“City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.”
— Mason Cooley, American writer and educator 1927-2002
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“Which one do you like?”
The request for consultation from a friend trying to decide between two pieces of artwork was noted. One, a small country farmhouse with a red barn. The second, a white frame country church building.
“I like them both — either will complement the art in your house,” I offered, trying to be helpful but not persuasive. “Visualize each one in your house for a moment; the better choice will come to you.”
Art, like beauty, is the eyes of the beholder. My art collection, I like to call “an eclectic extravaganza.” Some pieces by recognized artists. Some by obscure unknowns. A few, my own personal work from another lifetime spent earning a degree in art.
Likewise, appreciation for where we choose to live is defined by personal tastes and experience. “I like the country farmhouse picture,” my friend smiled. “I wonder sometimes what it would be like to live on a real farm.”
Country life, from a city perspective, often seems charming. Farming, however, is dedication and hard work. I learned this as a city kid in the early 1950s, spending time at my country friend’s house.
His family lived on a muddy county road in deep East Texas near Crockett. Where a dirt driveway circled a huge oak tree. A gate on the left led to the simple four-room farmhouse, and another on the right connected to a cow pasture and hay meadow. Beyond the tree was a shed sheltering a well-worn Ford 8N tractor and an equally used GMC one-ton flat-bed truck, both of late 1940s vintage.
The truck was the only vehicle the tenant farming family owned, serving double duty as a work vehicle and the only means of transportation to town for Saturday provisions or to church on Sunday.
The old frame house sat up off the ground with nothing to keep a cold North wind from blowing under it. Except a couple of hound dogs calling under the house their home that delighted in barking at anything that moved … and some things that didn’t.
A well-worn path from the back door forked about halfway across the yard. One way led to the smokehouse where pork was cured. The other, more heavily traveled trail passed the firewood stack on the way to the outhouse. Also known as the privy. The “John.” Predecessors to indoor porcelain bathrooms with running water.
In fact, the only indoor plumbing was a hand-operated well pump at the kitchen sink. Electricity was limited to four bare bulb lights, one hanging from the ceiling in each room. Heat was supplied by a wood-burning stove in the kitchen and a small fireplace in the living room.
A telephone was still on the “maybe someday” list. A television was just a dream.
Air conditioning? A rare commodity anywhere in the early 1950s. The few businesses that had it boasted of the luxury, enticing customers with “refrigerated air” signs in their windows. However, it was enjoyed in very few homes then, especially rural farmhouses.
My initial experiences of country life, all those years ago, included many memorable firsts. Things like riding on a horse. On a tractor. And on the back of a flatbed farm truck.
It was also the only time I took a Saturday night bath in a number three washtub in the middle of the kitchen floor. And my first time sitting in a hot outhouse on a summer afternoon listening to dirt dabbers buzzing.
It was also where I saw family love and friendship. Dedication and hard work. Where I enjoyed home-cooked meals in the most literal sense of the word. Vegetables from the garden, milk from the cows, meat from the smokehouse. Where raising crops, cattle, and farm products was not only their livelihood, but also their means of providing food for the table.
Granted, farming and farm living have changed immensely since my so-called city boy childhood experiences eons ago. For the better, thankfully. But many good memories of those brief farm living experiences remain.
Except for outhouses. Those are probably best left to humorous stories and a sense of gratitude that they are gone.
My friend made her artwork selections last week, and we were off to dinner. I had silently picked my favorite; had I been buying one — the church picture. Because without country churches, family farms would be vastly different, yesterday and today.
By the way, the canvas of the country church looks great in her house.
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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