Drive - A Memoir 25th Installment
what
to do if he knew you’d heard and understood him the first time.
Vern and Edith were tough and absolute with their rules. They had
boundaries and I knew what would happen if I crossed them. At the
same time, they were fair. They had made their rules crystal clear,
and they always made sure we understood why
they had their rules. I will list a few.
- Tell the truth. (Not telling or 'keeping a secret' is the same as a lie.)
- Start moving or say “what” the first time they tell you what to do.
- Never mouth off or argue. (Their decision was always final, but they’d make sure we knew why.)
- Don't shirk your work or kill time.
- Always milk the cows on schedule.
- You will go to school every day, and you will go to college.
- Lastly, if you follow these rules, every other choice you make is yours. (The only exception to this was that Edith would choose our career path in college if we didn't want to take over the farm. We all went to college. She chose. None of us wanted to farm.)
I
wasn’t abused, I was disciplined – all of us were. I believe we
were better for it. I had respect for my parents and I didn't fear
them; I feared the consequences when I chose to not follow a rule.
Because I respected my parents, I had decided when I was very young,
that I wanted to please them. What pleased them was hard work, and I
learned to love hard work. From hard work, naturally, came hard play.
Work and play were the same for me. When I knew what was expected of
me and believed that the rules were constant and fair, I was able to
make my own choices. If our work was done, the time was totally ours
to do whatever we wanted to do – be it dangerous, silly, lazy, or
anything. (Although, we were very careful about being lazy.)
“Did
that last strapping hurt a lot?” Russ carefully queried as we
lugged the milking equipment to the old pole barn to milk the cows.
“Not
really, the new strap is still new so it’s stiff and doesn’t bend
enough to inflict a real stinger,” I answered. “He did draw a
little blood, though, because he held the handle end and whacked me
with the buckle end, and it scratched me a bit.”
“Do
you believe that Linda lost the old razor strap?” Russell was full
of questions this chilly morning.
“Heck
no!” I sputtered. The old strap had hung on that nail in the
kitchen for as long as I could remember just to remind us of the
consequences of breaking the rules. Linda, always the schemer, took
it out in the desert and buried it.”
“So,
you don't believe her story?” Russ said.
“Like
I said – Heck No!” I believed her tale of
500 more words tomorrow
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