Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, America, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age Story, Heartland America, Humorous Stories, Inspiring Stories, Mother's Day, Mystery Novel, Social Commentary on May 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Mark Twain
.
LIKE THIS ? — CLICK a STAR BELOW 🙂
.
Posted in Life Lessons, Family, School, tagged 1940s, America, American Tall Tales, Heartland America, Inspiring Stories, Life Lessons, Magical Mystery, Native American Stories, Secrets, Trudie McAfee on March 22, 2014| 6 Comments »
.
Trudie McAfee here to share the latest with all our wonderful friends and fans of Havenwood Tales!
My author D.J. asked me to write and tell you she’s alive and well and working on HAVENWOOD TALES, and that I am eternally young. But instead, I’ll let you in on what I’ve been up to meanwhile. And please don’t tell D.J. — okay? She might thing I’m being saucy. Let’s just let this be our little secret ; )
I’m SO EXCITED!! You should see all my beautiful Pinterest board pictures!!! There’s books and birds and flowers and Spring, and surprises for Mama and all kinds of things!
You can peek at what Home in Havenwood‘s like, the 1940s, America, My Favorite Things, a Magical Kingdom, Amazing Nature, Native Americans and lots more fantastical stuff, from fancy foods and beautiful quilts to Life Lessons I’m learning (… some the hard way) ; D
Spring has sprung and the race is on to share more Havenwood Tales with you! Thanks very much for being my friend! I hope you enjoy my Pinterest fun, I really like sharing the joy : ))
P.S. I love my Author. I did this for you, Miss D.J. Please don’t be mad.
.
Copyright©2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings Novel by D.J. Houston
(top of right-side menu)
LIKE this ? — Click a STAR Below 🙂
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age Story, Heartland America, Inspirational Stories, Miracles, Nostalgic Stories, Trudie McAfee, Valentine's Day, Visionary Fiction on February 7, 2014| 4 Comments »
.
I always did have a soft spot in my heart for Daddy’s older brother, Uncle Chester — especially when he had a hangover after pining for his delicate Rose.
I figured if he was grumbling, it had to be better than singing sad songs to his own guitar all night out on the farm, with nobody to talk to but his flop-earred hound and the howling coyotes . . .
Valentine’s Day was not easy for him that winter of ’47. But I remember him ever fondly for his heart of gold, despite the grumbling. And his music is still a miracle to me.
.
From HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings novel by D.J. Houston
Copyright©2010, 2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
(top of right-side menu)
LIKE THIS ? — Click STARS Below — Ignore Video AD 🙂
.
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, Author D.J. Houston, Bobbing for Apples, Halloween Stories, HALLOWEEN TREATS, Intrigue, Mystery Novel, Paranormal Stories, Storytelling, Trick or Treat on October 4, 2013| 2 Comments »
–
We played at dodging shadows and bobbed for apples floating in a big washtub along with some other kids, while the grownups traded pumpkins and baskets of corn and nuts and such around a roaring bonfire in the dark. But other than sensing somebody watching me from behind a tree and the hair on my arms standing up, it was pretty uneventful.
As for trick-or-treating on Halloween, it usually got too cold at night by late October for kids to be running around outside begging candy from Havenwood folks. Nobody had kept extra candy during the war and the habit stuck, and the houses were too far apart for any big hauls if they had any.
Copyright©2008, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
LIKE THIS ? — Click a STAR Below — IGNORE Video Ad 😉
–
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Literature Treasures, American Tall Tales, Author D.J. Houston, Childhood Memories, Heartland America, Inspiring Stories, Magical Mystery, Mystery Novel, Valentine's Day on February 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »
–
We were loitering over breakfast, contemplating how to dig out, when a clarion cry of “Man alive!” sounded in the yard.
By the time Daddy and Timmy and I could scramble to the front door, ever optimistic Uncle Arthur was tromping in, stomping his snow-caked boots on the rug and rubbing his hands together like two sticks praying to kindle a bonfire, hollering, “Nothing like a little cold snap to clear a fella’s head!”
