JUST LUCK? OR IS
THERE ORCHESTRATION GOING ON
Ever wondered why you were born
into the family you were part of? Or, ever questioned any of the
seemingly random ways people grow up in the places that they do? Looking
back at my childhood, back at “the blinding country of youth”,
somehow it turns out that there seemed to be something or someone
directing those “random” transitions and circumstances of my life.
But all that doing without was
obscured by the rich life I enjoyed with my siblings. The six of us were
a melange of varied interests talents and inclinations. And somehow
something cool was always cooking. We were all singers so our old
upright piano got lots of play, and many of the keys had lost their
ivories. Brother Charles was a born soap opera inventor and he had one
called “Important Man” which ran for years. He was the main character,
and sister Mary and various neighbor kids were all given characters to
play. I, a mischief maker, was excluded; therefore, I had to make my own
recreations, and with my trusty BB gun in hand I roamed the farm
drinking in the rich menu of things to do—always my first choice was the
Boise de Sioux River. It was barely a mile east of our place, and from
behind our barn door out across the cow pasture and down through the
fields ran 'the lane.' It was the route Dad's machinery usually took to
access the various fields. My favorite was The Big Pasture” a thirty
acre swatch of original prairie, with long native grass, lots of flowers
and even a well with a pump dad used to keep a water tank filled for our
small herd of feisty Angus cows. I was into birds and critters so I was
well acquainted with killdeers, bobolinks, plovers, marsh hawks and
meadowlarks. (My favorites) And I could lie on my back in that Big
pasture grass and gaze way up into the sky at “what had passed, was
passing, or to come.”
At the river I could hand-line
for bullheads, red horse suckers, or carp. “How sweet I roamed from
field to field/ And tasted all the Summer's pride.” I think I
learned better than many the full understanding of what those lines of
William Blake really mean.
My half brother, David, was an
instigator. Seven years my senior, he came up with Tarzan ropes and
swings, crazy contraptions, invented holiday recreations. His sister
Virginia usually had painting and dress designing going on as well as
plans for leaving home. And my dad was there with his dreams for
changing the world either by dietary discoveries, electronic devices, or
the mastery of massage therapy.
And finally there was my
beautiful Mom. She was short, some-what crippled and constantly besieged
with herculean tasks, but with her Bible and power faith wrought from
it, she was by far the strongest, wisest, and deepest of us all. Her
faith pulled us through every trial.
Gene Pinkney - - 3/29/ 21
edited for html, 17-2021
As a kid I often wondered why
we lacked some of the finer things I noticed others enjoying. We had a
pretty impoverished situation: small farm, ancient machinery, often
unhappy parents, a two-story house “heated” by a potbellied stove
burning corn cobs, battery boxes, lignite, and anything random that
would burn. Only later, visiting some of my friends would I notice that
some had furnaces with registers, radiators, plus many of the appliances
we had not yet been able to afford: pop-up toasters, mix masters, oil
heaters and way better cars.
“Gee our old Lasalle ran great,”
but I would be a 6th grader before I saw a shift lever on the
steering column of one of our newer used cars a 48 Studebaker. Dad could
fix anything so he kept those beaters purring, much to our (us kids)
chagrin.
