all I was wearing.

I don’t remember ever walking to the bus with him after that.

I suspect I embarrassed him and he asked Mom to keep me in the house.

Big brothers have their limits.

Leaving the Farm

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We lived on the farm until I was six years old. Dad sold all the animals and equipment, but he kept his milk trucks. The milk routes were one of the main reasons we moved — now he had access to two creameries instead of just one.

We moved to a new town, where I started school. Learning to read was thrilling, and it remains one of the great joys of my life. I remember Dick and Jane, and Spot and Puff, with deep fondness.

Everything was different there — city streets instead of gravel roads. We brought Brownie, of course, but a city ordinance meant he had to be tied up. We lived on a highway at the edge of town, and our small yard was a poor substitute for the acres of farmland he once roamed.

Mom and Dad said it wasn’t fair to keep him tied. He was sad — a farm dog, after all, used to chasing rabbits and running through open pastures. So Dad found him a home on a farm belonging to a good customer on one of his milk routes. I was sad, too. I missed him terribly. But Dad said Brownie was happier there, and that gave me comfort.

Over the next two years, we moved several more times to accommodate Dad’s changing business. Near the end of my third-grade year, Dad sold the milk trucks, found a better job, and purchased Mom’s childhood home in a small rural village only a few miles from the farm.

Soon after, Mom enrolled me in school — the one I came to think of fondly as The Little Red Schoolhouse. It was the same country school that Mom and her eight brothers and sisters had attended before me.

Black-and-white historic photograph of Millersburg School building with students and teachers posed in front.

Millersburg School building, which housed grades 1–8 (later
1–6) before closing in 1962. Historic photo — not my class.
Color rendering of the Millersburg School re-created from the historic photo.


The entire school, grades 1–6, fit into two classrooms. Most grades had six to eight students. Some had fewer. When I was in fifth grade, there were only four children in fourth.

It was small in a way that felt personal.

Dad Measured My Backside

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Our farmhouse sat on top of a hill. The yard and driveway sloped gently down to the gravel road that passed our house and connected the community. That hill, and everything on it, shaped my early childhood. 

In the front yard were two trees. One was a tall pear tree, but I only know that because I heard my parents say so. I’m not sure what the other one was. It was broader and had a long limb that someone had hung a porch swing from — the kind that several people could sit in. I liked it and sat in it from time to time, but I couldn’t really swing — my legs were too short. 

Mom and Dad decided I needed a swing of my own, one that was just the right height for my short little legs to reach the ground. 

One sunny afternoon, they announced that today was the day I would get my new swing. I was so excited!

Dad gathered the materials — a rope, a board, a hand saw, and a drill. When he had everything together, he called us outside. I watched as he tossed the ends of the rope over the limb of the pear tree, then secured them in place. 

Next, he told me to turn around and bend over. I didn’t question it — grownups always knew what they were doing — so I did.

“I have to measure you to make sure I cut the board wide enough,” he said. He didn’t use a measuring tape. He just held the board up behind me. 

Mom told me many years later that what I didn’t see was the grin on his face and the wink he gave her when he said it. 

I loved that swing. Since the yard sloped, I felt like I was swinging a lot higher than I actually was because of it. 

The Peanut Man

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On the days Mom had to work at the hospital, I usually spent the day with Dad. Some of my fondest memories revolve around the times he took me with him to the Sale Barn. 

I don’t know if it had a name, but we always called it the Sale Barn, where farmers came to buy livestock, or brought some of their own to sell. 

There was an arena the animals were brought into for the sale, and there were bleachers where we sat high above the livestock arena. I can still hear the auctioneer’s voice as he worked through the different animals. I never had any idea what he was actually saying, but Dad seemed to know. 

And the smell—I’m sure you can imagine, but I didn’t find it particularly offensive. It just smelled like our barn, a place I loved to play.

But the real draw for me was The Peanut Man. I can’t tell you his name because I’m not sure I ever knew it. I think I may have heard it once or twice in adulthood, but he was, and always will be, The Peanut Man to me.

 He was always there with his peanut cart, dispensing bags of hot peanuts. I always wondered how he kept the peanuts hot. I never asked him, but I’m sure he would have showed me if I had. To this day I have no idea how he kept the peanuts hot. I just know that they always were. 

He was such a kind man, and he always had a smile for me. I really loved him. He was unable to speak, but he didn’t really need to. I gave him the nickel or dime my Dad gave me, and he’d turn and scoop up a brown paper bag full of hot peanuts, give me a huge smile, and hand the bag of peanuts to me. Then I would go back to where Dad was still sitting in the bleachers, and we shared that bag of peanuts. They were the best peanuts I’ve ever eaten.

