Growing up in a rural community

Growing up in a rural community was tough by any standards, especially, if you had no family. Being classified as an “Aid Kid” was a literal brand in those days. We were considered BORN White Trash and were treated as though we almost didn't exist, the phrase “Oh, he’s just one of those Aid Kids” was the deciding factor in anything we wanted to do, from the communities point of view.

In spite of the adversities and problems brought on by being placed there by the state,
my brother and I were treated well by the foster family and they did their best to keep
us from being exposed to the narrow minds that some people just can’t seem to be without.

We had a unique bonding relationship with our foster-father as our agreement was to always tell him the truth, no matter what. That worked out well later, as we got to be older and into trouble all the time.

Along with my brother, there was another boy our age that we were always seen in the company of, and his name was Johnnie. The three of us were inseparable as we got older and, of course in trouble about something or other.

I remember once when we were about 9 or 10, we used to have a lot of fruit trees on the property and of course, we had farm animals. Let’s call this one “The Chicken That Got Away”. One day when climbing in this particular tree, it came to us that there was a natural "Y" in the branches that would lend itself to be wonderful sling shot and the more we looked at it there was a clear opening down to the chicken yard. Back in those days it was easy to get red rubber inner tube material from an auto-repair dumpsite. Red rubber was the best, as it was real rubber, not this black synthetic stuff. This natural "Y" was about two feet apart, so we tied the rubber on the "Y" sections and made a center holder from a piece of burlap.
Now the idea was to wait until a chicken would walk into the line of fire of this unique device and we would use little green apples as ammo. Remember this was an apple tree and the ammo was plentiful.
We took a lot of shots and hit the chickens many times, knocking them over or hitting their tail and scaring them and of course, we were having the time of our lives doing this.
Anyway, there was one shot that was a killer, we thought. I pulled back on the sling shot and the little green apple hit the chicken right on the back of its head. Down it went and it didn’t move. We got scared and weren’t sure what to do, but we knew we didn’t want the old man to see we had killed one of his laying hens. So, we decided to bury the chicken in the chicken yard below.
We were just finishing burying the chicken (in a shallow grave) and the old man came walking down and asked; “What are you boys up to now?” We said; “We were digging for fishing worms and night crawlers”. We no sooner said that and the chicken came to life and broke through the dirt and went just about as crazy as a chicken can get. Now the old man was really mad. Since we were in the chicken yard and there was a fence between us, he couldn’t get to us immediately, but we knew he would eventually get us.
We were much faster than he was, so we ran up to the house and told our foster mother that he was coming to give us a licken. He came in and told her that we were burying the chickens alive and god only knows what else we might have done. She decided to render some punishment that was worse than a good thrashing. We weren’t allowed to listen to our favorite radio programs for a whole month in the evening. We never heard of TV until we were about 13 or 14 years of age. In those days it was “Tom Mix” and “The Lone Ranger” and like programs on the radio. This was devastating to us and we never bothered the chickens again.

Mixing with other kids from the area that had been already tainted by their parents ideas and views about “Aid Kids” wasn’t easy and we both got into a lot of fights. It didn’t take long to realize that we would have to fight our way in an out of just about anything.
We would get into scuffles at school dances or any other associated functions and many times, the chaperones would let it go for a while, just to see where it would go, I guess.
To make a long story short, we became very good at defending ourselves. My brother and I, along with our companion Johnnie, would mock fight each other to figure out the best way to win. By the time we were 11 or so, we were so good at it most kids that had any sense would leave us alone, because we did not fight fair any more. Sticks, stones, or any other thing that might be laying around we would use to assist in our plight to win.
Also, in addition to that, if I were handy and my brother was in a fight, I would step in and help finish it. Of course, this did a lot to enhance our image as “Aid Kids”.
Those formidable years taught us a valuable lesson in life, if we ever going to amount to anything, we would have to do it all by ourselves as no one else was going to help us.

Did you know that we climbed out the second story window of the house and down the lattace work of the rose bush to get down so we could go to the other side of town to pick cherries. These cherries were the reddest and the biggest we had ever seen. We spent the majority of the night picking the cherries and then brought them back to the barn to hide until the next day. There was a full moon that night.
We went around the next day selling cherries in little quart baskets. I think the greatest selling act ever performed was to sell cherries to the owner of the cherry tree. She seemed thrilled to get cherries like these. WOW !!!

Back then, it was common for farmers to have dynamite handy for clearing areas of land and removing big stumps in the fields. I recall one time going fishing and taking some dynamite with us. We had heard that if you throw the dynamite in the water and it goes off it will stun the fish and you can simply go and pick out the big ones.
Well, we decided to try this and I threw the dynamite in the pond and it went off. There was water everywhere, but none in the pond. There was an old man across from us and simply said, “Boys, I think you used too much bait”. Not only did it blow the pond dry for a while, but the fish were gone too. We never did that again either.

