I have many fond memories of growing up on the family farm.
I think we must have learned to work before we learned to walk. I was always grateful when you boys could work outside doing farm chores. I really didn’t like gathering eggs. There was always the nasty pecking hens. More than one went to chicken heaven in the manure pile.
It seems like you took responsibility early in life. You worked in the barn with the all the animals, as well as in the fields until dusk brought you inside. We had plenty of fun though too, getting into trouble. Remember the time we went sledding down the back hill, using the tin roof from the chicken house as our sled. We could have killed ourselves. The Good Lord must have been watching over us.
And the time when everyone went to a conference except for you and I, and our grandparents. We would sit and play “church” on the steps of the house for hours. We would have Lassie (our dog) give us sermons from the steps. We would tell her to preach, and she would bark out loud. So, we’d give her a treat. Those sermons were great! When our cousin Luke Jr. got older, he replaced Lassie as the preacher. Poor Lassie. Luke Jr. didn’t eat biscuits though, so it saved us lots of money on food. I’m sure Luke Jr. was a “free minister.”
And oh how you thought you were big stuff when you were younger. I can still see you running after a fox up in the field. You were so sure you would catch that fox. What an entertaining evening! Remember the times too of poking at water snakes in the stream at our house? You never acted scared.
Spotting deer was an experience that few people got to enjoy as much as our family. Especially when my sleep was so rudely interrupted because I was the one who had to drive the car. It seems like the faster I drove, the more deer we saw. And you would hang out the window with a spotlight, and when you would see the deer you would bang on the roof for me to stop. I would have to come to a sudden stop so you could count the deer. It seems like fun looking back, but not then!
I could ramble on and on, but I am putting a lid on it for this time.
My dear brother Kenny, I love you so very much. I would have gladly traded places with you, and taken away all of your suffering. But I couldn’t. That hurts me very much, because a big sister needs to protect her baby brothers. I’m proud of the man you became, and I’m proud to call you my brother.
All my love,
Sis
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