‘The Big Question” is the first item I read in the Concord Monitor on Thursdays. The query on Feb. 21 was, “What wisdom do you wish you could pass on to your younger self?” While it was intriguing, it didn’t match my experience. You see, the lessons I learned when I was nearly a teen have served me well for a lifetime.
When I was a youngster, my family lived in a really nice house in the country outside Washington, D.C.
Life was good. My brother and I attended private schools (our parents drove us to school), swam in the pool at the country club, rode horses and got into mischief. My mother, an avid gardener, was a member of the local garden club. My dad worked long hours and escaped when he could to play golf.
Friends from school and neighborhood kids attended our birthday parties, which always featured a decorated cake from a bakery and often a magician. My parents liked to throw parties. The largest of these events was an open house on New Year’s Day. Guests included my dad’s business associates, politicians, friends and neighbors. A bartender served drinks at one end of the sunken living room. In the dining room, a lavish buffet featured standing rib roast, shrimp and myriad hors d’oeuvres.
This cushy, idyllic lifestyle changed dramatically in 1963 when my dad lost his business, the largest Chrysler dealership on the East Coast. The recession of the early 1960s hit the automobile industry hard.
My mother sold the Thoroughbred race horses to raise cash and moved us to an antebellum farmhouse she had rented in a town about 20 miles from where we had lived. The house was one mile down a one-lane dirt road. The closest neighbor was half a mile away. Playing with neighborhood kids wasn’t an option anymore – there weren’t any.
We kept the riding horses. In fact, my mother supported us by boarding horses and giving riding lessons. She taught me to put up the corn, beans and tomatoes from the garden. We made vats of grape jelly from the vines that grew along a fence behind the house.
In the summer, we cooled our heels in a swimming hole at a creek nearby. We always made sure the cattle that grazed in the surrounding pasture were cooling their heels downstream. My brother and I rode our horses on the dirt roads near the house. The pond on the farm was stocked; we learned to clean the blue gill and sunfish we caught.
My brother and I were among the first white students to attend the local public school. We rode the bus for about an hour one way. Ours was the first stop in the morning and the last in the afternoon.
The importance of chores – including feeding livestock, mucking stalls and weeding the garden – escalated. My mother sold some of the beef and pork she raised; we ate what she didn’t sell.
It took my dad a couple of years to re-establish himself in business. While our financial situation had changed dramatically, thanks to my mom’s perseverance and ingenuity we were okay.
Those years were tough but not unbearable. We no longer shopped for clothes at a department store; thrift stores were more affordable. Mom baked our birthday cakes. But we always had plenty of food and lived on a beautiful farm.
Years later – after I’d graduated from college – my dad asked me whether I was angry with him because our lives had changed after he lost his business. I said no, quite the opposite. He was surprised and asked how that could be possible. I explained that the experience had saved me from becoming a country club brat. It had taught me to work hard, embrace change, practice the Golden Rule, and be brave and resourceful. I also had learned that while having cash makes life easier, it doesn’t guarantee happiness.
These life lessons, mastered in my youth, have served me well for decades.
(Ann Davis lives in Wilmot.)