I don’t know how old he was, just that he was an adult when I was a child. Everyone knew The Peanut Man in my hometown, and many remember him long after he was gone. I will never forget him. 

Tongue on the Pump Handle

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Never Ever

January 18, 2026

“Whatever you do, never ever stick your tongue on a pump handle,” cautioned our hired hand.

It just so happened we had a pump handle between the house and the barn. 

Old hand water pump in winter snow

It was winter.

Ever curious, I thought about it. The next time I went outside, I walked over to the pump. At that tender age, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. So I tested it out. 

And stuck fast.

It instantly became clear why I should never ever stick my tongue on a pump handle. It was so cold, it felt like my tongue was burning. I was outside alone, so there was no one to help me. Wanting to get away from it, I jerked my head back—and took a layer of skin off my tongue. 

That hurt almost as bad as it did while my tongue was still stuck on the pump handle, and it continued to hurt for several days afterward. 

Mom had words for the hired hand.

When My Brother Ran For Help

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Lying in the middle of the road with the sun in my face and gravel poking me everywhere was secondary to the pain in my foot, twisted and caught between the spokes of my brother’s bike.

I looked to make sure no cars were coming, though there wasn’t much I could have done about it anyway. I couldn’t get up. The bike had me trapped. I was scared I would be run over.

I listened for the sound of cars but heard nothing and was only slightly reassured that I would probably see a plume of dust before I actually heard one. The blind hill about 200 feet in front of me was worrisome, because cars usually came up over it pretty fast.

Just before that, my brother Monty, had been giving me a ride on his new bike. He told me to hold my feet out and away from the spokes so they wouldn’t get caught. I listened, and I did try—but accidents happen anyway.

Watching him run away from me toward the house scared me, too. I knew he was going to get Mom, but I felt so alone. It seemed like I had been lying there a long time, but it probably wasn’t more than five minutes, since we weren’t far from the house.

Finally, I saw Mom and Monty hurrying down the driveway toward me. I was so glad to see them. Mom gently removed my foot from between the spokes and carried me back to the house, where she examined my foot and determined that no bones were broken.

Looking back, it’s clear to me that even then, Monty had my best interests at heart.

Dickie and the Horse

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January 11, 2026

Dickie and his family lived on the farm next to ours. They had a horse that I often saw standing at the pasture fence beside their house. It was big. Bigger than the horse Dad used to bring cattle in from the field—and that horse was already off-limits to me.

This one wasn’t.

I don’t remember how I got up there. Someone may have lifted me onto his back, or maybe Dickie and I climbed up on the fence and stepped over from there. What I do remember is being suddenly very high up, sitting bareback on a wide brown horse, my legs stretched farther than they were used to going.

The horse moved in a slow, steady rhythm. It felt a little like rocking in a rocking chair. My feet might have dangled, but at five years old or so, the width of his back probably kept them from going very far.

Dickie was casual about the whole thing. He wasn’t much older than I was—maybe seven—and that made it feel even more special, like this was something we were simply allowed to do.

The adults knew. Dickie had permission to take the horse out of the pasture and ride him down the road to take me home. It wasn’t a secret.

Still, I remember my mother being surprised when she saw me coming down the road, sitting so high up on that horse’s back. I don’t think she knew ahead of time.

I loved it. I was proud. I felt like I was on top of the world.

When we reached my house, Dickie stopped the horse in the front yard. Mom came out and lifted me down. I was sorry to get off. I would have happily stayed there longer.

The Pink Wall

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January 8, 2026

I remember standing in my crib, holding on to the side rail, quietly looking at the wall across from my crib, comparing it to the white woodwork in the doorway to my room. I was fascinated by the color. 


I thought about that wall often, in brief flashes. For years, I didn’t know where we had lived then. I only knew that I was very little. One day when I was about 30 years old, I happened to think of it while my mother was visiting. I asked her where we had lived where the wall in my room was a deep pink with white woodwork.

A little shocked, she replied, “You couldn’t possibly remember that. You were only 10 months old.” 

She paused, then added, “It wasn’t supposed to be that dark.”

Except, I do remember. Many decades later, I can still see that wall in my mind’s eye. And I still have the feeling of being tiny. Why it made such an impression on me I can’t say. But pink always has been—and still is—my favorite color.