Sunday, May 16th of 2021

 TERRY

Terry is doing the same as in the last several days.  She did sleep a bit longer this morning which I think was good.  AND as usual as I write she is reading the paper and with it being Sunday that may take her a long time.

As I look at the week ahead there really is nothing planned. Terry has a doctor appointment for NEXT week on Wednesday.  I am not sure she will be excited to go as she really does not like to get out of the house much.  Dr. Vickers is her neurologist so I am hoping to get some insights into Terry's condition.  We will see but that is 10 days out so.

JUNE 27, 1965

As I rolled over in bed and checked the time on my clock radio it showed 8:30.  I lay back and gathered my thoughts.  It was a Sunday for church so I knew we would be going to 10:00 AM church in Veblen.  With that thought I had so many things churning in my mind I thought maybe I should just fake a headache to Mom and try to stay home today.  Well it did not take very long for that thought to go away as I figured IF I did that Mom would expect me to stay in bed ALL day which I did not want to do so I slowly got out of bed and got dressed.  I figured that maybe I could make a fun day of it IF I tried.

We left for church at 9:30 and I thought that was way too early but then I knew that Dad liked to get there kind of early just to visit a bit.  So on the way there and I hate to admit it but during church as well my mind wandered all over the place except where it should have been!

• So far the summer had not been a fun time at all.  I knew it was beyond both Mom and Dad to be happy most of the time as Ronald had died just 8 months ago.  But yet as an 18 year old boy I found the atmosphere of our home hard to deal with.
• And yes I had enjoyed having a special friend, girl, the last several months of high school but she was gone for the summer and of course we would be going to different colleges in the fall so that was a dead issue.  Well in hind sight that was a good thing but at the time it made life not so good.
• I was finding that being home on the farm most of the time was not a fun thing for me.  I often thought about the farm we had and for the most part I could not find many positive things about it at least for me.  
• It seemed that I was kind of my own worst enemy as I really had nobody to go out with for a fun time.  Being 25 miles from where our high school was I just never fit into the social life of some of the kids.  Well I did have my mini golf course that I had built AND there was the lake a half mile to the north and on Sundays there, at times, would be some young people but not all that often.
• Then there was the matter of Vietnam.  If a person was not going to go to college you would be drafted so I had enrolled at NDSU which gave me a deferment. BUT what was I to study?  I knew I did not want to teach and WHY I had no idea!  
• It seemed to me that it was the world and then me all alone.  Dave had left 2 years ago and was going to be married in a few months.  Helen was in Fargo helping Glorine as she went to school and needed someone to care for Roxanne.  That left Mom, Dad and I on the farm and I have to admit there were times I felt sorry for myself!  As I look back that was pretty awful but I was young and into myself I guess.
• We had celebrated Father's Day last Sunday but I had not been able to get Dad anything and all we did was talk about it over dinner after church.  Dad had gotten a couple of cards but nobody was able to get home to be with him.  Of course that made life pretty darn boring!
• Well as the summer went on there were some things that made life more interesting again but that is for another time.  

So the days dragged on and summer seemed to last forever.  It seemed that I could only play golf with myself so many times or only hunt blackbirds so many times and then life became not so interesting again.  As I look back now and even many years ago of course I realize how immature I was and yes I will take MOST of the credit for that BUT there were other factors that I had nothing to do with and they weighed heavily on my life in the summer of 65.

Little did I know at the time that I would be back on the farm for one more summer in 1966.  As I headed to Fargo in the fall of 65 for my freshman year at NDSU I had $500 in my pocket from working for the summer and I did not have a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. BUT I was sure that farm life was a thing of the past.  Sometimes it is good that one can not see into the future.  As my freshman year unfolded it became one event after another.  Dorm life was not to my liking.  After about a month of eating in the cafeteria I longed for the simple food that Mom would make.  My social life was nil.  Janet died in February and that came into play as I agreed to go home for one more summer.  I still can remember the summer of 1966.  Mom and Dad were 19 months from Ronald's death and 4 months from Janet's death and the Lee farm was far far from a place one wanted to be.  I still had NO idea what I should be studying.  I did take an aptitude test and my # 1 job came up as "undertaker" which seemed morbid to me.  I was not a scholar in high school BUT I was on the honor roll all the time.  However in my first year of college I struggled BIG time in chemistry and algebra.  I had gotten 10 credits on my entrance exam so I was placed in chemistry II and algebra II and I was totally in over my head.  I did pass them but they did not do much for my GPA BUT the 10 free credits were good as it put me into my sophomore year in the third quarter of my freshman year!  I should add that Dad helped me buy a motorcycle before I went home for the summer of 1966.  Actually that was THE condition of going home, I needed transportation as all summer on the farm with no wheels was not an option.  My Harley Sprint turned into a FUN thing with many experiences to remember.

Here it is almost 11:30 and it may be time for a short bike ride.  The FP, for some reason, was not the best today.

DAKOTA ATTITUDE

"Discipline in Edwin Schmidt's country school was a double jeopardy affair.  In those days he says, If somebody told your folks that you had a spanking at school, you got another one at home.  Well, my classmate got a spanking one day in school.. Must have been about fifth grade.  We were having spelling words on the black board.  And one of the words was "ship".  Well, he happened to write it wrong: sh-t.  He said it wasn't intentional but I think it was.  The teacher didn't say nothing.  She took him across her knee and let him have it.  Just like at home.  And when he got home, his dad give him a spanking with a stick.  One of his brother told."

Oh my how we as a people have changed and for the better???