Sometimes Simple Stories Say It Best!

BRAD STAMAN: Look back at a simpler life

 

Brad Staman is the editor of the Star-Herald

I celebrated a birthday recently. The day was uneventful, my publisher sang “Happy Birthday” to me, twice (once over the intercom). My wife had a special dinner and the Basset Hounds, Bentley and Sammy, took me on a birthday walk.

As I grow older, I find myself looking more and more like my dad, which is not a bad thing. It also has me looking back at my life and the changes I’ve seen over the years.

Brad Staman is the editor of the Star-Herald. He can be reached at 632-9056 or by email at bstaman@starherald.com.

On the day I was born, my dad told me he was working in the field south of our house and my grandma came out and waved a tea towel to let him know it was time to head to the hospital. The day after I was I born, he said, it snowed.

Growing up, I spent hours playing football in the field next to our house. I won more Super Bowls than Tom Brady ever will.

No video games. Instead, there was that thing called imagination.

If it wasn’t football, it was championship basketball games that would go until the sun dropped below the horizon and mom would be calling me into the house. My first court had a dirt floor. When dad laid cement in front of the garage, installed a light and moved the hoop to the garage door, it was like moving into Madison Square Garden. The games would go on and on, break for dinner, and often times resume until mom would call me in for bed.

I also had a race course around the garage. My race car was my bicycle. The bicycle also was my motorcycle for my brother, Bryan and I, liked to play Evel Knievel and jump over the Snake River. We would build a ramp, throw down some wood and the jump was built. Our younger, brother, Kevin, who was four years younger than Bryan and I, was often left out of this game. He was “too young.”

I will never forget the day he decided to build his own ramp, jump on his bicycle and take on the imaginary river. Bryan and I were in the house with mom, dad was in the field working. Next thing we heard was a younger brother crying. His older brothers hadn’t told him or shown him the proper way to build the ramp, so he had grabbed a round barrel, put the wood against one side of the barrel, climbed on his bike and the rest was history that resulted in two older brothers getting a major lecture about being “good” big brothers. Interestingly enough, Kevin turned into the real daredevil of the three of us.

As I grew older, the bicycle became a real motorcycle, after years of begging my mother into allowing me to get one. The one rule, stay off the road. So I built a motocross track in the pasture above the house and the hours of football and basketball games turned into hours upon hours of motocross races on the tiny track.

It was a simpler time, or at least as I’m looking back it seems that way. We had three television stations, one was PBS. You trusted the newspaper and had no idea if Walter Cronkite was Republican or Democrat.

Growing up I was blessed and privileged to have great parents who taught me right from wrong, to stand up for your beliefs, treat others with respect even if they are different from yours and never forget where you came from.

There was no social media and the internet was non-existent. Boys were boys and girls were girls. You respected those you disagreed with and you worked hard to get ahead. And at least in my country upbringing, you judged people on their character, not their skin color.

Looking back, I must say I miss that simpler time. It was a time of hope, promise and possibilities. I know you might disagree with me, but we need to embrace more of those simple things.

If you weren’t privileged to have great parents and an excellent upbringing, I’m sorry, but this blessed belated birthday boy is thankful for the life he has lived.

Comments

[#33]

AMEN Brad!
You are a lucky man to grow up in those times and have your parents teach you lessons in life Like being a "good" big brother.
Hope you have many more birthdays and remember all your cherished past each and every birthday!
#33

[Doug 21J]

Brad, your story has a familiar ring. I grew up on a farm and did many of the same things you did. I assume you at some point worked in the fields as I did.
When I was growing up I thought the turn of the 20th century would have been an ideal time to grow up. The end of the cowboy gun slinger era the beginning of the industrial age, I thought of picnics in the park and bands playing in the gazebos. Turns out, a lot of people including myself think the era I grew up was the ideal time, the 50’s. In high school I was “American Graffiti”
It was a simpler time. People like me who have lived from that time until now sometimes have trouble comprehending the world of today. My dad who was born in 1915 and raised on a farm and passed away in 2006 saw I believe the most dramatic changes in our world of any generation. Just think of all the wondrous changes he witnessed.
I wish all kids could have had an opportunity to spend time on a real working farm as you and I did. I think it would have made deference.
Doug 21J