My daddy dropped out of school before completing the eighth grade. This would have been sometime in the mid to late 1930s. In his teens, he (along with his brothers, two older and one younger) was anxious to go and do and be. Remaining in school was an impediment to the lure of pleasures that beckoned beyond the school yard.
I know he regretted having made this choice. Ten (or so) years later, he’d learned quite a few lessons about life outside the school yard. He’d served in the European theater during World War II (including being part of the D-Day Invasion), he’d gotten married on his return to the States, and his family was expanding. (In the above picture, taken about 1952 there were three children. Three more would follow.) All of a sudden, driving a furniture store delivery truck seemed like a crude way to earn a decent living.
Even though he lacked formal education, my daddy continued to educate himself. During the period when the above picture was taken, he had enrolled in Brookes Bible Institute in St. Louis. I remember many nights when he sat at the kitchen table or in a living room chair, surrounded by books and resource materials as he applied himself to being the very best student he could be … day job, family responsibilities and age notwithstanding. He was determined not to let a decision he’d made in his teens wreck the course of his life. Continue reading “Prep Work? Done!”