Behind him, a deep voice grumbled beneath a bundle of woolen mufflers topped by Uncle Chester’s red nose and a brown leather aviator cap with humongous, sheepskin-lined ear flaps . . .
–
Copyright©2010, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
Magical Mystery – Childhood Memories – Inspiring Stories – Heartland America –
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Family Life, American Tall Tales, Author D.J. Houston, Childhood Memories, Christmas Stories, Historical Fiction Books, Humorous Stories, Mystery Novel, Social Commentary on December 28, 2012| 2 Comments »
–
by Norman Rockwell
Being from England and therefore born eccentric, of course it should have been predictable that Aunt Julia would serve weird food. . .
If the classic English nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” comes to mind, common sense would have to suspect it contained the remains of four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie — even to a six-year-old like me . . .
–
Copyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
–
Posted in Inspirations, Wisdom, tagged 1940s, American Literature Treasures, Coming of Age Story, Gifted Children, Inspiring Stories, Intrigue, Miracles, Mystery Novel, Natures Beauty, Nostalgic Stories, Secrets on September 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »
… it was my whole new world of learning with Miss Greenlee that most absorbed my life that Fall of 1946.
But on long walks home from school alone if Timmy stayed behind to practice baseball, while the fat-cheeked squirrels scurried to store their nuts in hidey-holes for the winter and cattle huddled together in the crisp wind, my thoughts would often turn to Mister Walling.
–
Copyright©2007, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
Posted in Life Lessons, Family, School, tagged 1940s, American Tall Tales, Coming of Age Story, Havenwood School, Historical Fiction Books, Humorous Stories, Life Lessons, Magical Mystery, Nostalgic Stories, Special Teachers on September 19, 2012| 4 Comments »
–
This excerpt is CONTINUED from “Humorous Stories – Baseball Rules – American Tall Tales” – Missed Part I ? – CLICK HERE
Anybody with an ounce of sense and eyes in their head could figure it out. Ever since the preacher’s niece from Poseyville, ten-year-old Josie May Redding, had blinked at him on a hayride, he’d been praying she was a cradle robber.
The last thing he needed was flirty Miss Josie May thinking he was some kind of sissy babysitter for his dumb little sister.
Posted in Author D.J. Houston Notes, tagged 1940s, America, American Tall Tales, Art Artists, Fantasy Fiction, Funny Stories, Gifted Children, Life Lessons, Mystery Novel, Native American Stories, Nostalgic Stories, Secrets on September 1, 2012| 8 Comments »
It’s me, TRUDIE, your HAVENWOOD TALES Narrator character 🙂
–
GUESS WHAT ?!! B I G N E W S — I’M on PINTEREST at http://pinterest.com/trudiehaven/
And it was a BIG DEAL to get there, too!
I confessed to the folks at Pinterest that I live in the 1940s in Heartland America. I even admitted to being precocious and said I could see the future. But they said all I needed was a Facebook or Twitter account, and they’d send me an invitation to join.
Simple, right? So I asked my author — who is (as you probably know) none other than my friend and confidant, D.J. Houston — to sign me up for Facebook BUT…
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, America, American Tall Tales, Author D.J. Houston, Freedom, Heartland America, Magical Mystery, Spirits & Ghosts, Storytelling on December 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »
. . . He called her his Lily of Liverpool. She called him her Yankee Doodle.
She liked to say she married him because he made her laugh. And that with so much opportunity and freedom in America, surely she belonged here, too.
Ladened with crates of Julia’s family heirlooms and decidedly English furniture, they set sail on a passenger ship in the spring of ’46, arrived by train from Boston and bought the old, abandoned Butler place in Rainbolt Hollow, ghosts and all . . .
–
Excerpts from the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings
Copyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
Posted in Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Tall Tales, Fantasy Fiction, Funny Stories, Havenwood School, Historical Fiction Books, Native American Stories, Nostalgic Stories, Storytelling, Thanksgiving Play on November 18, 2011| 2 Comments »
Maybe my next big break in life would be on the stage. Maybe it wouldn’t. But it promised to be a hallmark moment for Havenwood . . .
