MemorialDay2020-PartOne

And so today kicks off the summer of 2020...
Actually, this is the first day of Memorial Day Weekend which has always been a touchstone in my life. Summertime is triangular, with Memorial Day and Labor Day as bookends around the Fourth of July. Memories flood my mind as I recall past summers from the 1950s at our rented farmhouse with an outhouse and a pump for water. Party line telephone calls meant several others eavesdropping on every call. The living room carpet would rise up whenever the wind blew. We took baths on Sunday nights in a galvanized steel bathtub filled with water we pumped and then heated with a magic gizmo we plugged into the wall. I remember sitting in the tub listening to radio programs like Fibber McGee & Molly, Amos n Andy, Gunsmoke etc...
I was not yet ten so I accepted it all as normal because it was what I knew. My best friend was named Ernie and he lived across Hellwig Road from our farmhouse in Genoa, outside Toledo. Ernie’s Dad was a farmer so I got to join them throughout the year in 1955 through 1958 doing farm chores like planting tomatoes, harvesting hay, milking cows, plowing land, feeding chickens and cows and horses and dogs and cats and more like goats and ducks and rabbits.
Mom and Dad taught me to love all animals, especially dogs and our farm became like the Underground Railroad for stray dogs, including some of the best dogs I ever knew. Like the boxer with one eye who stopped by for awhile to join our dogs So-So and Ringy as a part of our family. One day, he moved on somewhere else but his intelligence and bravery have stayed with me decades later.
I cried for a week when our sweet little mongrel named Brownie was killed by a hay baler on the road in front of our house.
Those winters were cold and when it snowed the outhouse required a full measure of fortitude. The fields surrounding our farm were muddy a lot and more than once I lost my shoe to the mud in those years.
Dad worked as a lumber handler at Rossford Army Depot until JFK got elected in 1960 and cut defense spending at places like Dad’s job. I never connected those dots until many years later. I loved JFK and still remember volunteering my ten year old services to Kennedy because Nixon was evil.
Mom sold Avon then Kirby vacuums. I got to go with her to pitch Kirbys to a series of wide-eyed young couples seeking truly superior vacuum assistance. She also took me to her sales meetings where they all sang songs and pumped each other up. Those experiences came in handy when I later joined the workforce selling magazines, shoes, diamonds, watches, sporting goods then Democrats.
My parents used to host their Toledo friends at summer bbq cookouts. Lots of laughs and beer and fried chicken, burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad, chocolate cake
The dogs always loved all the people sharing food.

Sweet, sweet memories...