Spare Moments at My Folks' Farm 1

While I was in grade school, junior high, and high school, my parents often drove five miles north from Pine Village, Indiana, to shop in Oxford. My father dropped off my mother at Thelma’s Beauty Parlor where Mom received the tightest permanent on the planet. Thelma ran her business from a room in her home. To enter Thelma’s realm meant smelling the permanents being heated beneath the dryers that looked like astronauts’ helmets. Women, some of them delicately holding cigarettes, paged through magazines while sharing what my mother called “the best gossip.”

Oxford, Indiana: A Destination Away from the Farm

Having been born in the teens, my mother was in a generation of women that generally preferred curly hair to straight hair. As Mom’s hair was as straight as straight gets, she relied on “perms” to put her in the proper style. … and she wanted her hair curled closely to her scalp! Mom knew she could rely on Thelma every time.

My Father Posing with Chicks for Purina Ad

While Mom was in the beauty chair, my father and I were at Henderson Poultry to sell eggs. Dad and Mom had worked side by side to clean the eggs and to sand any imperfections from their shells. Henderson’s business was near the railroad track not far from the stable of the legendary Dan Patch, a famous pacer. (See my blog post on Dan Patch at http://heartlandbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/legends-of-pine-village-indiana.html.) Dad brought several crates of eggs to Henderson’s at any one time. After delivering the eggs, he and I might swing by the State Bank of Oxford with its polished woodwork gleaming in the sunshine that streamed through the front windows.

Items Used in My Father’s Chicken Business:

Hanging Scale Tested and Sealed by State of Indiana

Egg Weigher

Kitchen Scale

After Thelma had made Mom beautiful, Mom, Dad, and I might visit Messner and Sons Department Store, which was the quintessential clothing shop of an earlier time. I remember the shiny bronze cash register, the lightly creaking hardwood floors, and the ladder by which clerks could retrieve hard-to-reach items. Shirts and slacks were only two of many forms of merchandise on view around the room. I always felt proud to wear the clothes that my parents bought for me at Messner’s.

As a kid, I hoped that Mom and Dad might want something at Stam’s dime store, where I could walk up and down the narrow aisle and feast my eyes on the incense burners (which fascinated me) or the Christmas Nativity figurines. Occasionally, my joy knew no bounds when my parents bought me a kite or one of the balsa airplanes that snapped together.

A day in Oxford might conclude with the movie theater. Walt Disney animated films and Rogers and Hammerstein musicals were favorites, but, frequently, we watched Ma and Pa Kettle, as well as Francis the Talking Mule. If I were in good luck, my parents bought me a roll of NECCO Wafers or Life Savers. I held each wafer high enough to catch a little of the light from the screen so as to guess its color and flavor before nibbling on it.

Except for appointments at the doctor’s office or the dentist, trips to Oxford gave special meaning to the word “fun.”

Illustrations I Loved in My Earliest Years 5

For Christmas in 1960, the neighbor across the street, Beulah Jones, gave me a book titled Corky Learns a Lesson. Illustrated by Zdeněk Miler, the story of Corky was a little too young for a boy already in grade school, but I loved the book all the same and love it just as much today.

Zdeněk Miler’s Illustration in Emil Ludvik’s Corky Learns a Lesson

Translated by Daphne Rusbridge (1960)

Corky Learns a Lesson was based on a film, About Kohoutkovia Hen, and featured a text by Emil Ludvik that was translated by Daphne Rusbridge. As with Disney-style animation, the rooster (named Corky) and the hen (named—Are you ready?—Henny) stand out from the richly painted backdrops. Warm orange, soft tan, moss green, and deep brown characterize the fifteen full-page illustrations measuring approximately 21 by 29 cm. Even though the scenes were European, I felt at home among the woodpiles, strings of onions, pitchforks, brooks, barns, baskets, and butter churns. As I was living on a farm, I was well acquainted with all such details. I remember thinking that Miler and I were fellow artists, for I had begun to consider myself one who might one day wield a mighty pen. Mrs. Hail, my first-grade teacher, may have encouraged me when she found I had made exact copies of the dogs in the drawings in our textbooks. My mother certainly rewarded me with compliments for my art. So whether I had any talent or not, I believed I did. … and believing is nine-tenths of fulfilling dreams.

I turned to Miler’s marvelous scenes again and again. Even now, as I page through the book, I am transported to the places Miler imagined. Most importantly, I feel no stress—only joy, tranquility, and security. Thistles without prickles and a friendly blue-eyed cow help convey the peacefulness of the rural environment. The sole threat consists of red berries that Corky finds too attractive, but I will say no more as I would not want to spoil the ending.

My father raised chickens, and, even at a young age, I recognized that Miler’s rooster and hen were lifelike. Their poses typified the chickens in my father’s yard, and I considered accuracy the highest goal of a truthful artist.

How little could I foresee that my life would take me away from the farm to spend years and years in cities! … yet, no matter how loud the sirens and jets, the rural spaces within my memory filled my hours with the crowing of roosters and the mooing of cows. I discovered I had never really left the farm; rather, I had brought the farm with me wherever I went.

… and I still have Corky Learns a Lesson to page through, reliving the playfulness and dreaminess of my childhood.