Washing Day and Other Sharecropper's Stories

De: Dick Meadows

Narrado por: Dick Meadows

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." - Robert Frost

Frost wrote about it, but I never knew that until I was in graduate school. As a rider of saplings during my boyhood I had no idea that this simple pleasure had been immortalized in "birches". Frost wrote of the look of the trees. I remember how they feel. I can't be certain if someone showed me how to ride a sapling or if I discovered it while playing alone, like Frost's birch rider, "Some small boy too far from town to learn baseball, whose only play was what he found himself, summer or winter, and could play alone". Perhaps a cousin or a neighbor my age taught me the game. Maybe some athletic impulse caused me to climb a sapling, kick my feet free from a supportive limb and throw myself out into space for the swift swing to Earth. What fun! And it was so available in the woods around the farm where we were sharecroppers.

My stories describe a lifestyle that has all but disappeared from American culture. My hope is that the listener will enjoy learning about the work and play of a large family living on a tenant farm without electricity, running water or indoor plumbing - but on washing day, there was a washing machine that had been dreamt about for years! A luxury we could hardly afford. We heated our homes with wood and coal and cooked with propane, and I remember doing homework by the light of kerosene lamps. But most importantly, I want to share the complicated relationship between father and son, which is timeless and universal.

©2015 Dick Meadows (P)2015 Dick Meadows

Delightful reminiscences of small town depression era rural life

I thoroughly enjoyed this listen. The author perfectly captures the voice of a young boy and his adventures and mishaps, joys and fears, loves and struggles to understand.

Great man, Great book

I had the privilege of meeting the author when I was at work in an ER. We talked for a good amount of time about his time in the service and his life growing up in rural Illinois. He told me about his book and I had to read it. Then I discovered he recorded an audiobook! Great detail in the stories really brings you back to a simpler time in our nation. I highly recommend this book to everyone!