I CAME UP ON A SMALL SUSTANANCE FARM ON THE SOUTH BANK OF THE TIPPECANOE RIVER---

---in Bindweed County, Indiana.  My parents worked hard, obeyed the law, paid their taxes, did without before they would buy on the black market, refused to join the Klan, stayed the Hell out of the way and got worked over by the system every time they turned around.  I came from a family who did not place a long distance telephone call unless it was to call the veterinarian or if someone had died.  They were a little bit behind in their payments and a little bit ahead of their times.  And when they died their names were misspelled in each of their obituaries.

 The farm I lived on as a child was little changed from the Civil War.  In my lifetime I

have bridged a gap from living almost in the 19^th Century to Outer Space.  The house was heated with wood stoves and was illuminated by the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp.  I did my farm chores by the light of a kerosene lantern.  My father, a cautious man, wanted to make sure electricity wasn’t a passing fad before wiring up the farm in 1948.  He farmed with horses until sickness forced him to sell them to an Amish farmer in 1944; the year of the fear.

But—I did not walk seven miles through the snow to school.  I was insured of attendance by the ever faithful school hack.  My parents knew if I walked to school I would never show up.

This was the times and place where I came up:

Before dawn on a late October morning a few years before I was born someone drove a 1933 Ford V8 through a T intersection and crossed the state road into a field just east of our house leaving muddy tire tracks.  It was Dillinger, it was rumored, on his way north to Chicago after relieving the Peru, Indiana police department of their arsenal.

   I attended Soythistle Township School and graduated after enduring twelve years of sanctioned bullying by both the older students and some of the teachers with only my mother keeping me there. Beyond that, I am self educated.  Three days after graduation I was on a bus out of there on my way to start my career as an Undertaker and to fall very much in love.  I was 17 and she was 22 and I had a deeply held dark secret.

But I digress.  That I will write about another time.  Maybe.

Why an Undertaker?  Because the Undertaker in Jimson City knew how to dress.  I mean, my old man was a pretty snappy dresser himself but this guy used to come out to social functions in Bloomingsburg and he had this Camel’s hair topcoat to die for.  Damn!  It was a pretty thing and I wanted one, so what better way…..  More importantly, the Undertaker from Jimson City didn’t have cowshit on his shoes. What was actually on the soles of his shoes, I didn’t find out until later.

THE SHADOW SAYS: MARLENE DIETRICH MY Kind of WOMEN-----Bear with me here, this is a bit of a leap. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1d-qiTI1NYA

  
In Europe it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman - we make love with anyone we find attractive. / Marlene Dietrich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1d-qiTI1NYAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1d-qiTI1NYA