Cotton & Corn: A Place, A Life, A Memory - Epilogue

Epilogue

City children certainly had a different lifestyle and had many conveniences that we didn’t have, but I loved my life on the farm far better; the freedom of soul, the closeness of family, the beauty of God’s creation, and the peace of mind and heart that the hard-working lifestyle provides.

Yes, we all grew up eventually and all of us learned proper English. But there’s just somethin’ about usin’ the words you grew up with, slang or not, that makes a soul feel like they are at home pert near anywhere in the world they might be.

We made many trips back to our home state over the years and I still go back to visit Sarah Jane’s resting place as often as I am able. I kept in contact with my friend Carol Wozenski until she passed away some years back. She never did find a grave for the girl who wrote that diary we found. Lucky, sweet Lucky lived another eighteen years after we gave her to Carol. All together I believe that dog lived longer than any other I have ever heard of. I can still hear her little bark and see her happy face. I can even feel those licks she so tenderly gave my cheeks as her tail wagged like the spinnin’ blades of a windmill.

Pa became the head foreman for a huge ice supply company once we got to California, at least until refrigerators knocked those enterprises pert near completely out of business. Then he took a job doing custodial maintenance at a local college. Pa always loved a good baseball game too. My brother Richard served in the Second World War, bein' of age and all. He never did become that football star he’d planned on bein’. Teddy missed that war but ended up goin’ to Korea in 1952. He did study a lot of science, but never did go that direction in life. Both my brothers married and raised their own families. Mary graduated from university and became a teacher. She later married a college professor and had three children of her own.

And me… well, that's a whole nother story.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Even though we were without electricity, indoor plumbing, and running water most of the time, I have fond memories of my childhood. Even though times were hard and we were poor, almost everyone was poor in those days, I had good friends and a loving and caring family. The memories that I retain are from the greatest period of my life.

I will always treasure those simple days of childhood the most; those days of planting and picking, those days of playing kick-the-can, those days of watchin’ the warm summer breezes blow gently over our fields, those days of cotton and corn.

The End

Oklahoma became the 46th state of the Union on November 16, 1907

Oklahoma

Where the work ethics and lifestyles lived

forged what it means to be a human being.