To entertain our parents, siblings, other family, friends of family, friends and family of their friends, teachers, older students and their entourages and anyone else we could recruit, my classmates and I scrunched together on a platform stage in the school cafeteria — under a huge, hanging, paper mache’ cornucopia stuffed with eight hundred pounds of real vegetables — and put on a Thanksgiving play . . .
~ Excerpts from the coming novel HAVENWOOD Tales Beginnings
Funny Holiday Stories – Fantasy Fiction – Historical Fiction Books – American Tall TalesCopyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
Posted in America, Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Literature Treasures, American Tall Tales, Author D.J. Houston, Fantasy Fiction, Funny Stories, Historical Fiction Books, Magical Mystery, Native American Stories, Social Commentary, Special Teachers, Thanksgiving Play on November 18, 2011| 30 Comments »
Maybe my next big break in life would be on the stage. Maybe it wouldn’t.But it promised to be a hallmark moment for Havenwood.
On the Friday night before Thanksgiving, to entertain our parents, siblings, other family, friends of family, friends and family of their friends plus teachers, older students and their entourages and anyone else we could recruit, my classmates and I scrunched together on a platform stage in the school cafeteria — under a huge, hanging, paper mache’ cornucopia stuffed with eight hundred pounds of real vegetables — and put on a Thanksgiving play.
The invitations read:
~
You Are Cordially Invited
To Attend
The First Annual Thanksgiving Play
Havenwood School Cafeteria
Fourth Friday of November
The Year Nineteen Hundred Forty-Six
Seven O’Clock in the Evening
~
I was cast as a Pilgrim woman cradling a baby doll that was swaddled in an itchy Indian trading blanket.
I even conceded to wear a Puritan dress with a huge, white, stifling collar and a bonnet tied under my chin, just to please Miss Greenlee. It was completely out of character for me, of course, but at least I didn’t have to pretend to have a husband.
I wished she’d just let me play Squanto, though. Nobody else came close to looking like him. And thanks to Miss Greenlee’s research, we’d grasped the sense of honor it must have taken for Squanto to persuade all the tribes to help the Pilgrims, considering how he’d been tricked away to Spain to be sold into slavery and then had to escape, and finally returned to America only to find his own people gone.
But his was another story . . .
Clifford Buck wore some beaded moccasins and his granddaddy’s fringed-sleeve buckskin jacket, beating a ceremonial tom-tom while the audience gathered, to pay his tribute to Squanto and the Indians. I was grateful to see that.
Little Betsy Alcorn played a Pilgrim child standing next to a lanky farm boy named Percy Miller, who was happily dressed as a minister, collar and all.
Clayton Cox played a turkey posted next to the cornucopia. He’d been stuffed into a burlap sack filled with tissue paper, and had a red-beaked mask on his face and tree twigs sticking out the back for an avante-garde tail feather look. Since he couldn’t see with his mask on, his not-so-secret admirer, the Indian Princess Prissy Schwartz, kept inching closer to center stage, trying to get next to Clayton despite his bulky costume.
Other classmates wore more Pilgrim and Indian costumes. And Miss Greenlee had even let Bobby Blackstone and Teddy MacDougal be Indian braves, so long as they agreed to wear pants, left their tomahawks at home and checked their war cries at the door . . .
And when the lights were dimmed, we knew we’d waited nervously and long enough.
As we streamed single-file onto the stage, the whole place erupted in cheers and applause, so when I crossed through the glare of the spotlight, I forgave Miss Greenlee completely for not casting me in such a prominent role as Squanto.
Since she hadn’t let Bobby and Teddy wear war paint, none of our Indians looked particularly savage, and I didn’t see any old veterans in the audience to get riled up about it if they had. I figured the churchgoers could favor the Pilgrims, regardless, and nobody would be reluctant to bow their heads for the Thanksgiving prayer. Surely family and friends would still like us, no matter what happened.
Prissy and Minister Percy served as the narrators. Others had their lines. All I had to do was to not drop my baby doll, say “Dear Lord, we appreciate all the help these fine Indians give us,” on cue, and remember to smile at the end when Bobby and Teddy started dancing to Clifford Buck’s tom-tom.
