As we got into the spring of 1965, things were smoothing out and becoming routine on the farms. I was finishing up my freshman year at Hillsboro High School and had only one more year of Latin to dread. 

Let’s talk about fixing our physical frailties. I’ll use me as an example and express the hope I have for the future, as long as the Lord wants me here.

Once I started to Hillsboro High School in the fall of 1964, I had access to the stores in Hillsboro, for the school bus took me there and back every school day. I was making a little money, earnings from helping neighbors put up hay, and I had an account at Farmers & Traders Bank.

What does it signal to you when you see a train car covered with graffiti? Or someone’s yard or home up to here in trash? Are these things so ubiquitous you don’t give them a thought?  

When it came to working in the fields, I had three favorite seasons. Soil preparation, especially plowing; hay-making and wheat harvest. I usually did not get to participate much in the fall harvest, for that was going on while I was in school.

Despite all the computing power, it is up to you as an individual to police to what you listen and watch. That includes (ahem!) this column. As a writer, I feel the burden of doing my very best to write material that is interesting, of good content, and perhaps, entertaining.  

Along about February 1965, Mother started getting sick. She wouldn’t tell John and me what was going on, but she called Dad in Troy, and he came home early. John and I knew it was very serious.

Today’s Washington politicians seem to be in a contest to see how much of the taxpayers’ money they can shovel at the population. I assume the unspoken reason for this is to bribe the voters.  

It was the winter of 1964-65. Living in the “barn” of a house on the Beaver Farm, I never liked winter. It was cold and dark. The wind howled through the window cracks. Now 75, I still don’t like fall, for it portends winter.  

We have a political party in this country that has become just nasty. And yes, the opposition gets in this gutter just a little bit once in a while, but nothing like the party of the donkey does.

In order to get to Hillsboro High School, which started in the fall of 1964 for me, we have to back up to the fifth grade in Troy.  

The Left, in particular, has been gravely harrumphing about any attempts to silence people making nasty comments about the murder of Charlie Kirk. In the name of free speech and the First Amendment you can’t silence them, they say. I ask, please tell me the difference between silencing them and murdering Charlie Kirk. Wasn’t that an effort to permanently silence Charlie Kirk? Besides murder, wasn’t that a violation of the First Amendment?

Spring of 1964 meant the McNary Farm was done with the Federal Reserve program and was eligible to farm. Dad had bought another old unstyled John Deere A, so now we had two John Deere A’s and the Case DC. We had sold the old Farmall.

Taking a baseball away from a boy on a birthday outing is certainly not generous by any measure.

One day in November, John and I were both home sick with colds. We were listening to “Everybody’s Farm” on WLW radio. NBC broke into the program to tell us President Kennedy had been shot. It was Nov. 23, 1963. We spent the rest of the day listening to the radio.