Childhood in the sandhills

By Rennie Phillips

I was raised out in the country seven miles from the little town of Arthur, Nebraska. As a boy, Arthur was a little bigger than it is now some 50 years later. Today there are about 120 residents while as a boy there were maybe 200. If you Google Arthur, Nebraska, there will be very little there except lots of empty space, lots of cattle and very few people.

At one time, Arthur County was the least populated county in the U.S.

We lived five miles north of Arthur and two miles east. My grandparents lived probably four miles on north and about half a mile east.

Mom and Dad had a frame house, but my grandparents had a sod house with walls that were about 20 inches thick or so.

When I could talk Mom and Dad into it, I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. It was always fun. Grandma was always baking and cooking, while Grandpa was always smoking an old cigar or drinking a beer or visiting. I can't remember there ever being a TV or even a radio.

I went to school at a one-room school three or four miles from home. Grades kindergarten through eight were all in the one room.

During my nine years attending this country school, I had three different teachers. All three were excellent teachers who truly cared about their students.

We had a recess in the morning and afternoon, ate a sack lunch at dinner, took a nap, and the teacher read to us from some book they had chosen. From grade school, I went into Arthur to high school. At that time, there were about 50 students in all four grades. My class had 12 students, with only one girl.

I grew up on a Nebraska ranch where Dad raised Hereford cattle. It was hard making a living, so Mom and Dad milked a bunch of cows and sold the milk and cream. Most of the time, we milked 10 to 20 cows morning and night by hand. I don't know how long it took, but it seemed like forever.

Some of the cows milked pretty easily, while some just milked hard. Usually Mom and Dad would give my brother Mick and me the easier ones to milk. Sometimes we'd get the ones with the little teats, which worked fine where our hands were smaller. So we milked before we went to school, and we milked again after we got home.

When school was going on there wasn't much time to do a whole lot. We got up, had breakfast, milked the cows, got ready and Mom or Dad or both took us to school. After school we had homework, maybe play a little, milk again, supper, maybe TV if we could see what was on it and then bed. In the summer we'd ride our horses, hunt coyotes, go fishing, piddle in the garden, swim in some mud hole or just do nothing. Summer was fun.

But we also had to help Dad put up the hay, which was kind of fun but work as well. When I was little, I got to drive the old International Cub. At times, Dad had a belly-mount mower on it, so I'd mow. At other times, I'd pull a 12- or 14-foot dump rake and rake hay.

Dad would run the Jayhawk and stack the hay. I liked to just sit and watch Dad run that old stacker. It looked like fun. It was fun up until Dad had a heart attack and I was the one who had to run the Jayhawk.

We got the hay stacked. It might not have been real pretty, but the cattle still ate the hay.

From the time I was little, I can't remember misbehaving. I probably did. You will have to ask my sisters whether I did. I have two sisters who were born in 1934 and 1938, while I was a 1950 model, so they both would remember.

I have a brother who is two years younger. I remember one time he tried to outrun Dad. He didn't.

Needless to say, neither of us tried that again. I remember getting a whooping from Mom but never from Dad. It seems like Mom would take off her old granny shoes and have at your rear end.

If you said a cuss word, Mom got a toothbrush and a bar of soap and she cleaned up your mouth.

No matter where we were going, Mom said to put on clean underwear 'cause you never knew when you might get in a car wreck or get hurt.

Mom believed in eggs and meat for breakfast, and usually that was bacon or sausage or ham. We hardly ever had breakfast food. We almost always had ice cream as a go-to-bed snack.

One of my favorite desserts was to cut up a peach into a soup bowl, then crumble some soda crackers on top of the peaches and follow that with some whipped cream. Man, that was good. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Both of the girls and both of us boys turned out OK. Between the four of us, three were salutatorians, and one was a valedictorian. None of us smokes, and only occasionally will we have a beer or a glass of wine. As far as I know, none of us has gotten in trouble with the law.

I don't believe a one of us was hurt by being corrected with a belt or an old granny shoe or a good talking out.

Work didn't hurt us. All of us know how to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. We grew up respecting those in positions of authority. We called our teachers Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. We grew up respecting those who were well up in years.

I appreciate the home that I grew up in and the parents and grandparents who raised me. My only hope is that I'm half the parent and grandparent they were.