Early On

Some of my earliest memories, when I was about five years old, was looking out a kitchen window and watching my dad leave to go to town on the tractor and then waiting for him to return. It was six miles to town so the round trip too quite some time. Upon his return he always brought me a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It was a real treat for me and it cost him a whopping three cents a pack.

Another early memory is climbing trees in our backyard. I remember I liked to climb as high as I could to where the limbs would actually sway, sit on a limb, and sing like a bird! I have a photo of me sitting high atop my favorite tree.

Two scary events remain in my memory. One event was my falling off the back of my dads tractor and landing on a piece of farm machinery and splitting my tongue wide open, about an inch long. I bled profusely. I nearly bled to death before my parents could get me to a hospital in Independence, Missouri. There was no ambulance to call and the 911 emergency system didn't exist. They transported me in the trusty old 1934 Pontiac that would run all of thirty miles an hour downhill on a windy day! I barely survived and was in the hospital for an extended stay. I remember drinking liquids through a straw for months because I couldn't eat any solid foods until my tongue healed.

The other scary event was when I sat down on a hornets nest on an old hay bailer. Again, I nearly died before my parents could get me to the doctor in Oak Grove. My brother rescued me from the hornets and sustained several stings himself. To this day I am extremely allergic to any kind of insect sting, especially a sting from a hornet, wasp, or bee.