Dad wanted his children to learn how to work as well as how to have fun together. Being raised on a farm, dad's parents didn't have to come up with things for their boys to do, there was always more work available than time to do it But living in a modern, suburban home meant life was pretty easy for us. So dad had to get creative.
When we were little we kept busy doing our simple chores: Saturday cleaning, taking care of the yard, washing the dishes and helping mom with the laundry. But as we grew older dad needed to find more stuff for us to learn how to do, and he did.
Dad bought some acreage east of town and raised alfalfa on it for a couple of years. That meant weekly irrigating for Keith and Phillip. Dad taught us girls to help pick up rocks, harvest hay, and drive the tractor. After awhile he sold that property and bought a bigger parcel, so we had even more work to keep us busy. We raised cows and horses as well as alfalfa, so we learned how to ride and feed baby calves from a bottle, and also the sad fact that some animals are raised specifically to be eaten. I never could decide if I disliked steak when I was a teenager because mom cooked it really, really well done, because the beef we raised was just plain tough, or because I had fed a bottle to that cow when it was a baby, and even slobbering wet baby calves are cute.
Along with learning how to work on a farm, dad also taught us construction skills. When I was a teenager he bought a little house on the main street behind us. This house had a deep back yard that ran all the way to the alley behind our house, so our backyards were opposite each other. It was a very old house, at least old for our young town, and it had a lot of character. Being so old there was a lot of work that needed to be done to fix the house up so dad could rent it, and he used all of us older kids to help.
We learned how to strip off old paint, scrub off caked on rust and grime, sand wood floors, and wipe down years of dust and cob webs from walls and ceilings. Then dad taught us how to calk and prime and paint. I'll never forget dad trying to teach me how to paint cupboards, using straight, even, long strokes so the paint would go on smoothly. I would slap on a few licks of paint and dad would take the paint brush from me and demonstrate how it should be done. Then I would slap on a few more licks and dad would take the brush again and try to teach me the right way. Dad painted more of those cupboards than I did, but finally he had to leave me so he could go supervise one of the other kids, and I did learn how to paint.
That little house was beautiful when we got it all cleaned up. I was so impressed with the difference a coat of new paint could make to an old house. Working on that little house gave me hours and hours of time to dream about having a house of my own someday, and I really wanted to live there. It was so quaint and cute, it even had glass door knobs on all the doors and a big rock fireplace in the front room. I determined then and there that when I grew up I was going to live in that house if I possible, and I did.
After we got that house cleaned up and rented dad bought another little house farther down the street to remodel. This one wasn't as old, and it didn't have as much character, it was just a mess. But dad set us to work and we cleaned and fixed up that place, then he rented it as a business office.
I'll be forever grateful to the skills I learned while helping dad fix up these old homes. Knowing that I could put a coat of new paint on my dirty old walls and make my house look like new made it possible for me to always live in nice homes, even though I never had much money. It also gave me the confidence to try other projects, like laying my own tile and stripping and refinishing furniture.
Thanks to dad, I have always been able to live in beautiful, comfortable homes, decorated the way I wanted them, and painted with the colors I liked. Thank goodness I had a father who shared his love for work, and was willing to teach me how to do it.
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