Morning get-out-of-bed-and-get-going time always came early at our house. Dad always had to get up and milk the cows, 30 below zero or not, and Mom always had to get up to prepare food for the tribe. In the winter, Dad got up extra early because the coal fire in the coal stoves that heated our house and cooked our food always went out around 3:00 a.m. or so and we would freeze when we woke up in our unheated bedrooms, pulling something on quickly and moving to the living room to finish dressing by the stove.
One constant through those early mornings of getting ready to go out to the fields to hoe beets or haul hay in the summer or to catch the unheated school bus for an hour ride to school beginning in September was the radio. And I can still hear the echoes of "Good morning, this is KGHL, Billings Montana, bringing you The Old Fashioned Revival Hour." This greeting was followed by a stirring rendition of "Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before; every day with Jesus I love Him more and more; Jesus loves and keeps me and He's the One I'm waiting for." And then we scarfed down cooked cereal, or invalid eggs (baked eggs in cream, pancakes, toast miraculously toasted in the coal-stove oven slathered with strawberry jam from the cellar, milk from the cows in the barnyard, and we were out the door. And, try as I might to do otherwise, my days still echo to the strains of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour from KGHL in Billings Montana.
20 comments:
How about Roy Barnes, the Rocky Mountain Cowboy, who also was on early in the morning? And we weren't all out the door on time - it seems that there were a few years of your high school career when you would wait until the very last, and sprint to the bus, while we early bus goers would tell the driver that you really were coming. Good memories. And we didn't complain!
Roy Barnes was next. You just proved Steve's point.
Roy drove school bus too among his many accomplishments, his bus was parked next to ours in the school lot. When all of the drivers would get out and shoot the breeze while they were waiting for the buses to fill he could on occasion be heard to sing a few bars. He sounded as bad as he did on the radio.
Just remember that Roy Barnes was a relative of Brig's wife, Linda. We didn't go in much for country Western music in those days, as I recall - except for "I Won't Go Huntin' With You, Jake". Ron's favorite is "Put Another Log on the Fire." Hope you have all heard that one.
Hense my love for Fabian, Bobby V, Jerry Lee and the likes.
For some reason the gospel music and singing that I remember took place on Sunday. After Dad brought the milk buckets to the house and the separating done, breakfast would be scheduled in between. Then scalding hot water from the teakettle would be poured into the white wash basin with the red rim. Out came the Old Spice shaving soap. He'd get the soap brush lathered up and then paint his whiskered face with foam. By now the men's quartet would boom over the radio waves and sometimes Dad would join in.
You just knew that when Dad was singing, he was feeling good about life. And for a moment the weary work of the farm was forgotten and all were renewed.
I remember more about other shows we listened to on Sunday, and then, when there was a small radio in the shop, I would often find Dad (and Mom)listening to a gospel radio program. I don't remember listening to this program as the rest of you do, probably because I couldn't sit still that long.
I do remember Dad's shaving routine (before I lost my bedroom), and the smell of Old Spice, and him singing. Life was so good.
I'm so glad that we are sharing, because, sad to say, I don't remember Dad's singing. How did I miss that one? However, I do remember that, Sunday or not, the breakfast dishes always had to be done, and that included the cream separator, before going to Church. We did quite well on that score!
I can't remember what we did with the used separator filters. But I can see the straw/hay and other "particles" that would be collected on them.
Actually, Dad used "HIS" brand shave lotion in little brownish or purplish bottle. I can tell you exactly how "particles" got on the filters, as they originated in the milk bucket when "stuff" fell off the cows or they swished their tails.
This KPOW in Powell Wyoming bringing you Roy Barnes and the Rocky Mountain Cowboy. "Now hear my song as I ride along, I'm just a Rocky Mountain Cowboy."
Homesteader Museum ran a special on old Roy last summer, he had quite a background singing and picking all over southern Montana and northern Wyoming in a variety of bands. His day job was running the Husky filling station.
I do believe that somewhere in Dwight's dreams he really wanted to be a country/western singer. Besides his record collection that Ann mentioned earlier, he serenaded us with his yodeling. He, too, could have been a Rocky Mountain Cowboy!
Maybe it was Dwight who sang and not Dad?
On the tractor - and his voice carried for miles over the sound of the tractor. But, remember him whistling? He was really good. Do you ever whistle any more, Dwight? Mother was quite a whistler, too. You all know the story about that, don't you?
He could yodel with the best of them. Quite an accomplishment. It always led me to think he was carefree and happy with life, until he picked on me.
I'm a Johnny -come - lately, so I have comments on a few things. First, I don't remember listening to the revival hour program, but for some reason I remember the song, "Every day with Jesus, etc." so I must have listened to the program.
I think we kind of made fun of Roy Barnes, as I recall he wasn't that great of a singer. He had a shiney yellow bus when we still had the old rickety box of a bus and I thought it was unfair. After all, we had to go farther.
I had forgotten that Dwight knew how to yodel, no wonder I always wanted to be able to. I do remember him listening to country music - was it Tex Ritter, among others like him that I can't recall at the moment. I picked up on listening to their songs - I used to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio on Sat.afternoons.
"Hear my song as I ride along" etc. was the theme song of the western group that Kevan played with for awhile. I loved the rolicking energy of the song.
If the shave soap was HIS, then the aftershave was Old Spice?
Or did Dad like us, have a variety?
I remember it as being "Old Spice" aftershave.
His. For years after I left home I looked for His stuff. The shaving bowl and the lotion matched.
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