I was born five days before D-Day, on a tiny farm in SC. From the time I was able to carry in one stick of firewood at a time I had chores to do. Right now I am waiting for “Pedro” the tree service operator who lives within shouting distance to come by and give me a price to remove a big RED Oak that is at least four feet thick. It is leaning and I don’t want to take a chance on it falling and doing a lot of damage. I look at that tree and remember when I and my older brother cut one about the same size with a two man crosscut saw. The saw was five and one half feet long and when you hit the center of the log there was only room for a very short stroke. I could not have been more than eleven and he was no more than fourteen. We felled the tree, cut it up in firewood lengths and hauled it back to the house with a groundsled pulled by a mule. We were working unsupervised, the only other person there most of the time was my mother who was in the house two hundred yards from the tree. My father was miles away at work. Of course we didn’t do it in one day. It took many Saturdays and evenings after school to cut up all that and haul it home. That is the kind of work I was involved in from the time my age was two digits and even before. When I allowed my grandson to use my machete at age ten his father freaked out. Things certainly are different now.
God bless you for your hard work through the years, Rip. I only pray that I can grow to be as strong an American as I do not doubt you were.
“Things certainly are different now.”
Back in the ‘30s, my grandparents used to visit kinfolks in the countryside beyond Fort Worth. My uncle was ten years old. Someone lent him an ancient blackpowder 12-gauge shotgun and a few precious shells and suggested he go hunt for jackrabbits. “Now, Sammy, go out a-ways and don’t aim that towards the house”. His happiest memories were waiting hours until some curious old jack stood atop his mound for a look around. BOOM!