Have you ever gone “Wild Honey” hunting? Let me tell you, this is a sport that takes a lot of intestinal fortitude. All you need to hunt with, is a hatchet, a scoop and a bucket. There was no such thing as bee spray in those days. My brother and I decided to go wild honey hunting one day and found us a “Honey Tree”. We could see the bees going in and out, but the hole was too small to get your hand in with the scoop. It’s now time for the hatchet. As I was the one that got up on something to get at the hole in the tree, it would appear that I would be the one in trouble. Not so. The bees came out of the tree in a cloud and attacked my brother. He ran to the nearest creek, about 20 yards away, and stayed under water as long as he could and every time he would pop up the bees would get him. I went in the water to break-up the swarm and was able to get him out and home. We ended up getting a doctor to attend to him and he was layed up for about a week. In those days, doctors actually came to the house, if not, he would have died as the hospital was more than an hour away. Somehow, I never got stung once, but Ronnie was stung over 100 times. We never tried that again either.

We lived in Amish country and an Amish buggy weighs about 95 to 100 pounds. They are very light so as to be able to pull it and a whole family too. Well, it was Halloween time and we were trying to think of something to do. After some deliberation, we decided to strip down a buggy and re-assemble it on the top of the farmers barn, straddling the barn roof. We did do that, and as the story goes, the farmer couldn’t find his buggy until after-noon the next day. It made the front page of the local newspaper and it was always suspected that we had done it. As I said before, we had a deal with the old man to always tell him the truth – no matter what. Believe me they came a hunting for the culprits that placed the buggy on the roof. We had told the old man we did it, so when they came and asked him if we were home that night, he said we were and that they should stop wasting their time looking here and go get the ones that really did it. I know they didn’t believe him, but they left us alone.

Did you know that there is such a thing as a seed mellon? One of our neighbors had a water mellon patch and one of the melons was considered to be a seed melon. It was the biggest water mellon we had ever seen. It was about 3 feet long and about 18 inches across and weighed a lot. We knew we couldn’t carry it so again on a full moon night, we came with our wheel barrow to remove the mellon. It took the farmer about two days to realize the mellon was gone, as there was a lot of mellons in the field. Of course, he came a knocking on our door and asked the old man about the mellon. The old man said he would find out. When he asked if we had taken the mellon, again we told him the truth. He asked if we had saved the seeds and as luck would have it, we actually did, as we spit the seeds into a can as we were eating this humungous mellon.
He took the seeds and told the farmer that he knows we didn’t take his mellon but the boys were able to get the seeds from the boys that did. The farmer simply asked if he would find out if the mellon was good. He said he told the farmer that he knew it was.
The farmer said to tell us thanks for getting the seeds back and the next time, all we would have to have done was to ask and he would have given us the mellon. But, that would have been no fun at all.

One time there was a chicken hawk flying all around the chicken houses waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and get one. The chickens were going crazy as they knew it was up there. The old man asked me to go get the rifle and a handful of bullets as soon as I could. I came back with the rifle and the bullets very quickly. He had a very bad case of arthritis and couldn’t load the single shot .22 caliber rifle. So every time the gun needed loaded, he would hand it to me and I would load it. He took about 5 or 6 shots at the hawk and missed every time and he got so mad he threw the gun on the ground. I picked up the gun and reloaded it and without thinking, I took aim and shot the hawk and down it came. Now the old man was surprised to see that, but suddenly realized that this must not have been the first time I used the rifle. Again, it was time for the truth and I admitted that I would sneak the gun out sometimes and shoot rats at the local dump site. Back then, we didn’t have landfills, it was usually a crevice or deep depression on the mountainside that would be used as a local dump for about anything.
A few weeks later, when I went to sneak the rifle out again, it wasn’t there. The old man hid the gun somewhere and I never did find out where. Strange as it may seem, even though he didn’t like the fact that I shot the Hawk and he couldn’t – he would tell the story of the hawk to anyone that would listen. He was proud of me, but wouldn’t tell me.

I think I will finish chapter two with this last story that I remember extremely well, even though I could go on forever as we did lead a colorful childhood. Our imaginations just never quit, but we were always careful not to hurt anyone.
The neighboring community had a “Town Cannon” complete with a pile of cannon balls.
These cannon balls were not welded together like they are today. So we decided to see if it really worked. We had to re-adjust the position of the cannon to clear anything that it might hit, if it worked.
We loaded it up with two cannon balls and a half a stick if dynamite. Lit the home made fuse and it worked. Woke up the whole town. What we didn’t know until the next day, was that one of the cannon balls hit the chimney of a house and ripped it totally off the top of the house. Now we were really in trouble as this was considered a real crime.
Still, when asked by the old man if we had anything to do with the cannon, we told him the truth. He simply said; “You boys are going to get me in trouble some day”. We were never even considered for that one by the neighboring community. We always wondered why.

If we had been born 30 years later, we would probably be in jail by now, or worse. However in those days, the saying was “Boys will be boys” and as long as no one
ever got hurt, a lot was overlooked.

Be assured, my brother, Johnnie and I were not the only boys that were Hell Raisers back in those days. Now and then we would join forces with a couple of other boys for fun.

The bottom line is – we learned a lot about life and people, but we were still very naive
To the rest of the world and what really goes on. I will share that in Chapter Three.


END OF CHAPTER TWO