When one of our sons tried to ru

Lyman County, South Dakota's Genealogy

When one of our sons tried to run away from home

Which reminds me of the time our son Donn decided he had had all of his mother he was going to take and packed his bags to leave home. He was a little over five years old at the time. We were living in Farmington, MN. One morning about six o’clock he came in to wake me up to tell me he was hungry. I told him it was too early to be out of bed and to go back to sleep for a while.

A few minutes later, here he was again, but this time he was angry and announced that if I didn’t get up and get him something to eat he was running away. (Remember, this is still during the days when mothers fixed breakfast rather than the kids feeding themselves cold cereal out of the box or from a cup in front of the TV.)

I said, "Good deal, and be sure to take all of your toys and dirty clothes out of my house!" This big assertive five-year-old ran from my room just a screaming and as I listened to him throwing his things together I wondered if I should go in and baby him or just let him do whatever it was he felt he had to do. I opted for the latter.

He slammed out the front door and I lay there awhile to give him time to work off some steam. Soon the door opened and here he came, back into my room. I asked him what the heck he was doing back; I thought he said he was leaving. He was, but he forgot to kiss me goodbye. Ha. Then he left.

About five minutes later I checked to see what he was going to do. We were the only house on the entire block and the house was on the east end of the block. Everything to the west was vacant and ran alongside a busy four-lane street that by-passed town.

There he went, shoulders straight, determination in his step and on his way to freedom. About 25 – 30 paces out he stopped to look back as if to see how far he had gone, besides, his suitcase was getting heavy and he needed to rest. He started off again, dragging his suitcase behind him. He only had to go about six blocks to get to his grandmother’s house, but six blocks can be miles to a little boy running away from home. He was so funny. He would go a little way, stop and look up the road in the direction of her house then look back at ours, then pick up the suitcase and repeat the process. Then he made a heart-wrenching decision … he opted to return to the house.

Soon he was dragging his suitcase back home, stopping occasionally to rest on the suitcase. I got back in bed and pretended to be asleep when he came in. He came to wake me up and tell me he had decided not to run away. So, what really happened here? I refused to get up to fix breakfast "before it was time for breakfast" and he "ran away from home" only to have to come back. When he finally made it back to the house we had breakfast! Did anyone win?

I don’t remember that I ever ran away from home (unless the time Frances and I hopped on a bus to go across the wide open spaces of Wyoming to Moab, Utah, where our mother lived), counts.

I eventually ended up in Newcastle, Wyo. ca 1954, with my mother and her husband, Fuzz Cordry. There I met a girl who was much more "advanced", shall we say, than I was. We hitchhiked to Moorcroft, Wyo. and caught a ride with a couple of young men and I use that term loosely. About the only thing I will say about that is that I was a very fortunate dumb kid that managed to make it back home unscathed (no thanks to my streetwise friend who was apparently out for a better time than I was). I did however; manage to get a bus ticket back to the safety of Reliance; thankful to be home since getting on that bus oh so long ago. And no, I NEVER hitchhiked again.

Sometimes when I see so many of the "oh-so-cool" underdeveloped pubescent girls pretending to be "women of the world" I remember that age and it scares the hell out of me to think that they have no idea of the dangers out there. If they just knew.

Well that was a sitter-downer. Must be something in the weather..

 

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