The Days of Lawlessness

Greetings from Poosey.

I miss the desperados, the days of lawlessness.

When I was a youngster living in a farm community the legal rights were fudged a bit because of pure necessity when it came to driving. While the law books said that a young man or woman had to be 16 years old, the fact was that if your legs were long enough to reach the pedals of your dad’s pickup truck or his John Deere, you were okay to drive. Schools taught driver’s education, but it was almost laughable when a kid from a farm climbed behind the Driver’s Ed wheel for the first time. The textbook said that an hour or so should be spent getting the student familiar with where to find the ignition switch and headlights then how to work the clutch. When a farm boy climbed into the driver’s seat the teacher could pretty much open up his newspaper and read for the next hour since the kid could not only drive with skill but if he’d had a wagon attached to the rear bumper he was able to maneuver the vehicle down a dirt road at 50 miles an hour …in reverse.

Every policeman in the county knew this and when he’d see a four-ton grain truck coming at him with a tiny head barely poking up above the steering wheel, the cop would simply wave and smile. The kid knew what he was doing. In fact, he might be one of the better drivers on the road. Pure lawlessness bordering on anarchy and it worked.

Many county clerks had a private list of who could afford to pay their taxes and who couldn’t. If you were on the “couldn’t” list then you’d simply get an understood waiver until times got better. Of course, you paid up when you were flush again. But there were few fines. Imprisonment was practically unheard of. Lawlessness pure and simple.

The same economic structure applied on your credit at the local store. If you let your credit card account go overdue today you’ll be slapped with a hefty interest rate that might soon add up to more than your original purchase. My mother used to send me to the store with a list of groceries to pack onto my bicycle and Ray Reeder, our local grocer, would simply jot down the amount on his carbon paper pad. He knew that Mom was good for it and that I’d probably lose the cash before I got to the store. My father told me about times during the Great Depression when a farmer’s account was never due until the crops were in and if it was a bad year then the bill was held over for another season, interest free. Try walking into your local retail store tomorrow and tell them you won’t be able to pay for your flat screen TV until you get the corn picked and you’d like to forego any interest charges. I truly miss those wild and woolly days when the law was ignored with such wild abandon.

In most Midwest villages, Saturday night was the time to come to do your trading. In fact, the act of “trading” eggs and milk for other needed items was common currency. Of course, no town square was big enough to accommodate all the buggies then later jalopies that would crowd into the spaces so you simply parked where you found a spot. Often as not when you went to leave you’d have to find the owner of the car parked behind you and he’d kindly back his Model A into the street so you could make your exit. Today in some places, the meter maid will slap a bill onto the windshield of your car if your wheel is on the yellow line or your meter has expired. Blessed anarchy has given way to a list of rules and ‘tis a pity. I miss the days of outlaws and lawbreakers.

I can remember when the school principal at our high school turned a blind eye to any boy who played truant long enough to help his dad put up hay or get the crops in. Husband Herb tells me that his algebra teacher once yelled at him for sleeping in class because he’d been up all night trying to get the cows corralled. He sat down in the principal’s office and explained his mathematical dozing and the principal told him to just lie down in the corner of his office for the rest of the morning. The boy needed his rest and his excuse was a good one. This was, of course, in the days when Herb wouldn’t have missed out on a federally mandated test in the afternoon.

Ah, for a return to the days of chaos, mayhem and revolution. Sometimes today’s civilized society just bores me to death.

You ever ‘round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.