We were good to go . . . Most of the vegetables stayed in the cornucopia. The cornucopia stayed more or less where it was, except for when blind turkey Clayton got his tail feathers caught in the rope while he was wiggling around trying to scratch himself.
But the audience finally quit gasping and holding their breath as soon as the cornucopia stopped swaying, and nobody ran from the stage. Nobody got hurt and nobody sued, nor would they have thought to back then. And hardly anyone forgot their lines — if they did, Miss G was right there in the wings to remind them before they ever had a chance to feel embarrassed.
The show was a hit! Our Thanksgiving play would be remembered, hands down, as the highlight of Havenwood School’s Novembers for years to come.
~
Copyright©2010, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
(See Top of right-side Menu)
COMMENT or STAR Below to LIKE — See a Video AD ? It’s NOT ours 🙂
–
Posted in Author D.J. Houston Notes, tagged 1940s, American Literature Treasures, American Tall Tales, Author D.J. Houston, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age Story, Freedom, Funny Stories, Heartland America, Humorous Stories, Social Commentary, World War 2 Veterans on August 31, 2011| 12 Comments »
D.J. Houston, Author
What a Summer it’s been for America! Not to mention this extraordinary 21st Century on Earth.
As for our tale of Havenwood, I can only reveal that — following a summer of brave adventures, some startling misadventure and plentiful mystery after Trudie Beth McAfee’s precocious encounter with Gabriel White Cloud Walling — the era of her childhood freedom threatened to become an empty memory, as time drew near for. . . the inevitable — SCHOOL.
Here’s some FUN for you (circa 1946) 🙂 Enjoy! (more…)
Posted in Havenwood School, Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Literature Treasures, Author D.J. Houston, Havenwood School, Humorous Stories, Inspiring Stories, Native American Stories, Special Teachers, Spirits & Ghosts, Visionary Fiction on October 28, 2010| 15 Comments »
Halloween was due on a Thursday in 1946.
As school was dismissing on Wednesday, Miss Greenlee made another one of her famous announcements – only this time with an added caveat that would change life as I knew it before nightfall the next day.
The innocuous sounding part was, “Anyone who would like to wear a costume to school tomorrow for Halloween may do so.”
That in itself was enough to conjure a roomful of mixed emotions. But the caveat was the kicker.
And that was the rule. No cheating.
Miss Greenlee wasn’t forbidding us to scroll forward in time a few decades and buy costumes from store aisles that didn’t exist yet. She was just saying we couldn’t let anyone else make creative decisions for us. And we only had a few hours to decide.
We’d already spent the week swapping ghost stories on the playground, thinking we’d have some orange cookies and punch on Thursday and call it a Halloween. So you can imagine, on such short notice, how many straw-hatted farmers toting buckets and rakes and sheet-clad ghosts and high-heeled, beaded ladies stumbling over their mothers’ dresses were likely to show up for the “Extras” cast on Halloween morning.
But refreshingly, most of Miss Greenlee’s students managed to notch up their level of costume design to suit the “Supporting Role” category . . .
Bobby Blackstone and Teddy MacDougal played villains, of course. They’d rubbed coal all over their faces and wrapped themselves together in a big. black funeral parlor awning.
They wouldn’t have said how they came by the awning, so nobody bothered to ask. But they were more than prompt to accommodate anyone cheeky enough to sneak a peek at them, baring their teeth and hissing in campy, Bela Lugosi voices, “We are the vicious two-headed spider and we’ve come to eat you up!”
I had my fantasies about turning into a butterfly, but that wasn’t happening yet. Not according to the mirror, at least. My stubborn habit of dressing like a “tomboy” (as the gossips put it) wouldn’t permit such a delicate appearance in public on my part, anyway.
But the usual braids and overalls didn’t qualify as costume in Havenwood. So I got the idea I might use the occasion to honor my Native American ancestors, tied a strip of buckskin around my forehead, two mockingbird feathers in back and said I was an Indian. At least it was easy.
When I guessed correctly that Katy’s cheeks were meant to look like big red cherries to compliment the plastic fruit piled on her head, you’d think she’d just won the lottery, the way she squealed and carried on to thank me. But I must say, for a shy, plain girl who sat in the back of the classroom and kept to herself, I had to admire her daring on that headdress.
