Author: Charlcyann
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LOSS
Ken wiped his tears, sighed, and quoted the title of an old song, “What a Difference a Day Makes.” On Saturday evening he and his youngest sister, Ruby, had a lengthy discussion on where we might travel in the next few weeks. We were waiting for fall weather. Today she is gone. Sunday morning Ruby…
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THE PIONEER MAN
A popular cartoonist of the thirties and forties often used the theme, “Born Thirty Years Too Soon.” In the late sixties a friend remarked that Ken was born thirty years too late. The person said that Ken would have either saddled his horse and rode west or he would have put his family in a…
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SOUTH WARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
I didn’t go to elementary school. I went to ward school. Breckenridge had three ward schools: South Ward, North Ward, and East Ward. In today’s world, if I tell someone that I went to South Ward they wonder if I went to a hospital or a prison. We also used the term grade school. Our…
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PENNIES BOUGHT A WATCH
Many milk customers paid for their milk daily or weekly by leaving coins inside the empty bottles they were returning. The coins were rolled in a special paper provided by the bank. Rolling the coins became another of my jobs. For my work in the milk house, I received all of the pennies. There were…
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GLASS MILK BOTTLES
GLASS MILK BOTTLES. My parents never gave any negative thought to using child labor. If you were old enough to help, you helped. Life on a dairy farm meant never ending work every day of the week for everyone. Cows were milked twice a day. The milk was strained, cooled and put into 5…
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I GOT PAID FOR THIS
Last week I got a check from Reader’s Digest. Even though it was an itty bitty check, I immediately thought it could be a scam. I wondered if someone could get information they did not need if this check went through my bank account. Customer service at Reader’s Digest kept insisting that I must be…
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Newlywed Boundaries
Newlyweds in the fifties had not heard about setting boundaries in relationships. When we married in 1955, we lived in a garage apartment within walking distance of the university where I was taking summer classes. My husband took a job as a roustabout for an oil company to support us until his teaching job began…
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The Fall Hatch
A baby was probably the last thing my parents needed during the Great Depression, but I surprised them. They already had an 18- year old daughter and a 13- year old son. All four of them took my arrival in stride. My father explained that their close friends had no children my age because they…
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