FAMILY TROPHIES

FAMILY TROPHIES - When I was a kid our farm nearby Mechanicsburg, PA was home to my three sisters and one brother, a dog, a pesky groundhog, some barn animals and rodents, a goose or two, some chickens and sometimes a cow.  Each kid has their own memories, but I will share some of mine here.


One memory was dad's obsession with eliminating a nasty rat in our barn.  I remember one evening while he was working on the tractor he saw the rat dart upstairs in the barn.  He ran to the house, grabbed his 12 gauge shotgun and quietly snuck into the barn.  Minutes later I heard a loud shot so I ran to the barn to see what I hoped was a trophy for my dad.  When I got to the top of the steps in the barn I saw my dad was really upset.  No dead rodent. Turns out dad forgot that he had pumpkin ball shells in the shotgun.  He missed the rat but made a huge hole in our barn wall.  Score one for the rat, Dad zero.

When I turned 12 it was time for me to hunt.  Our farm was home to a healthy population of pheasants, rabbits and other small game.  After hunting for awhile on the first day dad decided to grab a sandwich at the house.  He told me to sit in the cornfield and get some rest. Ten minutes later I saw him heading back to me, but when I picked up my 16 gauge shotgun a corn stalk caught the trigger.  About 1 foot off the ground the gun fired, toward my dad.  I had never seen my dad scared.  Until that day.  He let me know my hunting for the day was over.  No trophies on my first hunt. 

Our family goose got a trophy in the form of a chunk of my sister's leg.  For some reason the goose didn't like my sister and every time she got near the goose, he would chase her. I think he liked the rest of the kids. But I clearly remember this funny scene; goose chasing Linda, Linda screaming. Goose biting Linda, Linda crying.  In all fairness, the goose was nasty and really did provide security to any stranger that ventured near our homestead. 

My sister Marilyn has a trophy scar on her fingers from our corn seeder.  It was her job to ride on top of the seeder and unjam the corn seeds during planting.  I guess she pushed a little to hard on the corn and her fingers got caught in the gears.  Freaked out my dad.

And I still have a trophy scar on my forehead from running into an electric fence.  Dad had put the fence up after getting a donkey. I had no idea the fence was there until the wire fence met my head and put me on the ground.  Not only did it cut my head, I got shocked at the same time. 

Every other day I walked to our neighbor farmer to get one gallon of milk (for fifty cents). I recall the farmer enjoying these visits and often he would squirt milk directly from the cow and I would try to catch it in my mouth.  It was warm. When I would bring the milk pail home, we would let it sit overnight.  In the morning there was a thick coating of cream on top which my mom would skim off and use for cooking.  I didn't like drinking this milk because without the cream it tasted terrible, and often chunks of cream would get caught on your tongue before you could swallow the milk. 

WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY - All in all I'm really thankful for our childhood memories.  Even though we had to drink milk with clumps of cream, our parents made sure we had plenty to eat.  And although our house was built in the 1700's and wasn't fancy, it provided a secure and safe shelter for our family.

Recently I was listening to a TED Talk that outlined some of the problems in the world today, like one out of every two children in the world live in severe poverty.  I will explore this subject in tomorrow's post.