Author Description

"Growing Up On the Farm" - in Rosebud, Texas - in the 1940's and 1950's has been enthusiastically received by readers, especially those who lived on farms during that period of our American History. Every story is about real people and things that actually happened. Even though "Growing Up On the Farm" has humor from beginning to end, I mostly make fun of myself. Believe me, in a 20 year period I made enough humorous mistakes to provide plenty of interesting material for a book. I have received many compliments including one in which the reader states that, "She felt she was sitting across the kitchen table from me telling me stories of my childhood." Another said that in writing my stories, "I did myself proud." Drayton McLane, owner of the Houston Astros, McLane Wholesale, and McLane Trucking, stated, "Yes, that once he started reading "Growing Up On the Farm" he found it hard to put down." Drayton McLane grew up in Cameron which is the next town South of Rosebud and I got that response from him in the U S Mail 5 days after I mailed him the book. I touch on just about every facet of being a kid on a Texas farm in that era and have had warm responses from readers from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. Two stories that people seem to relate strongly to are about butchering a hog and washing clothes with homemade lye soap in a wash pot in the back yard - heated by a fire from burning logs. I also describe doing daily chores on the farm, playing on the farm, churning butter, raising baby chicks, plucking and butchering fryers, being born at home in a house without electricity or running water, attending a one room public school without running water - where our bathroom was an outhouse, my older brother riding his pony Sally to school each day, chopping cotton, picking cotton, milking cows, working in our huge garden, canning food from the garden with our mom, and doing quite a few tasks that were beyond today's expected skill levels for someone my age. I cove