Dealing With It -1 Southerly Migration

Only those of us with a low Social Security number will remember going to the Saturday matinee in anticipation of viewing the short thriller that preceded the featured movie.  It was a continuing drama designed to bring us back to spend our dime to find out how the protagonist escaped the terrible fate awaiting him/her at the end of last week's episode. 

But while these episodes are brought to life from that other century,  I will give them a Twenty-first Century TV series format where it was like you were waiting each week to see what mischief Tony Soprano was up to. This will be a series about the family I grew up with.  The series name is, Dealing With It.  There will be seven episodes. Followers of this blog may have no interest in reading about my family so go back to your TV and watch Coronavirus news until July 9 when I'll be back with non-family episodes.

                                                      

                                      Dealing With It-1      Southerly Migration

                                                                                                              

In 1937 my parents, John and Eunice Landers, moved our family from La Grande, Oregon to a six and a half acre farm seven miles west of Grants Pass, Oregon, on the Redwood Highway. Here's how our southerly migration came to pass...

John had been friends for years with Major Karl. Major (his name, not his rank) lived outside Grants Pass, Oregon where he raised egg-laying chickens on a three acre farm.  He was the brother of the wife  of John's older step-brother, Bill Beckwith. Major sold John on the plan to buy a farm and live on the bounty of the land (eat what you can, what you can't eat you can.) Major promised to teach him everything he needed to know about making that work. 

A year and a half before the move John had suffered a serious accident while working as a railroad switch tender for the Union Pacific Railroad.  One night he swung off the engine to throw a switch and his pants leg caught on a hose hook causing him to be swung under the engine and having it run over his right leg. It was, of course, a bloody mass of flesh and bone which the doctors planned to amputate but John ruled that out and so he was sent to St. Vincent Hospital in Portland where he came under the care of one Dr. Dodson. A year later, after multiple surgeries,  John, with his cane, walked out of St. Vincent where Eunice awaited him in their new 1937 Dodge touring car. The railroad had settled his claim for 10,000 Depression-era dollars.

"Eunice," John said, "Let's pack up and move as far away as possible from the Union Pacific Railroad.  Let's go see Major Karl."

                                                         (To be continued)