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Title: Washing Day and Other Sharecropper's Stories

Author: Dick Meadows

Narrator: Dick Meadows

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-22-16

Publisher: Dick Meadows

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." - Robert Frost

Frost wrote about it, but I never knew that until I was in graduate school. As a rider of saplings during my boyhood I had no idea that this simple pleasure had been immortalized in "birches". Frost wrote of the look of the trees. I remember how they feel. I can't be certain if someone showed me how to ride a sapling or if I discovered it while playing alone, like Frost's birch rider, "Some small boy too far from town to learn baseball, whose only play was what he found himself, summer or winter, and could play alone". Perhaps a cousin or a neighbor my age taught me the game. Maybe some athletic impulse caused me to climb a sapling, kick my feet free from a supportive limb and throw myself out into space for the swift swing to Earth. What fun! And it was so available in the woods around the farm where we were sharecroppers.

My stories describe a lifestyle that has all but disappeared from American culture. My hope is that the listener will enjoy learning about the work and play of a large family living on a tenant farm without electricity, running water or indoor plumbing - but on washing day, there was a washing machine that had been dreamt about for years! A luxury we could hardly afford. We heated our homes with wood and coal and cooked with propane, and I remember doing homework by the light of kerosene lamps. But most importantly, I want to share the complicated relationship between father and son, which is timeless and universal.

Members Reviews:

Beautifully Written with Amazing Detail

This is one fabulous true account of a sharecropper 's child growing up in poverty with a strict father. Short chapters each depict a scene that draws the reader in to the tastes, smells, and feel of the moment. The writing is detailed and in spite of the often very difficult and painful situations, often very funny too. There are sweet scenes from a childhood crush, a one-room school, and washing day! And there are poignant scenes around food and survival. I hope that author Dick Meadows speaks about this book as often as possible; go hear him if he does and I would suggest reading the book first. I read it in two nights. Thank you, Dick ,for this elegant work and also for this education: I stand informed and respectful of all who lived the sharecropper's life in those days;

Well-Told Tales!

In ÂWashing Days and Other Sharecropper's Stories," Dick Meadows gives us a compelling portrait of growing up on a farm in rural Illinois in the late 1940s. The stories remind us of how difficult life could be in that era before modernization simplified so many tasks we take for granted. Nevertheless, they show how well people coped with the challenges set before them. In his characters we encounter a blending of sadness and joy, grace and moralism and pride and humility which made them so memorable in his reliving of those days. His earthly humor from life on the farm pervades all of these tales and makes their reading so pleasurable. I commend the author for at last publishing these stories in a book and making them more available to family, friends and others!

Beautiful Childhood Stories - A Well Written Book

I really enjoyed reading this book, with a lot of beautiful childhood stories. I especially liked the stories about washing and schools.