Comments on: Three Score Years Ago, My Parents Brought Forth – Me!

By: discerningconservative

discerningconservative — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:06:06 +0000

MIne was back in May, but I assume you were talking to Art.

By: jccbin

jccbin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:04:15 +0000

By: discerningconservative

discerningconservative — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:58:30 +0000

Happy belated Birthday… I read the diary and reco’d it, but never relayed my best wishes to you. Hope you had an enjoyable day, and look forward to your 4 score years post.

By: Achance

Achance — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:55:48 +0000

By: Old_Crow

Old_Crow — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:32:55 +0000

By: AKSteveB

AKSteveB — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:27:50 +0000

I hope in some dark corner of your computer, you are saving some of this stuff up for a book or two. Even if you have to vanity publish it, someone 100 years from will be real grateful that you gave them a window into your time and place.

By: Richard Mullins

Richard Mullins — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:25:38 +0000

so it kind of worked. BTW, my dad turned 56 yesterday(Sept 3). I wished him happy birthday as well.

By: From ME to You

From ME to You — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:22:29 +0000

Joyeux Fête de Naissance!

Oh well!

By: From ME to You

From ME to You — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:20:44 +0000

That’s “Happy Birthday” in French! (I hope the html worked)

I recently hit 57 and am NOT looking forward to my 60th! I want to live LOOOOONG past 60 (I’m shooting for 150) I just hate birthdays than end with zeros!!

I can remember a lot of the things you recounted so eloquently in your post! The world that existed in 1957 when I entered 1st grade was a distant memory when I graduated form HS in 1970!!

In the ‘old’ days (pre-Viet Nam), Mainers were a pretty self reliant lot. When winter rolled around, people in the outlying areas could be snowed in for days at a stretch. Having a large woodpile, planning and having a fully stocked cupboard was the norm.

If you did have problems you couldn’t handle by yourself you would have to find a way to get to your neighbor who would immediately drop what he was doing to lend you a hand, knowing that if the situation was reversed, you would do the same.

Now, if there is a problem, the immediate cry is for immediate government intervention. No problem is too small or inconsequential for government intrusion. The majority seem to overlook that the Constitution does guarantee the right to persue happiness, it does not guarantee it. Nor does it guarantee a life without problems.

Back to the original topic! Happy Birthday, sir! May you continue having them as long as you and God plan on it!

By: Achance

Achance — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:03:52 +0000

By: Mike gamecock DeVine

Mike gamecock DeVine — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:01:32 +0000

By: Section9

Section9 — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:24:53 +0000

When you were born, Art, Hell came for Breakfast for the Left!

Hope you have many, many more!

By: penguin2

penguin2 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:05:13 +0000

I’d like to think my husband was luckier than your experience. But I don’t ask him!

By: Achance

Achance — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:31:33 +0000

who became Wife 1.0 were, “You a Yankee, ain’tcha?” She had NO use for that woman from day one. My fraternal grandmother lived with us after my grandfather died or I guess more correctly we lived with her. She was the keeper of the ghosts in the closet. Her grandfather was killed in the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, VA in July of 1864. On the heels of that, they had a visit from Sherman’s troops in November of ’64. My great-grandmother had witnessed all that as a girl of eight and I heard her stories first hand. I was five or six when she died at age 93. That one had some stories! And some opinions, which my grandmother and my parents largely shared.

I have to admit though, in retrospect Grandma was right about Wife 1.0.

Thank you for the kind words and good wishes!

By: Richard Mullins

Richard Mullins — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:23:47 +0000

as well as my dad. He’s 56 today

By: penguin2

penguin2 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:15:00 +0000

I wasn’t able to get back to your diary yesterday and comment, but I loved reading it again today. OccamsRazor compared you to Twain, and he is right. You should write a book. Looks like you already have several chapters lined up.

You’re observation of the “Yankees came again” stuck out in my mind. I was originally from NYC and lived in Colorado a few years. Anyway, I met my husband here in Virginia, but he was from Alabama. My father-in-law is very similar to the man you describe as your paternal forebears. My mother-in-law had been a debutant. When my husband and I got married, I was a Navy Nurse and he was in Submarines. My mother-in-law was not happy and told her son, my husband, that not only was I without “background” (an orphan), but I was a “Yankee.” My husband explained to me the insult that term meant. Needless to say, my f-i-l has been much easier to get along with than my m-i-l.

I wish you many more wonderful years, and I truly believe you are a man who can look back on your life with incredible pride and self-respect.

By: Martin Knight

Martin Knight — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:57:06 +0000

I don’t know how you do it … but I always feel as if I’m seeing it in real life when I read stuff like this from you.

Wow … just wow.

Here’s hoping you get to write the “five score” diary, and tweaking union noses while you’re at it!

By: ColdWarrior

ColdWarrior — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:02:50 +0000

I’m seven years younger than you, but your wonderful story resonated with me, as my parents both came from dairy farms in Wisconsin. I grew up in the “city,” a little town on the Mississippi of a thousand souls. I remember the card board boxes under the bed that were my and my sister’s “dresser” (we shared a room in an upstairs apartment in my great-uncle’s house — the full bath was downstairs, which we shared with him and his downstairs boarder). My folks’ first care was 1953 Chevy — my dad walked to work so my mom could drive 13 miles to her job as a nurse aide at the hospital over in the dreaded Minnesota where I was born. When I was in first grade, we moved into my parents’ first and only house — my dad, who learned wiring in the Army Signal Corp, wired it to say construction costs — I recall several days handing him tools while he worked his magic.

My folks, and all my uncles and aunts, saved everything — you might not know when that jar, bolt, screw, bag, whatever might come in handy. They lived though the Depression, and that left a mark on me. And the fact that whenever I asked them about it, they said it really wasn’t so bad for them, as all grew up on farms and could grow what they needed to eat.

Thanks for all your thoughts here.

Happy Birthday!

ColdWarrior

By: Flagstaff

Flagstaff — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:49:42 +0000

It’s always good to look back and realize how lucky we are. We don’t have to mope around complaining that we didn’t win life’s lottery, because we did.

I hope you have somebody back home you can send this to. I felt a good bit of love in those lines, and they will, too. Anyway, don’t lose it. Somebody’s going to want to read it again, someday.

By: Achance

Achance — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:25:35 +0000