It’s been over 40 years ago now that we would go visit my grandparents on their farm, usually on weekends. Two things were absolutes: Saturday night was Gunsmoke and wrestling and Sunday meant going to church. No exceptions to either day’s events.
For those of you too young to know that this Gunsmoke isn’t something recently fired from a gun, it was a television program that got started in the 1950’s and ran a very long time. In fact, I got to live in the town where the show took place: Dodge City, Kansas. This was in the mid 1960’s and it was great because I never lived in a famous town before where there were tourists. I even got to drink sarsaparilla in the Longbranch Saloon on the old front street where they created shoot outs that look a lot like the kind we see here in Northfield during the Defeat of Jesse James Days. Dodge City is also the place where as a 6th Grader I picketed the the newspaper The Daily Globe but that’s another story.
Ok, with the history lesson out of the way, then the theme here is transition and grounding in good family values.
When we visited my grandparents, the rule on Saturday night was it was quiet during Gunsmoke because it was serious stuff. There was an intermission between the 10 pm news and 10:30 when a local television station in Hastings, Nebraska hosted live wrestling. Guys with last names I could never pronounce would fight it out in the ring with lots of drama, bravado, and really, really, bad acting. Most of the guys were local and we all knew them. A couple wore masks but we figured out who they were too. We would sit there with popcorn, sodas and lots of yelling and cheering for a full hour of the stuff. For a young kid getting to be involved in the “adult” shows was cool as far as I was concerned. I have to admit that I don’t follow the wrestling circuit much since the age of 12. ..
It would be a late Saturday night with my grandad, uncles and my dad talking politics, telling jokes and lots of interesting stories. Regardless of the late hour to bed, grandma got us up early for church. She said that if we could waste all that Saturday night stuff on violence and silliness, we owed the “Good Lord” at least an hour of His time back in the week. So we would get dressed and all go to church school and then a church service. After that, we went back and had great Sunday meals and spent the rest of the day basically messing around, getting in trouble and eating leftovers before leaving to go home.
It was a blue collar existence and it was wonderful. Growing up I know there were times that what we had to eat came from our garden because there were no funds for store purchased food. I watched my dad take correspondence classes and work to get hired as an air traffic controller when the requirement meant a college diploma but his military service and extra studies paid off.
When it came time to write a thank you note or send a homework assignment back to school. They were scrutinized by my mom. If there were misspellings or grammar problems, we did them over. Mom always said that how you speak, how you write, how you look and how you present yourself determines your future success in life. She was adamant about all those qualities and I owe her much for what she taught us.
As Dad worked harder, improved his education and improved in his government employment grade, life got a little better. By the late 1960′ we found a color television sitting in our living room one night. Dad did some extra work on the side to pay for it but it was a great thing if you were a kid. One thing Dad did tell me was that I was going to go to college. Something that the Korean War interrupted his chance to accomplish. It wasn’t negotiable. He said I was going to go if both of us had to work 3 jobs to pay for it but I was going to get there.
My dad died in 1970. Things changed and college was put on hold for a while. I picked up a few classes here and there. I joked that I got through undergrad school with the class a year plan. In 1992, I got my degree from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I graduated with honors and accomplished it by taking night classes and the support of a very understanding wife. I worked on the degree because it was a goal because I wanted to be a police chief someday and I knew I needed a degree to get there…but the diploma just as much belongs to my dad who early on encouraged me to work hard to get there.
A few years later we made the decision that I needed to finish a masters degree. So in 1998, my family joined me in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and watched me march down the aisle to receive my master’s degree. Again, we joked about the “degree courtesy of Visa” but we got it done. Now, in 2007, I find myself at Hamline University working on a doctorate in public administration. I’ll have a son starting college next year and have a fairly demanding occupation. We talked about it and decided it was the right time and thing to do. (We being my wife and myself).
Visiting my mom this Thanksgiving brought back a lot of the memories as we talked about those visits to grandparents’ homes and family activities. She told me she was proud I was the first one in either of my parents’ family to earn a degree. She said my dad would be proud too. I told her that I was proud of them because they worked hard and despite their situations, worked hard to make a better life and instill a desire to learn and dream.
There’s a song out right now by Tracy Lawrence entitled “You Can’t Hide Redneck”
and although I don’t think I’m that extreme, I am proud of where I came from and the struggles that have brought me to where I am today. It’s fun to sit in the coffee shop and talk grain futures with local farmers and it’s also great to sit in a graduate level class and discuss public policy implications. I truly believe I could not do the later without my life experience. Who I am and what I am today is a result of the dedication of a lot of educators, adults and family members who provided the encouragement but also realizing those life struggles help keep me grounded and humbly remind me of my obligations to faith, family and community.
I thought it was fitting after a great Thanksgiving visit and a few calls to some old school friends to give thanks for my family, friends, Gunsmoke, Wrestling and higher education.