I did a lot of stuff when I was a kid, still do actually LOL, that today's society seems to frown on, and the government makes laws against, but I'm still impressed when I think about some of the things my dad did when he was a kid.
Not long before he died we were looking through some old photos from when he was a kid, and here are a few of the things he told me about:
- At 5 he had to take the tractor about a mile from the house to work a particular field. He told me he was always terrified he'd stall it crossing a particularly bad ditch, because the hand crank was right at head level.
- When he was in grade school his teacher took him home one day during lunch break to start her washing machine for her. The hand crank flipped back and hit him in the forehead, leaving a dent. She put a piece of tape on it and they went back to school.
- During a blizzard as a kid he got lost in a whiteout heading to the house from the barn. Completely disoriented with no idea which way the house or barn was he fortunately walked in the direction that took him to a fence that ran from the barn to the house. Otherwise the subzero temps would have worked quickly on him.
- One pretty funny story was how when he was 8 during harvest season their 30 year old farm hand kept screwing up running the combine, so my grandfather told him to get down and had my dad run it. My dad commented, "You know, I never really though about it before, but I guess that must have made him feel sort of small."
I suppose it's not surprising that when he won a full agricultural scholarship he chose to join the Navy instead, to get as far away from the farm as possible.
When I think about stuff like that, I realize I've lived a very sheltered life in comparison.
