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“City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.”
— Mason Cooley
“Which one do you like?”
The request came from a friend trying to decide between two pieces of artwork: A small country farmhouse with a red barn or a white-frame country church.
“I like them both — either will complement the art in your house,” I offered, trying to be helpful but not persuasive. “Think about each one in your house for a moment; the better choice will come to you.”
Tastes in art vary. My art collection is best described as “an eclectic extravaganza.” Some pieces are by recognized artists. Others are my own work from another lifetime spent earning a degree in art.
“I like the country farmhouse,” my friend said with a smile. “I wonder sometimes what it would be like to live on a real farm.”
Country life and farming are not always the same. Country life, from a city perspective, often seems charming. Farming, though — that involves dedication and hard work. I learned this as a city kid in the early 1950s, during nights spent at my country friend’s house.
His family lived on a muddy county road in deep East Texas near Crockett. A dirt driveway circled a huge oak tree. A gate on the left led to the simple four-room farmhouse, and another on the right connected to a cow pasture and hay meadow. Beyond the tree was a shed sheltering a well-worn Ford 8N tractor and an equally used GMC one-ton flatbed truck, both of late 1940s vintage.
The truck was the only vehicle the tenant-farming family owned, serving double duty as a work vehicle and the only means of transportation to town for Saturday provisions or church on Sunday.
The old frame house sat up off the ground with nothing to keep a cold north wind from blowing under it. A couple of hound dogs calling under the house their home delighted in barking at anything that moved … and some things that didn’t.
A well-worn path from the back door forked about halfway across the yard. One way led to the smokehouse where pork was cured. The other, more heavily traveled trail passed the firewood stack on the way to the outhouse, also known as the privy or the john. These were the predecessors to indoor porcelain bathrooms with running water.
In fact, the only indoor plumbing was a hand-operated well pump at the kitchen sink. Electricity was limited to four bare bulb lights, one hanging from the ceiling in each room, and one plug outlet in the kitchen. Heat was supplied by a wood-burning stove in the kitchen and a small fireplace in the living room.
A television or a telephone were still on the “maybe someday” list. But there was a radio in the kitchen.
Air conditioning? A rare commodity anywhere in the early 1950s. The few businesses that had it boasted of the luxury, enticing customers with “refrigerated air” signs in the windows. However, it was enjoyed in very few homes then, especially rural farmhouses.
My initial experiences of country life, all those years ago, included many memorable firsts, things like riding on a horse, on a tractor and on the back of a flatbed farm truck.
It was also the only time I took a Saturday night bath in a No. 3 washtub in the middle of the kitchen. It was also my first time sitting in a hot outhouse on a summer afternoon listening to dirt daubers buzzing.
It was also where I saw family love and friendship, dedication and hard work. It’s where I enjoyed home-cooked meals in the most literal sense of the word: vegetables from the garden, milk from the cows, meat from the smokehouse. It’s where raising crops, cattle and farm products was not only their livelihood, but also their means of providing food for the table.
Lots of lasting good memories for this so-called city boy.
Except for outhouses. Those are probably best left to humorous memories and a sense of gratitude they are gone.
My friend made her artwork selections last week, and we were off to dinner. I had silently picked my favorite. Had I bought one, it would have been the church picture. Without country churches, many family farms would have never survived.
By the way, the canvas of the little country church looks great in her house.