In my opinion, Katy was clearly the star of the show. And since Miss Greenlee’s other rule was that nobody could make fun of your costume, I figured she’d be safe in that respect.
Righteous Miss Hickey, however, was so offended by the blasphemy of such a thing as anyone ever wearing a costume (let alone to school) that when Mister Attabee gave us permission to stage a costume parade over lunch time, you could practically see locomotive smoke shooting from Hickey’s ears.
As we single-filed, smiling and waving in our disguises, past the open doors of the cafeteria and classrooms along the hall, older students whistled and cheered and teachers waved back and applauded.
Quilt by Susan Propst
Some played like they were afraid; others looked duly impressed, especially with Blackstone and MacDougal’s two-headed whatever-it-was. Even the weird science teacher, Mister Salamander, raised his eyeballs off the jar of brains on his desk long enough to refocus on mad-cow Clayton and the Siamese spider twins.
But all Miss Hickey could do was sputter and fume and claw at her breast, like she was being murdered by the very brazenness of it all. And I’m sorry, but that was downright entertaining . . .
And when the final bell rang to end it, my mates and I poured out the door and scattered into the blustery autumn wind like a flock of well-dressed scarecrows, clutching our spooky artwork to share with home and family.
~
–
MORE HALLOWEEN MEMORIES at “Halloween Art – School Nostalgia“
Copyright©2007, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
(top of right-side menu)
LIKED this ? – CLICK a STAR Below – Ignore any Video AD 🙂
–
Posted in Havenwood School, Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia, tagged 1940s, American Tall Tales, Fantasy Fiction, Halloween Stories, Historical Fiction Books, Magical Mystery, Secrets, Special Teachers, Spirits & Ghosts, Trick or Treat on October 26, 2010| 17 Comments »
Sometime around mid-October, with lots of spookiness and a hint of mirth in her playful voice, Miss Greenlee made a terribly important-sounding announcement.
Naturally, none of us farm-country kids who’d come up during the war years had ever even celebrated Halloween. We didn’t have a clue where to start. But Miss Greenlee’s exuberance was, as always, contagious as the pox, and the whole class went saucer-eyed.
My own ideas were limited.
On Halloween night the year before, Mama and some of her women friends from the Sand & Gravel plant drove Timmy and me to a harvest festival on a farm way out in the boonies.
We played at dodging shadows and bobbed for apples floating in a big washtub along with some other kids, while the grownups traded pumpkins and baskets of corn and nuts and such around a roaring bonfire in the dark. But other than sensing somebody watching me from behind a tree and the hair on my arms standing up, it was pretty uneventful.
As for the idea of trick-or-treating on Halloween, it usually got too cold at night by late October for kids to be running around outside begging candy from Havenwood folks. Nobody had kept extra candy during the war and the habit stuck, and the houses were too far apart for any big hauls if they had any.
With the able tutelage of Miss Greenlee, our gang launched into the spirit of things and learned as we went along.
After a titillating, quick study of the history of Halloween in the Old Country, we created a host of orange and black construction paper silhouettes for decorations, American style. Hairy spiders, hump-backed cats, 
witches on brooms and flying bats and toothy jack-o-lanterns got traced and cut and tacked around the classroom walls to leer at anyone who dared to look.
The boys from Shop Class brought in a ladder and hung some from the ceiling, dangling from lengths of feed sack string that let the creatures sway and swirl whenever a draft blew in under the door.
Tales about the figures moving on their own, however, were classified as top secret, and could only be embellished amongst ourselves. That was the rule.
So our whole class had to swear a pact of secrecy. We swore in the Shop Class boys and Miss Greenlee, too, for good measure. And with abundant giggles, loud shushes and plenty of bad acting, we pretended the source of all those spooky decorations was surely “a mystery.”
“Gee, they were just here when we got here.”
“We have no idea.”
“Honest.”
And so the story went for any outsider who might inquire, especially the older kids who thought we were cute and would drop by before their classes to play along. And our impishness and those innocent thrills only fueled further collusion, as the camaraderie between us swelled like a fearsome juggernaut.
