Six Things A 1950s Farm Childhood Did To Your Head

If you have got something broken in the house that you have been meaning to call somebody about, this one is about you more than the thing. In nineteen fifty-eight a hay rake broke in a field and my father handed me the wrench and went in for his dinner. I was nine. I stood there two hours and got it wrong twice. He never mentioned it again — and that is the part that took me fifty years to understand. Six things about how a boy got raised on a place like this, and what each one did to his head. Not one of them was done on purpose. Nobody in this county had a theory about children; they had hay down and rain coming. There is no such thing as a generation's psychology and I say so plainly near the start. I also give you the honest half — what that upbringing cost, who it made worse, and the run of men it produced who could not ask for help about anything, ever. And at the end, the reason all of this has got harder. It is not you and it is not your children. Tell me down below about the first thing you ever fixed by yourself, and how old you were. I read them. I have a notion most of you remember it exactly, and that is the whole point. Your people knew this. It just didn't get to you. 00:00 The hayfield, 1958 03:52 There is no such thing as a generation's psychology 04:39 A real tool before you were any good with it 06:10 Nobody took the job back off you 07:28 You saw the whole job 08:55 Failure was cheap, fast, and yours 10:10 What you fixed stayed fixed, where you could see it 11:22 Most things are only three or four parts 12:27 The honest half 14:00 Why it has got harder 17:17 Do one. Just one. #farmlife #1950s #childhood #selfreliance #lifeskills #righttorepair #lostskills #ozarks