Going to school

I’ve always thought that I got to where I was in life in spite of my education rather than because of it. I started to first grade in 1943 at a little one room school about 1/10 mile from our house. That year there were only 9 students in the school. Besides myself and my brother and sister there were 3 Switzers, 2 Bowersox and 1 Dwyer. Our teacher was mister Hetrick. The school had a big coal stove in the center and did not have any electricity. Two pictures hung in the front of the room, one of George Washington and one of Abraham Lincoln. We had a 48 star U.S. flag and a Pennsylvania State flag.

There was a crockery water jar with a spigot on the side. We had to walk to the neighbors spring, about a quarter mile away, to get water and carry it back in a bucket to fill the jar. We had a dipper to fill the bucket. It was the same dipper that we used to drink from. I don’t think the Health Department would approve to this arrangement today.

The toilets were outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls.

I spent a lot of time that year listening to the older kids recite their lessons and being taught by the older kids because the teacher was working with someone else. At recess, and we had a lot of recess, we would play out in the school yard sometimes the older boys would knock out flies. Or we would rotate around the bases and then up to bat. In the winter we would sled ride from the neighbors woods down past the school to the creek. We also played Fox and Goose and Warriors Base.

Everyone had to learn and recite poems and the older kids had to read the classics, like “Tale of Two Cities”. I remember the older kids reading Evangeline, The Village Blacksmith, and A Cask of Amontillado.

Art Work by Victor

Here is the progress this week. It seems that Victor knows what he is doing.

August Vacation

We will now have 2 houses on Sundown Lane. The usual place and the one across the street. That will be good.

Basement Overhaul

Today we started the overhaul of the basement. Victor and Kevin are the final two in our March Madness. The panneling is gone and we are going to bring the whole thing up to code with new studs and pressure treated base plates. Also going to wire it with coax and speaker wire and maybe Cat5.

Expertise

Well here I am responding to a tag from DamselFish. A meme (rhymes with theme) tag. I didn’t have any idea what a meme might be so I searched back across the blogs and discovered: an idea, a thought that gets conveyed but may mutate in the process.

The original tag from Paul via eninnej was to state what five resources - online or otherwise - would you point people to, if you wanted to give them an entry into your field of expertise?

First I must first say that I am retired. I was, and for that matter still am, an Economist whose major area of interest is in government policy related to agriculture.

If one were to feel that this was their major calling then to enter this field they mst first have, as a minimum, a BS and Masters or, preferably, a BS and PhD in Economics or Agricultural Economics. I presume that within this level of education you have fields of study in International Trade, International Development, Statistics, Agricultural Policy, Resource Economics, Environmental Policy and Agricultural Finance.

As to Resources:

1. A fundamental online resource can be found in the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture collection at Cornell University's Albert R. Mann Library which offers free electronic access to back issues of AJAE for years 1919 through 1995. To access the 1919-1967 issues of the Journal (at that time called the Journal of Farm Economics) can be accessed here. The Journal's back issues from 1968 through 1995 are available there. Electronic back issues of AJAE for the years 1919 through 1999 are available at www.jstor.com to members who are at institutions that participate in JSTOR's Art & Sciences Complement Collection. A list of participating institutions can be found here.

2. Choices Magazine published by the American Agriculture Economics Association (AAEA) provides current thinking by University and Government Economists on issues related to food, agriculture, resources and development.

3. EuroChoices was launched in 2001 by the Agricultural Economics Society (A.E.S.) and the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE). EuroChoices main aim is to bring current research and policy deliberations on agri-business and rural resource issues to a wide readership, both technical & non-technical.

4. Resources for Economists on the Internet “This guide is sponsored by the American Economic Association. It lists 2,100 resources in 97 sections and sub-sections available on the Internet of interest to academic and practicing economists, and those interested in economics. Almost all resources are also described. Those searching the Internet for economic information might also wish to try the Economics Search Engine (ESE). It indexes 300,000 pages on 10,000 economics web sites from around the world. Searches with it only return their contents”.

5. Agricultural Statistics, USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service -- provides links to the electronic version of this publication starting in 1994

Big Cat and Big Sister

One of my greatest fears when I was young was going to the barn to do the chores after dark, particularly before we got electricity. It was always kind of spooky, even in the daytime and when the light started to get dim outside the shadows really got dark inside. On top of that, if it was windy, the barn would creak and you couldn’t be sure what made the noise. I didn't mind the noise of the livestock moving around and making noise, I knew what those sounds were. It was the unexpected things like a screech owl, a bird, a bat or the wind that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.

It was often my job to put down straw from the strawmow to bed the shed and you couldn’t have a lantern in the strawmow because if it upset the whole barn would be on fire in a few minutes. So you worked in the near dark and there might be anything in the corner where you couldn’t see, or so I thought.

It didn’t help that dad had told me about going down to the barn in the early morning to feed the horses, when he was 10 or 11. He said that he opened the stable door and a big cat jumped of off the steps to the barn floor and came past him out the stable door. He said he thought it was a mountain lion. Well I knew there weren’t suppose to be any mountain lions left in Pennsylvania, but knowing and believing are two different things. And I really did believe that there could be a big cat in the barn.

Also I was working on the barn floor one day and was coming down to the feeding room to get a fork. Unknown to me, Peggy was hiding behind the steps and as I came down she reached through and grabbed my ankle. Well I cleared the 10 feet to the stable door without touching the ground and didn’t stop until I got to the middle of the barnyard. Peggy thought that was great. I didn’t think so. She might have been a big cat.