We kept cranking out spooky artwork until we ran out of the whole semester’s supply of construction paper. Without skipping a beat, Miss Greenlee assigned us to gather up all the fabric scraps we could scavenge and bring them to school. And from every description of colorful cloth, we proceeded to cut out strange-looking trees shapes, people and animals and their various habitats, gluing them onto long panels of brown butcher paper with homemade flour and water paste.
Prissy ran the glue factory crew at a table hidden in the trees behind our building, keeping us well supplied with buckets of yeasty-smelling paste. And while others cut and I designed, the old hardwood floor of the classroom protested our messy business in grumpy silence.
Hand-painted touches were added to make the whole scene look more Halloweeny with hoot owls, ghosts and gravestones. Sketches of skeletons, scary skulls and three pairs of glaring wolf eyes, courtesy of the hooligans Bobby Blackstone and Teddy MacDougal, completed the work. And panel by panel, the kaleidoscope final mural depicting our very own Halloween Village — our masterpiece — was spread across the windows, wrapped around the walls and covered both sides of the door.
We were beyond elated! Life was a Halloween party!
Copyright©2008, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
American Tall Tales – Magical Mystery – Funny Stories – Nostalgia – Fantasy Fiction
( email address kept private)
LIKED it ? – Click a STAR Below Any Video AD ? It’s NOT OURS 🙂
–
Posted in America, Life Lessons, Family, School, tagged 1940s, American Family Life, Childhood Memories, Freedom, Historical Fiction Books, Native American Stories, Secrets, Social Commentary, World War 2 Veterans on October 13, 2010| 8 Comments »
–
I was only just getting to know my father then. Or at least what he’d become.
He’d been away to war so long, I’d even begun to wonder if I’d only imagined the times when the uniformed man in the picture frame on Mama’s dressing table lingered next to my crib to play with me by the light of a tiny nursery lamp, tickling my toes and fingers until we laughed out loud at each other.
As the years blended one to the next, the promise of his constant presence in my life dwindled to little more than a mist of wishful thinking, if I thought of him at all.
Envelopes with foreign stamps and the feelings that broke in Mama’s voice when she read passages from his letters to Timmy and me helped keep Daddy alive for us. The scene I caught of Timmy in front of the chiffarobe, sniffling and blowing his nose on his sleeve while he tried on Daddy’s hats, made its mark, too.
He reminded me of a sycamore tree with his tall, lean build and sturdy limbs. His skin was white when he rolled up his sleeves to wash his hands in the wintertime. And his hair was as shiny black as a raven’s wing, only curly . . .
He had a sort of handsome face, I thought, with a strong jaw and a high forehead like Timmy’s. His eyes were the hazel, Irish eyes my own eyes echoed. But I was just beginning to see him as something more than a stranger who’d been smart enough to marry my mother. And she said the war left him with troublesome things on his mind.
I figured he wasn’t ready for me to tell him about Mister Walling.
She was a pretty, plump brunette with light bronze skin and dark violet eyes, who liked to wear aprons with big pockets and her shoes as seldom as possible — a rare free spirit, inclined to practice the time-honored values of her Native American mother over those of her English father.
And while I knew she would hear with her heart whatever I had to say without belittling my reality, some innate, protective instinct prevented me from giving her reason to have to mention Mister Walling, or suffer undue concerns about my comings and goings.
My sweet, brave mother had found balance in her life and I didn’t want to upset it.
She was grateful to be home in her own big kitchen, cooking and baking . . . with all the sugar and spices and herbs she needed or wanted — away from the hard times she’d endured at the Sand & Gravel plant after Daddy went to war and the money ran low, when rationing of everything from milk to nylon stockings was in full swing and we could no longer survive on barter from our Victory Garden yield alone.
Timmy and the boys at school didn’t have to collect used paper and metal and rubber for the war production scrap piles anymore. And I didn’t have to stay with that overbearing woman who smelled like pork cracklings and made me call her “Aunt Millie,” while Mama worked long hours at the plant with too many ladies who wished their men were home.
