Buying the farm was fulfilling a dream I had from the time I was 6 years old. We used to take an old couple we knew down to their 180 acre farm in Washington, Missouri in the spring and take them back to their home in the city for several years. I loved the farm; I could roam all over that place and after my folks were done fishing in the huge pond there, I could go swimming in the pond. The old farmhouse there had little heating so sleeping there in early spring was cold upstairs. I was tucked in with piles of old quilts. I could play in the barn, look around everywhere and enjoy myself. That set my mind to having my own farm someday.
When I was 17, I was working in a gas station and repairing flat tires. I had thought about joining a military service, the Marines, or the air force. The marines came to our home one night to speak to us. The two of them were real assholes, so I scratched them off my list. The air force was never there at the county courthouse. I guess they always filled their quotas quickly and took off work for the month. I was working, repairing a flat tire one afternoon when a navy chief had filled his gas tank and walked in to where I was working. He started talking to me about the navy and what I could do in the service. He asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to work on radios. He told me to come to the courthouse and take an aptitude test to see if I qualified. I did well on the test and he scored it and said I was qualified for any job in the navy except for one job. I wanted to sign up immediately. Being 17 I had to have one parent, mom or dad sign for me. Neither would sign for me. I realized that had one of them signed I would have gone into service on a minority contract. I would enter service at 17 and be discharged the day before my 21st birthday. I would have gotten out and never signed up again because it took a long time for me to acclimate to a navy life. On my 18th birthday I signed up on a delayed entry until September 4th. Joyce was starting college on the 5th of the month. Once she would be gone I wanted to go my own way into the navy.
I stayed in the navy for 10 years and 8 months. By reinlisting for 6 of those years I got enough money to have a downpayment on my farm. I held that money all through those years for the farm.
When I got out of the navy, I bought a small 4 acre place, but poured all the money to fix the place, then I was broke. Not me or Joyce was happy there, so we sold everything we had and headed west for California. It wasn’t easy finding a job there. I did finally find work at Burroughs computer company. We stayed there for 10 years, working and saving our money. After ten years, we headed back to Missouri. I worked at two places until Joyce found a farm for me to look at. It was a disaster to look over, everything was an overgrown mess, but the house was big and Joyce wanted the challenge to make the house as good or better than it ever was. We sold our house in town and bought the farm.
It took us a full year to clear the acreage and ready it to a huge garden and get some cows to raise. Later we sold off the cows and brought in some sheep and chickens. After 27 years of us working in town and working on the farm we were ready to retire. We sold the farm and moved to town and I am still here, Joyce passed on 4 years ago.
It’s been rough living without her in my life, but I’m still carrying on until I see her in heaven.
