Thursday, December 15, 2005

Life and Times of Jim Kear: Excerpt 1

Mike’s Note: In the year before my Dad passed away he wrote a journal of some of his earlier memories which he entitled The Life and Times of Jim Kear. These were simple handwritten memories preserved in a spiral notebook. I thought I might share a few here. These are his words, and I haven’t edited for spelling or grammar.

I do not have a lot of early memories, but one that I have is one that took place when I was very young. This was back in the days of using horses as a means of transportation and farm work. My dad always had a horse or two around so we could ride. The memory I have was one when we were using horses to pull the corn wagon. I was still a baby wrapped up in a blanket. My dad and mother were out snapping corn and loading it on the wagon. My mother had laid me at the front of the wagon while she helped my dad with the corn.

I well remember laying at the front of the wagon while my parents loaded it with snapped corn. As they were snapping the corn and throwing it on the wagon, my dad missed with an ear of corn and hit me. That made me cry. How would you feel if you got hit by an ear of corn? I began to bawl and squall and my mom told me, “Don’t cry or you will scare the horses.” I had little thought about scaring the horses - I had been hit by a flying ear of corn, and at such a young age, that was awful.

3 comments:

Leslee said...

LOL, what a fun memory!

Dr. Mike Kear said...

Oh, Leslee, I wish you could have heard my Dad tell some of his stories.

He'd tell these stories and would have us laughing so hard we'd be in tears. There was something about the inflections of his voice and his sound effects and body language that would just crack people up.

Dr. Mike Kear said...

Hi Mom!

Thanks for the comment. You'll have to go through some of these posts and make sure my memories are up to snuff.

Love,

Mike