OLD MOO & I
1940'S NOSTALGIA
by
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During the summer of 1936, Daddy moved us into Grandma’s house. Grandma and Mother were devout Baptists. Every Sunday, we kids were required to attend Sunday School and to stay for Church. Sunday School was okay because it was all kids and we could talk and move around some, but Church was complete boredom. It went on for at least an hour and we had to sit in the front row on a hard bench and be very quiet and still. Grandma and Mother would sit in the second row, right behind us, to make sure that we behaved. We didn’t understand, nor care, what the preacher was saying. We were anxious to get out and play.
Sunday afternoon was always playtime. It seemed like Daddy and Mother were always ‘lovey- dovey’ on Sunday afternoons. We did not know why, but they made us kids get out of the house and the doors would be locked for awhile.
One day the preacher invited my older brother Roy and me to be baptized and to become members of the church. Grandma and Mother got very excited and enthused about that. Upon reflection, I think Grandma put the preacher up to it. She considered us to be heathens because we hadn’t been baptized. Roy and I had watched the ceremony before, performed at the back of the stage in the main assembly room of the church. We could both swim and we liked the idea of being immersed in that tank of water. It looked like it would be fun so we agreed to be baptized.
The ceremony was to take place on Sunday, immediately following the Sunday sermon. We were instructed to wear our long winter underwear for the baptism. I balked at that because each year, Roy, who was bigger than I, would get two new pair of long underwear and I would get his hand-me-downs. After being worn by both of us and having been soaked and laundered many times, the hand-me-downs, although clean, were threadbare, tattle-tale-gray, and had holes m the knees and elbows. I stubbornly refused to be seen m that underwear so, in the end,
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About the Book
The author’s work has been published in Nostalgia Magazine. Here is A well crafted book about growing up in the Great Depression and World War II years. Mr. McDougall writes with passion and good humor about himself and his family. It will take you back to an era that most people today do not remember. The stories are a true biography of the author’s growing-up years. A ‘quick’ humorous read.
About the Author
OLD MOO
When I was in the eighth grade I was so skinny it embarrassed me to be seen without a shirt on. Many times I wished that I had the money to take the Charles Atlas body building course. I envied Charles, as pictured on the beach with his marvelous physique, showing his muscles to admiring pretty girls in bathing suits. I pictured myself as the skinny guy in the picture, being pushed around by Charles and ignored by the pretty girls.
One day I got the idea that I should eat more food. I thought I could gain a lot of weight and turn it into muscle, if I had enough milk to drink. I begged my father to buy a cow, thinking that I would have all the milk I could drink and then I would become husky and muscular. He finally agreed that we could have a cow but it was, “For the family, not just for me,” He said. I had to promise that I would care for the cow and milk it twice a day.
True to his word, my father bought a cow. She was beautiful, mostly light brown with some white on the inside her haunches. Her only defect was that she had a crooked horn. The horn on her left side tended to spiral, Dad assured me that the crooked horn would not affect her milk.
We named her “Old Moo”. She was to be my companion for three years. Daddy taught me how to milk and I watered, fed, and milked Old Moo every morning and every day after I got home from school. She didn’t give a lot of milk; usually three or four quarts per milking. I drank my share of it but I never looked like Charles Atlas. Instead, my feet grew to great proportions and I grew taller but I was still skinny.
One day Old Moo had a calf and we had lots of milk for several weeks after her calf was born.. We named her it “Little Moo”. He was butchered when he became old enough to become veal. He was a cute little guy and Old Moo and I enjoyed playing with him but I really didn’t miss him after he was butchered, but I sure enjoyed those sizzling steaks on my dinner plate.
Later on my father invested in an apple orchard across town and there was no place on the new orchard to keep Old Moo so Dad took her to the butcher. I was sad to see her go but at that time I was taking on other responsibilities at school and I was glad to be rid of the chore of taking care of Old Moo. We had sort of grown up together and I really had liked that old cow. I reckoned that she liked me also