Jerry

      More Letters From Paradise
              Jerry
Jerry's mother died when he was only five, and he went to live with his grandparents. And they were so poor. Grandpa and grandma had managed to carve out eighty acres from the stubborn South Dakota prairie. They owned a team of horses, a couple of pigs, and a small flock of chickens. Jerry never mentioned if they had a cow. Grandma cooked and baked on a large cast iron stove with a reservoir for heating hot water.  There was also an oil stove used to heat the small farmhouse.  Jerry said that they didn't have electricity until he was in the fourth grade.  And indoor plumbing didn't arrive until he was a junior in high school.

There were always chores to do. Jerry helped grandpa when he could. He carried two five gallon pails of water, candled eggs, fed the livestock, and pulled weeds in grandma's garden. Jerry received some whacks too, from grandpa when it was felt that he deserved them.

Jerry wore bib overalls and dark, ankle-high shoes all year long, with five-buckle Arctic overshoes in winter.  He was called the "orphan," by the people of the town. "They were very kind."Jerry said, giving him odd jobs to make a little money.  Often on his way home from school he would be asked by the grocer to sweep the store floor, or at the single gas station to wash a car.

The little prairie town of Chapman had a population of only two hundred souls, but it did have three churches, Lutheran, Baptist, and Catholic were all represented.

When Jerry grew older he had a job grinding welded plow shares for the local blacksmith. And much later, Jerry drove a gasoline truck to supply area service stations.

But it wasn't always work. Jerry recalled the time when three bachelor farmers took him see Minsky's Burlesque in Minneapolis.  He became quite the pool hustler, also.

Later, Jerry attended college on a basketball scholarship, at the urging of the three bachelor farmers, spent some time in the army, married, had a family, taught school, and  became a school principal.  He was an expert antique dealer and built some apartment houses.  He never forgot his roots, and worked with a school in the Navajo Nation. Jerry has come a long way from being the orphan boy raised by his grandparents, to being one of the nicest and most generous of men around.

       Aloha
       Grant