Farm Life of the Past: Jake (Part one)

This is a seven part story of my husband's early farm life in Alabama.



Jake
(Part One)


He had wanted a bike for a long time, this Alabama farm boy.
Ed and his brothers had, in the past, tried with little success to build a bike…wheels of wood and whatever they could find of metal or wood to build a frame…bending tree limbs for handlebars! As resourceful as these boys were, and as determined, they were never able to achieve what they wanted.

Ed had seen the new bicycles, lined up in long rows outside of U.G.White’s hardware store at the NW corner of the town square, in all their shining splendor! The dark green and white bike was the one that captured the boy’s attention and left a yearning in his heart like none he had known before.

At age eleven, growing up in the 30s and 40s, one in a family of ten children, Ed realized how unrealistic this dream was of having a bike of his own... especially a bright and shiny brand new Schwinn bike! Still, he couldn’t get the thoughts of the bikes out of his mind.
He wished desperately for a way of earning money to be able to pay for a bike! This, seemingly, was an impossible dream for an eleven-year-old farm boy.

But what is life without dreams?
~~~~~~

...to be continued...


Junie