1000 words or less excerpt
by
Jay Thomas Willis

I was raised in a backward, small, rural community in East Texas. My parents were dirt farmers who at that time still used a mule and plow to till the soil. A wagon was used as their primary mode of transportation. They basically had a sharecroppers mentality, and were more backward than most people in that small-rural community.

My parents were forty-five-years old when I was born. They did things from the perspective of a few generations past, in part because of their isolation, and what their parents had done. Most of the children in the surrounding communities had much younger parents, and their parents were therefore more progressive.

We didnt have electricity until I was eight-years old. There was no indoor plumbing, no natural gas, and no telephones. There was also no road to my house until I was in the 2nd grade. We got our water from a stream nearby until it dried up, at which time we had a well dug. However, the well never did provide adequate water.

We lived three miles off a long, winding, curvaceous, hill-ridden, blacktop road going north and south. Before the dirt road was constructed we had only a pig trail for those three miles. The trail had to be maintained by the residents of the community. There were deep ditches along the trail that made the trail only navigable by wagon. Consequently, none of my family traveled after dark.

My father wanted my mother to leave the farm, but she was too insecure. She said, If you leave me youll leave me on my land and in my housenot in some city. My mother owned a few acres of land where we lived. I think my father had some idea about how living on an isolated-rural farm affected his children, but felt powerless to do anything about it. He had been there for so long he didnt know how to get my mother to move.

I started plowing a mule at the age of eleven. My spring and summers were taken up with this activity. There was very little time for sports or play. My time was needed for etching out a living on that dirt farm. The only things my mother allowed to interrupt my plowing activities were rain and the changing of the seasons. When there was no plowing there were plenty of other chores to do.

I had no preparation for school. My mother didnt give me any, and there were no such thing as day care or head start. My isolation contributed to my lack of readiness for school, and to my stuttering and lack of speech development.

During most of my years in elementary school I was totally ignored by teachers. In high school the situation was a little better, but too much damage had been done. I had developed a severe stuttering problem, and it affected my ability to function and matriculate in school. There was no such thing as speech courses or speech therapy available to me. In addition, I had been educationally handicapped.

In spite of my background, I was able to graduate high school, and managed to struggle through collegewithout any type of scholarship. After graduating college and enlisting in the military, I was able to obtain two graduate degrees and worked on a Ph.D. in sociology at two different Midwestern universities.

I have two wonderful sons, a beautiful wife, a nice home, and have found peace with my background and myself.

Of all the things I am thankful for, the thing I am most thankful for is that we owned a mule. Without that mule my parents would have most certainly not hesitated to hitch me to the plow while my mother took control of the reins.