I so enjoyed your thought piece today, not least because one part of the Little Britches story resonated so thoroughly.
I was born and brought up on a farm tenanted by my Father who, the youngest of three brothers of a family with two farms, had struck of with his new wife and two small boys to make it on his own. This was in 1949, the farmhouse had no electricity and no inside toilet. The milking machines and cooling for the dairy parlour was run off a generator. My father too, died at a young age after TB Kidney necessitating the removal of a kidney, getting his arm pulled into a silage augur by a loose thread on his smock and losing much of it, being crushed by a bull and finally a series of heart attacks which the GP had diagnosed as bilious attacks. I was 16 and my brother 18 and the landlord took back the farm; this however is not the parallel that resonated.
The resonance was the story of the shaved chocolate. Each Easter Sunday my maternal Aunt and her husband with their 4 children would visit and Easter Eggs would be exchanged. About two weeks before this Easter, when I was probably around 8, the cousins easter eggs were purchased and put out on the dining room sideboard. The four boxes were low and rectangular and each contained 3 modest chocolate egg shells behind a cellophane panel.
Unable to resist the temptation I discovered that I could access the eggs through the back of the packaging and consume the egg leaving the shiny paper in place behind the cellophane. Over the next few days I raided all the boxes like a fox in a hen house. I don't know how many of them I ate.
Easter Sunday rolled around and I imagine I prayed fervently for an Easter egg miracle to happen at Church that morning. No such miracle occurred and after all 10 of us had lunched the ritual of handing out the Easter eggs began. It was only when my mother lifted up the first box that the theft was discovered.
Given my brother and I's different natures a culprit was quickly identified. My father was not shy about corporal punishment but thankfully I can't remember if there was any of that. Far worse, the Easter Egg from my Mother and Father and the Egg which my Aunt and Uncle had brought for me were divided into 4 shares and given to all my cousins. I was left with nothing. I am sure that I also received the sneaky lecture in one form or another.
You can only imagine how much I enjoyed hearing your narration of Little Britches' shaved chocolate.
Dear Hugh - this was a wonderful highlight of my week. I can imagine the ingenuity that it took to remove the wrapping from the Easter eggs. It's amazing that you didn't go down a life of crime! What a hard road life on the land was on those days (mind you it's still tough) and your father must have had extraordinary resilience to battle on after so many challenges. Thanks for sharing your Easter egg story - it made us laugh and cry. There may be a book in your own experiences of growing up on the farm!
Dear Reuben,
I so enjoyed your thought piece today, not least because one part of the Little Britches story resonated so thoroughly.
I was born and brought up on a farm tenanted by my Father who, the youngest of three brothers of a family with two farms, had struck of with his new wife and two small boys to make it on his own. This was in 1949, the farmhouse had no electricity and no inside toilet. The milking machines and cooling for the dairy parlour was run off a generator. My father too, died at a young age after TB Kidney necessitating the removal of a kidney, getting his arm pulled into a silage augur by a loose thread on his smock and losing much of it, being crushed by a bull and finally a series of heart attacks which the GP had diagnosed as bilious attacks. I was 16 and my brother 18 and the landlord took back the farm; this however is not the parallel that resonated.
The resonance was the story of the shaved chocolate. Each Easter Sunday my maternal Aunt and her husband with their 4 children would visit and Easter Eggs would be exchanged. About two weeks before this Easter, when I was probably around 8, the cousins easter eggs were purchased and put out on the dining room sideboard. The four boxes were low and rectangular and each contained 3 modest chocolate egg shells behind a cellophane panel.
Unable to resist the temptation I discovered that I could access the eggs through the back of the packaging and consume the egg leaving the shiny paper in place behind the cellophane. Over the next few days I raided all the boxes like a fox in a hen house. I don't know how many of them I ate.
Easter Sunday rolled around and I imagine I prayed fervently for an Easter egg miracle to happen at Church that morning. No such miracle occurred and after all 10 of us had lunched the ritual of handing out the Easter eggs began. It was only when my mother lifted up the first box that the theft was discovered.
Given my brother and I's different natures a culprit was quickly identified. My father was not shy about corporal punishment but thankfully I can't remember if there was any of that. Far worse, the Easter Egg from my Mother and Father and the Egg which my Aunt and Uncle had brought for me were divided into 4 shares and given to all my cousins. I was left with nothing. I am sure that I also received the sneaky lecture in one form or another.
You can only imagine how much I enjoyed hearing your narration of Little Britches' shaved chocolate.
Thank you.
Dear Hugh - this was a wonderful highlight of my week. I can imagine the ingenuity that it took to remove the wrapping from the Easter eggs. It's amazing that you didn't go down a life of crime! What a hard road life on the land was on those days (mind you it's still tough) and your father must have had extraordinary resilience to battle on after so many challenges. Thanks for sharing your Easter egg story - it made us laugh and cry. There may be a book in your own experiences of growing up on the farm!