MY BROTHER!

It has been said--"You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy!" Well, I can add another line to this--"You can take the boy out of the depression, but you can't take the depression out of the boy!" I think that anyone that has gone through a deep depression can relate to this statement.

Needless to say, this is where one starts to understand where my brother has been and where he is today. He is very, very frugal and unless you start with the way he thinks things through, you may have a hard time understanding him.

First of all, I want to say that if I had any kind of money that I would want someone to be in charge for safe keeping, I would without a doubt, trust my brother. He has always paid his bills on time and if he owed you a penny, you can be sure he would pay you. He has tried to project ahead and not be a burden on his family. Sometimes, I think our country could learn a lesson from him. The way the government has spent money, people in high elected positions avoided paying their income taxes, I only wish there were more people with integrity to pay their bills and not overspend. This puts a burden on our future generations to pay. It seems like people are relying more on the government to supply their every need.

My brother, at a very, very young age would go out and do a days work in those depression years. He helped with keeping the family from going under. He would come in and it was hard for my mother to scold him for something, because he had put in a days work, as if he was an adult.

I believe that the words that my mother said, "You might follow a crow a mile for a crust of bread" was inbred in his thinking.

I asked my dad one day, "His opinion of the kind of farmer my brother was?" He said, "He was a very good farmer". My brother was more of a pessimist than an optimist. He liked to draw when he was young. He designed on paper what the future cars would look like. Would you believe it--this was the designs that later came out of Detroit. Amazing! He also, liked to draw maps and knew every county in the state and any surrounding states where they were located. I think, he would have excelled in whatever his aptitude would take him. I think that my dads dying, right when he was just beginning farming on his own, left quite a vacuum in his life.

One thing that was ingrained in our minds early on was that you always tell the TRUTH. I have never known my brother to be anything but truthful. If he said he did or didn't do something, I knew his word was "golden".

Would I have wanted him to be a bit different? Well, I'm sure I would have wanted him to "lighten up a bit and along the way smell the roses". With that said, I'm sure he would find something that he would change about me, if he could. We always got along quite well and I love my brother and would trust him. I hope that he would feel the same about me.

Wisdom--People in all relationships should try to understand the other person, and then they will be able to accept them as they are. I'm glad God has accepted me the way I am and He gives me the ability to understand others.