Chapter 13

For as long as Martha and I have been married, Saturday morning was her time to sleep in. It was little enough to ask for someone who had been a true partner in our marriage.

I cautiously made my way from the bed, trying to keep quiet. It was still dark outside and I could barely see in the dim light. I fumbled trying to find my work pants on the chair, and I heard Martha mumble,” Marcus, just turn the damn light on, get dressed, and let me go back to sleep!”

I turned on the small lamp on my bedside table, found my pants, shirt and work boots. “Sorry,” I said, as I turned off the light.

Martha mumbled something and then turned over to go back to sleep.

In the kitchen, I finished dressing, started a pot of coffee, and then made my way to the bathroom. With my morning ritual out of the way, I poured myself a cup of coffee.

With a fresh cup of coffee in hand, I made my way outside. The sun was just starting to rise in the east. A thin layer of clouds could barely be seen on the eastern horizon, and I knew it would be a glorious sunrise. I found a seat on the bench, next to the barn door, and sat down to enjoy the show.

I loved the solitude of the early morning. The clean, fresh smells invigorated me. For as long as I could remember, I’d always enjoyed the sunrise. I’d never been one to sleep late. Even when I was a kid, it was up and out early for me. Of course, back then, I had cows to milk and chickens to feed before school.

I thought back on the days of my youth. So much different from now; I could still taste the grit from the dust storms. I would never forget seeing the vast dust clouds that blew across the prairie, covering everything in sight with large mounds of fine dirt and sand.

I think that was the time when I first started to realize that my father knew a lot more than I was willing to give him credit for. As a small boy, I remember the many arguments he’d get into with other farmers about how they planted every square inch they could in wheat. When the drought came in thirty-one, it was a terrible sight to see. Field after field burned brown under the hot sun. No rain to speak of, and no respite from the almost unbearable heat. Thirty-two was no better, and because there was nothing to hold the dirt, the wind gathered great clouds of dust, moving huge amounts across the open prairie.

The great dustbowl occurred during the depression, but we were more fortunate than most. We had a good, deep well, and because my father had only a portion of the farm under tillage, the storms didn’t affect us to the same extent as others. Somehow, we managed to keep a few cows and chickens, and had enough water for a decent garden. My father had never believed in bank loans; he and my mother owned the farm outright. Unfortunately, most of our neighbors were not it the same situation. Many, if not most, were forced into bank foreclosure and lost their farms. The two room school I attended went from twenty-nine kids down to only nine. When I went off to college in the summer of 1938, there were few farmers left around us. Some of the farmers who had been forced to leave came back, but by and large, many of the farms stood vacant.