Remembering my ‘Dirt Road Days’
February 2025
Vintage Discoveries
Remembering my ‘Dirt Road Days’
by Ken Weyand
The isolation often meant that a week spent looking forward to a visit to a county-seat town for a matinee showing a Hopalong Cassidy flick with a side of Bugs Bunny cartoons while my parents did their trading could be ruined by a Friday night rain. The 4-mile dirt road connecting us with the nearest blacktop would turn to mud, a challenge too great for our old Chevy.
Looking back, growing up on an isolated farm had its advantages. From an early age, my folks allowed me to explore the farm on my own. I remember my six-year-old self playing in a shallow creek while my dad plowed bottomland. I’d build small dams that would quickly wash away, and pursue crawdads and frogs that usually avoided by reach. It was a far cry from the helicopter parenting that isolates and protects today’s youngsters from the realities of life, but I survived.
The photo shows Ken as a toddler at the back of their farmhouse, which featured a pump for drawing water. His dad (and occasional harvest hands) would use the pump to wash up before entering the house for dinner.
The photo shows Ken as a toddler at the back of their farmhouse, which featured a pump for drawing water. His dad (and occasional harvest hands) would use the pump to wash up before entering the house for dinner.
Ken’s mother captured his toddler self helping his dad wash up before coming in for dinner, probably in the summer of 1939. (photos from Ken Weyand collection)e pump to wash up before entering the house for dinner.
On summer days he would pump a pan of water from the old well on our uncovered back porch to wash up before coming into the house for dinner. On the farm, we had breakfast, dinner and supper. After a hearty meal, he would return to the fields to continue his work, while I found other things to occupy my time.
The back porch was the site of another incident a few years later. I had been known to occasionally wander in my sleep. One night, I walked downtairs in my sleep and out the back door to the porch. When my mother caught up with me, I had pumped a cup of water and was preparing to take a drink. The sleep-walking problem went away as I got older, but the water-pump incident was the source of family amusement for years.
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Ken Weyand is the original owner/publisher of Discover Vintage America, founded in July 1973 under the name of Discover North.
Ken Weyand can be contacted at kweyand1@kc.rr.com Ken is self-publishing a series of non-fiction E-books. Go to www.smashwords.com and enter Ken Weyand in the search box.
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