Back on my family farm outside of Johnsburg in the countryside in Wisconsin, i remember two consecutive times of terror inflicted upon my younger brother Daniel and myself... In the late afternoon one summer day, my brother Dan and me helped ourselves to two potatoes from the sack of potatoes our mother (Alexia Schneider) kept in the basement stairway, we wanted to make "toy turkeys"... As young farm boys often do, Danny being around 7 years old, and i a little over 8 year of age, as farm boys often make do with whats available, so we made toy turkeys with the potatoes. First by taking a raw potatoe and sticking discarded chicken feathers in the potatoe's rump section and using sticks for its legs and a corn cob section for the head, thus a turkey. Later our mother that evening saw our work and went "ballistic" raving mad that we had destroyed two potatoes from her sack of potatoes. Well she started to cuss us out, coming at us with the look of murder in her eyes, like we had destroyed the last two potatoes in a famine, before she could catch us we both took off, ran and hid in the back barn area where we stayed well into the night in fear of a beating. Around 1:30 a.m in the morning, after she was asleep, we snuck back to our room in our house by crawling in through a open window, as the 'bitch" had locked us out of the house.
Before dawn we both woke before mother, for fear of retaliation of a beating, together going back to the barn to the hay loft storage area second floor of the barn. As we entered the machine storage area we saw a scruffy looking tramp crawling out from under the 'hay combine machine', he came at us with a large knife saying he was going to cut us good, chasing us in circles. My brother and me were terrified as the homicidal tramp came after us, and i, making split second life/death decisions, yelled to my brother Dan to run back down stairs but first i had to unsecure the dragging stairway door. After opening the stairwell door, i yelled at the tramp while he was chasing Dan in circles, Dan was having problems "out running" the mad man with the knife, so i cursed at the tramp, then the tramp started to chase me, then i yelled to Dan to run downstairs, but Dan in his panic pulled the stairwell door shut as he exited, as it often dragged on the floor, i feared Dan in his hurry may have "cooked my goose" but after my brother Dan was "safely" out of harms way, i too ran, but first reopening the dragging door, i managed to get it open in time, then ran down the barn stairway back to the house informing my older sisters of what had happened, at first they questioned our story, until our family dog a german shepherd named "Brauser" (afterwards) us now back in the hay barn, "Brauser" picked up the tramps "scent" under the hay combine, then our sisters believed us somewhat. In spite of having a (sometimes) violent and abusive mother, and occasionally being chased by knife carrying homicidal tramps in the barn, my brother and myself both had a happy and somewhat normal childhood...
"Memoirs" September 1960 (Johnsburg, Wisconsin)
It was my younger brother Dan's first day of school, i being in second grade Dan in first. That morning we started the school day by attending morning mass, as it was a Catholic school.
Dan and me marched up to the church on the hill, "side by side" in column formation with our other classmates. Dan was excited that morning about the "new environment" of school. Dan was cute, looked alot like "Opie" of the famed TV, Andy Griffith show of the early 1960s...
I always watched over Dan...
Through most of our adult life, unfortunately Dan "avoided" contact with me as his brother, overcome by our mother's "dark side"...
The Well Incident...
In the fall of 1960 around November, my father Elmer while checking our farms well that cold November day which already had ice on the well's concrete platform. As i was home sick from school that day that afternoon, while father who was checking the well sub-pump in the cold, fell over into the well. I watching from the window of our kitchen viewing this, told my mother, "father fell into the well" at first mother resisted, but i was 'dertermined' insisting father needed help, she finally obliged, going out into the cold checking on father, sure enough he had fell into the well, she helped father out of the the well, into the house, he had a few cracked ribs per the family doctor's visit afterwards, but was "ok", i was relieved, most likely by my observence i saved father's life that day...
I was never thanked by my parents for "most likely" saving father's life that day. But that was "ok", because he was my father...
"Memoirs" Excerpts by Mark E. Temme
TEMME HAUS PRESS
"Click" 'Older Posts' for 77 KGB Austrian/Vlad Putin Connection"...
Before dawn we both woke before mother, for fear of retaliation of a beating, together going back to the barn to the hay loft storage area second floor of the barn. As we entered the machine storage area we saw a scruffy looking tramp crawling out from under the 'hay combine machine', he came at us with a large knife saying he was going to cut us good, chasing us in circles. My brother and me were terrified as the homicidal tramp came after us, and i, making split second life/death decisions, yelled to my brother Dan to run back down stairs but first i had to unsecure the dragging stairway door. After opening the stairwell door, i yelled at the tramp while he was chasing Dan in circles, Dan was having problems "out running" the mad man with the knife, so i cursed at the tramp, then the tramp started to chase me, then i yelled to Dan to run downstairs, but Dan in his panic pulled the stairwell door shut as he exited, as it often dragged on the floor, i feared Dan in his hurry may have "cooked my goose" but after my brother Dan was "safely" out of harms way, i too ran, but first reopening the dragging door, i managed to get it open in time, then ran down the barn stairway back to the house informing my older sisters of what had happened, at first they questioned our story, until our family dog a german shepherd named "Brauser" (afterwards) us now back in the hay barn, "Brauser" picked up the tramps "scent" under the hay combine, then our sisters believed us somewhat. In spite of having a (sometimes) violent and abusive mother, and occasionally being chased by knife carrying homicidal tramps in the barn, my brother and myself both had a happy and somewhat normal childhood...
"Memoirs" September 1960 (Johnsburg, Wisconsin)
It was my younger brother Dan's first day of school, i being in second grade Dan in first. That morning we started the school day by attending morning mass, as it was a Catholic school.
Dan and me marched up to the church on the hill, "side by side" in column formation with our other classmates. Dan was excited that morning about the "new environment" of school. Dan was cute, looked alot like "Opie" of the famed TV, Andy Griffith show of the early 1960s...
I always watched over Dan...
Through most of our adult life, unfortunately Dan "avoided" contact with me as his brother, overcome by our mother's "dark side"...
The Well Incident...
In the fall of 1960 around November, my father Elmer while checking our farms well that cold November day which already had ice on the well's concrete platform. As i was home sick from school that day that afternoon, while father who was checking the well sub-pump in the cold, fell over into the well. I watching from the window of our kitchen viewing this, told my mother, "father fell into the well" at first mother resisted, but i was 'dertermined' insisting father needed help, she finally obliged, going out into the cold checking on father, sure enough he had fell into the well, she helped father out of the the well, into the house, he had a few cracked ribs per the family doctor's visit afterwards, but was "ok", i was relieved, most likely by my observence i saved father's life that day...
I was never thanked by my parents for "most likely" saving father's life that day. But that was "ok", because he was my father...
"Memoirs" Excerpts by Mark E. Temme
TEMME HAUS PRESS
"Click" 'Older Posts' for 77 KGB Austrian/Vlad Putin Connection"...
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