Sample Chapter

A child has no concept of home. To a child, home is but a nursery!
This is the tale of three persons – all of them me. It is about the person I
was, the person I wanted to be and the person I became. While the tale is an
autobiographic, from time-to-time it may be a drama, a comedy or even a
tragedy. How will it end? I’m not there yet!
Now I could say that it was the dominants of the human spirit that
propelled me, the son of a poor dirt farmer of a hilly fifty acres littered with
boulders, to achieve what many would consider a life of relative comfort and
security. Perhaps I just lacked the intuitive senses to comprehend the
consequences of failure. Perhaps I should have realized that I could not be the
person I was never meant to be, but in truth much of my success in life was
not due to my own efforts but the over-sites of others. I have had a wonderful
journey that has taken me from my sheltered preschool life to the here and
now. In short, I have been blessed.
June 6 th , 1933. Canada was in the depths of an ongoing depression. On
that day the burden of a third child on struggling farmers must have been
disheartening. I was that third child. My brother, six years my senior and
sister five more beyond that were bound to become needed helping hands
around my parent’s horse and hayrack farm. It kind of makes me suspect that
I was not a planned addition.
My parents fulfilled my needs and responded to my desires for
attention, but I do not recall being held, cuddled, and cared for to any great
extent. As I explored the world around the place of my birth, I did feel secure
within the four walls of our old, whitewashed stone house.
My father, John Ritchie Geen farmed at the foot of Gravel Pit Hill on
the fourth concession road of Huntington Township in Ontario, Canada. The
year was about 1921. He was a dairy farmer in a land where the cheese
industry was the source of survival. The years when businessmen became
beggars and beggars became numerous.
At this tender age the terms poor and poverty were unknown to me. I
did not understand why people came to the door looking for work or for food,
water and sometimes shelter in the barn. Sometimes it was an entire family. I

have watched them approach the house with cautious reluctance, having
much respect for the dog and knocking on the door, gently, seemingly with
reservations. Mother would answer the door, speak with them, and tell them
to wait outside while she prepared homemade bread sandwiches slathered
with homemade butter and thick sliced chicken or salt pork. This she would
place in a brown paper bag with a sealer of milk. Many walked away to
consume it elsewhere, others would stop outside the front gate and consume
it with gusto right there. When I asked why they did that I was simply told –
they were homeless, hungry, and poor!
Some faint recollection of those days probably conditioned me to never
be homeless, hungry or poor!
At what age does one begin to remember life’s occurrences? Which
ones are most often remembered? Do we tend to remember the times of glory
and glee and reject the incidents of fear and frustration!? Not really! Could
such memories still be stored among the treasures of my mind?
They have!
For instance, I remember the winter day I had somehow gotten myself
into mischief and mother was about to do her duty in making me regret it. As
she approached me with a fly swatter, which she kept handy even in the dead
of winter, I reached for the seldom used front door latch and managed to open
the snow encrusted door. It was cold and I was ill dressed for a winter outing
but having no will to face certain discomfort I jumped headfirst upon my
little sled and scooted down the front yard slope. I aimed for the gateway to
the road which was open, but steering a sliding sled on icy snow was not a
developed skill. I hit the gatepost face first. As a result, I lived most of my
life with crooked front teeth. In fact, it was not until some sixty years later
that I had a bridge with nice straight teeth fitted. This is some early life
lessons I have remembered! Did I learn from it? Naw, not really!
Let me relate a few more memories of life on that farm, and yes, I was
still in my preschool years. I remember the elation of getting candy from
Santa Clause while walking behind a logging sleigh during a Christmas
parade. I also remember the opening of Christmas presents that were few. I
even remember people chuckling in church because my father could blow his
nose louder than anybody else. I have crystal clear memories of fright when
being assaulted by a big red rooster while playing in the front yard and still
feel the terror of being surrounded by a herd of cows when I tried to cross the

barnyard. On that occasion there was a calming relief when the collie dog
came and they scattered. I knew then that I would always need a friend, even
if only a dog.
When we left that farm in 1937, I was but four or five years old.
Continued in the book