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Showing posts from December, 2016

Football changes my father's life

 This is a picture of my father on the 1939-40 football team.  He is on the 2nd row sitting next to his friend Mr. Dennis.  He is the guy in the leather helmet.  He had just started 9th grade. This pic was taken a few days before he broke his left leg in practice.    Then, my grandfather sold his mules and bought two tractors and put my father on one, as he could drive a tractor with his leg in a cast.   They plowed up the back fields and planted winter crops. Then in the spring they planted corn and cotton, four times as much as they ever had with the mules.  My father made all A's and was a good student, but after breaking his leg and the tractor investments, my grandfather saw no reason to send him back to school.    Later, my father was drafted for WWII and was in the 36th infantry division.  He experienced combat in France and Germany.  After the war, he used the GI bill and went to class to study dairy farming.   He and my mother ran the dairy farm until h