MORE EARLY DAYS

Billy, Janet, Diane, Debbie, and Wade.

     I could call this picture the "Cast of Characters" because they were, and still are, ... Characters.  All were brought up in the same house, with the same parents and yet each is a totally different person.  I will leave it to the sociologists to decide why, but it was, and is still an interesting group.  They do share many of the same traits.  

Nancy on the tractor.  We were clearing for the orchard.

    I don't know how I got off on this except to say that they accepted our move to the country and the hardships that came with it with a minimum of complaints. My wife, bless her was GREAT and gave up a comfortable home in a subdivision with running water, electricity, heat, attic fan, TV, clothes washer and dryer, refrigerator and freezer, stove, sink, cabinets, etc.....  I could go on and on about what a great sport she was.  (Although she didn't have to do any no more vacuuming for months).

   Ruth and Charles let us put a jug of milk in their freezer and we would get it each day and thaw it out enough for breakfast and then put it back in their freezer.  Nancy cooked on a coleman gasoline stove and we used a cooler.  We washed at a coin laundry about 10 miles away and managed to get by without much trouble.

     We had first moved into our canvas palace and I hadn't hooked up our water hose shower yet.  Late one afternoon while I was at work, Nancy discovered that the two boys had decided that they were on the wild frontier so they would be "Indians".   They were wearing shorts so there was a lot of exposed skin.  They used charcoal sticks from the campfire pit and red mud from the nearest puddle to put on their "war paint".  I never saw it but they must have done a good job of applying the "paint" even to their backs.  She grabbed a bar of soap and marched them down to the creek at sundown for a bath.  Don't worry, she used bio-degradable ivory soap.  The guys thought that it was all great fun.

Duncan creek bath tub.

Okay, Home Schoolin time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0FJhOMc-vA