Larry Scheckel

Sergeant Preston of the Yukon was another favorite radio program of the Scheckel boys on the Oak Grove Ridge farm in the 1940s and 1950s. Sergeant Preston was a Canadian Mountie. Preston rode his horse, Rex, and a canine companion, Yukon King, was always by his side.

I can’t recall what breed of horse Rex was.  Remember, this was radio, not television. But the Scheckel boys knew that Yukon King was a Huskie, the strongest and swiftest lead dog breaking the trail. Every Thursday night at 6 o’clock, Sergeant Preston was in a relentless pursuit of lawbreakers in the 1890’s desolate western Canadian frontier. He went after gold crazed miners, murderers, claim jumpers and cutthroats.  There seemed to be a winter snow storm or blizzard in every episode.

We also, loved the Cisco Kid radio series. We knew Cisco and Pancho were Mexican or at minimum, half Mexican. It seemed this pair of happy-go-lucky gun-toting caballeros was part outlaw. But they always seemed to help citizens in distress. At the end of each half hour program, one of them would tell a corny joke about the adventure they had just gone through.  They would both laugh, drawing out a long  ”Oooooooh Pancho! “Oooooooh Ceeesco!” and ride off into an imaginary sunset.

Other radio programs were Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Edgar Bergen was the ventriloquist and Charlie McCarthy was his wooden dummy. He would interview famous guests such as Jimmy Steward and Mae West. Edgar Bergen had another wooden dummy named Mortimer Snerd. Whereas, Charlie McCarty was intelligent and sophisticated, Moritmer Snerd was a rube, a country bumpkin. Oh, yes we boys could identify with Snerd. We awaited to the end of every program for “Snerd’s Words for the Birds”, such as “Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it”. Snerd was always amazed and awed by the marvels of the modern world, none of which he could understand. So “Who’d a thunk it?” are Snerd’s words.

via Radio on the Farm in Winter

Our radio sat on a low wooden stand in the corner of the living room.  Dad’s rocking chair was placed in front of the radio.  The heat register was nearby, bringing warm dry air from the basement furnace. 

We did not have television or newspapers or magazines on the Scheckel farm outside of Seneca, Wisconsin in the heart of Crawford County during the 1940s and 1950s.  We had the Weekly Reader at our one-room school.  We saw the Movietone News ahead of the movies we occasionally saw in Gays Mills or Prairie du Chien. I recall the ringing authoritative voice of Lowell Thomas describing the battles occurring in the Korean War. That radio was our window to the outside world.

The all-time favorite of us three Scheckel boys had to be the Lone Ranger program. It was broadcast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights at 6 PM.  In the winter, we tried to get our chores done, supper eaten, rosary said, and cows milked by 6 PM.  We usually made it just in time.

One of us would turn on the radio.  We’d lie on the floor of the living room, or sit in a chair by the table, reading or doing homework and listen to the soft soothing voice of the Masked Man “Bringing law and order to the Old West”.  The Lone Ranger’s trademark was the Silver Bullet and he rode on a big white stallion by the name of Silver.

His faithful companion was the Indian Tonto. Tonto’s broken English would be totally politically incorrect today. He would say “Me thinks you right, Ke-mo sah-bee.” An outlaw would be referred to as “Him heap big bad man”.  Tonto’s mount was the sorrel paint named Scout.  At the end of the program The Long Ranger would be heard to yell, “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!”.  A voice would ask “Who was that masked man?”  Another knowing character would response with “Well, that’s the Lone Ranger!” and then a portion of the William Tell Overture would be heard.

via Memories of Winter on the Farm

Jung’s, Gurney’s, and Burpee seed catalogs arrived in the mail, usually the first week in January, about the same time as the tax bill. The bright vibrant colors of the pictures of vegetables and fruits contrasted sharply with the barren fields and snow-covered hills surrounding the Scheckel farm out on Oak Grove Ridge in the 1940s and 1950s.

I enjoyed looking through the Gurney’s Seed Catalog. They had a little biography of Charles W. Gurney in one of their issues. Charles W. Gurney was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil War. Gurney was born in Massachusetts in 1840, moved to Iowa in 1852, and enlisted in the 3^rd Iowa Infantry. They had a profile picture of Lt. Col Gurney and he looked very distinguished with a bushy goatee mustache. He looked like an honest seed seller to me.