–
Excerpts from the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings
Copyright©2006, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
(top of right-side menu)
–* CLICK a STAR BELOW to LIKE *
–
Posted in America, Life Lessons, Family, School, tagged 1940s, American Family Life, American Literature Treasures, Author D.J. Houston, Freedom, Heartland America, Historical Fiction Books, Inspiring Stories, Mystery Novel, Social Commentary, WW II on September 29, 2010| 17 Comments »
–
Faith In America by Donald Zolan
Before the second half of 20th Century America happened to her citizens, most kids who weren’t beat up too much for their choices were fairly safe and capable — able to focus their attention on the world in front of them long enough to finish a task and get something done on their own without fear of harm. . .
Even young children could be sent to run an errand, trusted not to meet an early end by a generation of parents and grandparents whose worst fear was that a youngster might actually starve to death if he didn’t learn some skills and self-reliance. And even in the cities, even during wartime, people looked out for each other’s kids . . .
Everybody knew their neighbors, anyway, at least around Havenwood. Scum didn’t stand much of a chance.
As for what happened to the nation and to the minds and morals of her people and their leaders in the decades that followed, it wasn’t television or movies or video games or computers, not guns or even the internet wars and poison food and water that turned out to be the real hidden culprit — as folks in a new awakening would come to realize.
Suffice it to say that, when I was a child, the art of dumbing down humanity with drugs and glorifying violence to masquerade as “culture” under the guise of “human nature” and “news of the day” had not fully taken hold yet as the modus operandi to convince folks life was dangerous, so they wouldn’t look too deep.
People in places like Havenwood could still seek solace in their churches. And there was still contentment to be found in the plain, old-fashioned friendliness of small town life, and common sense in family.
That the grownups in my early youth weren’t terrorized by a constant barrage of televised bad news sandwiched between phony-baloney commercials was a godsend. The ominous newspaper headlines and spurious hawkings of must-have wares and miracle cures on the radio were bad news enough back then.
But we didn’t have a TV yet. And we didn’t subscribe to the newspaper. And by 1946, the radio no longer had a war to report.
No one at my house was very interested in bad news, anyway. And except for old Miss Hickey, nobody at school cared much about it, either.
We didn’t even have school shootings when I was a kid. No student would dream of bringing a gun to school in the first place, now that the war was over, unless they needed it to shoot some supper on the way home. They could just store their guns in the principal’s gun case, next to his.
As for the day of fearing one’s child might fall prey to some counselor dispensing make-you-crazy “happy pills” to adjust their behavior if they wiggled too much or (god forbid) they thought outside the box, the idea of turning children into zombies was so far-fetched, it would have been hard to imagine even a Nazi Germany could have thought that one up. . .
Which is all to say that during those fleeting years between wars, in mid-20th Century Heartland America, life was safer for a child for awhile — especially a curious and outspoken one like me. And able to live a life less influenced by artificial style and false opinion, with plenty of worthwhile work to go around, kids enjoyed a lot more freedom in general.
And so it was, in early summer 1946, that I could wander off unfettered from our family picnic at Silver Bear Lake on a gorgeous Saturday morning, leaving my brother Timmy to fish and run wild with our stair-stepped trio of freckle-faced, farm boy cousins while the grownups played their dominoes.
–
Excerpts from the Coming Novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings
Copyright©2007, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.
–
(top of right side menu)
–
Havenwood Tales 
Memorial Day Memories – Inspirations from Heartland America
Posted in Inspirations, Wisdom, tagged 1940s, America, Author D.J. Houston, Freedom, Heartland America, Inspiring Stories, Mystery Novel, Social Commentary, WW II on May 26, 2014| 2 Comments »
Honoring Our Brave on Memorial Day
America Thanks You for Freedom !
CLICK HERE
Trudie’s Tribute to WW II Veterans
Mystery Novel – Social Commentary – 1940s – Inspiring Stories – Heartland America
VISIT Havenwood Tales PINTEREST
FOLLOW New Posts at “STAY TUNED”
(Top of right-side menu)
LIKE this ? — COMMENT or Click a STAR Below
.
Rate this:
GO AHEAD, SHARE THIS POST
Read Full Post »