Then we had Ground Hogs Day on February 2, which just happens to be my oldest brother Ed’s birthday. The folklore is that if the groundhog sees his shadow when he pokes his head out of his burrow, there would be six more weeks of winter. Or was it the other way around; a very short winter and early spring?

I could not keep that straight. Besides, we did not have groundhogs on Oak Grove Ridge. I found out later that the groundhog is the same as a woodchuck and we had plenty of those. I figured that the smart woodchucks, or groundhogs, did not come out of their holes on February 2. They stayed in the warm sweet slumber of hibernation until at least April. It was the stupid or mentally retarded groundhogs that would make an appearance in the dead of winter.

In the summer we had picked wild blackberries in bushes we found down in Kettle Hollow and a secret patch on the Bernier farm.  Mom canned those berries and it paid off big time in the dead of winter. We could bring up a jar of raspberries or strawberries from the basement and Mom would bake a “short cake” and the berries, along with the sugary syrup, was spread over the top.

via Snowball Fights and Forts at the One-Room Country School  

Snowballs flew in the late 1940s and 1950s at the Oak Grove Ridge one-room country school outside of Seneca in the middle of Crawford County. The best snowball fights

happened when 2 impromptu teams built snow forts about 30 feet apart by rolling big balls of snow, much like starting to make a snowman and positioning them into a line, packing snow between the orbs, leveling the top, and building a wall up to about 3 feet tall and 15 feet long.

Hunkered down behind the protective wall, each combatant packed together a dozen or so snowballs for ammunition. Then the snowball fight commenced and what great fun it was! Raise up, throw hard at the opponent and duck down before getting hit.

My brother Bob came up with an ingenious way of fighting. Poke a small hole in the wall, enough to peer through but not so big that a snowball can penetrate. With snowball in hand, crouched down but ready to throw, sight through the hole, and watch until the enemy is sighted just raising up, then let go.

Many was the time the foe would be hit by a snowball without ever seeing it coming. These battles would rage back and forth sometimes lasting the whole noon hour. At times the war was cut short by some crybaby kid that got hit in the face with a snowball and went bawling into the schoolhouse to tell Teacher. Teacher would come out and put a stop to our good fun.

We kids all looked forward to playground time at Oak Grove School. We learned to share, we learned to compete, and we learned give and take. We learned lessons in empathy, friendship, and fair play. We took away many good memories from that half acre of playground on the hilltop out on Oak Grove Ridge.

via Winter in the Scheckel Farmhouse

The Scheckel family was back in the warm farmhouse by 6 PM on winter nights out on the Oak Grove Ridge farm in the 1940s and 1950s.  All the livestock were fed, watered, and bedded down for the night. The cows were milked. The Lone Ranger came on the radio on about 6:30 PM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The wind howled with great fury at times, gusts seems to rock or sway the house, and make noises as the timbers creaked. We were not alarmed. That old farmhouse was built sturdy and had weathered many storms and high winds. Furthermore, it was protected on nearly all sides by trees.

We made popcorn some night. Put some grease in the frying pan, put in popcorn and topped it with a lid. As soon as the first kernels popped, one of us would have to slide the frying pan back and forth across the burner to prevent the kernels from burning.

We grew our own popcorn in the garden. Why buy if you can grow your own? The popcorn ears were smaller than field corn. Some of our home-grown popcorn had white kernels and some had yellow kernels. The white kernels yielded whitish popcorn and was slightly smaller than the yellow kernels.

We made sure the ear corn was very dry. If the ears were not completely dry, the popcorn kernels would mold. We picked the ears in late fall, shelled the popcorn ears, and stored the kernels in a jar for use during the winter.

When popped, the corn filled a large bowl, some butter was put in the frying pan to melt. The melted butter was poured over the popcorn. Small dishes were filled for each of us to eat. We played cards, 500, Euchre, or Pepper.  Some of us would read or play Monopoly. Dad would listen to the radio, or work a crossword puzzle, or read a newspaper. Mom would mend clothes or crochet doilies.

via Winter on the Farm