Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Novels using a past Heritage

A Novel based on a past Heritage

For the past fifteen (15) years I've lived on the ten acre home-site of what was once the family dairy farm. After retiring from the military my wife and I built a home on what was once the family homestead. When we acquired the property, which had passed from the family, the house was burned and had to be dismantled. Under the weathered and scorched wooden siding were the original oak logs when it was built in the late 1800’s. I still have some of those logs lying under the pole shed that came crashing down several years ago in a tornado. As I look out the window the wind is blowing from the south. It rained last night.

My father used to tell me that a wind from the south meant rain. When I retired, my Dad and Mom built a place on the forty (40) acres next to mine. We had ten (10) good years together. He told me a lot of what it was like growing up here in central Wisconsin. Dad told me that he always knew he was not destined to be a farmer and when the opportunity came for a military career, beginning in WW2, he left and never looked back. That is until I bought the property in the late 1980s.

Linda and I like it here. It's a lot cooler than it was on the military bases we served on in the south and we don’t need air conditioning. We sit on a rise and there is always a cool breeze blowing from somewhere. The farmer who once owned it said, in the summer, he would sleep on the porch and there was always a breeze to make for good snoozing weather.

When we rebuilt, the basement was dug out to allow for a cement one. You would not believe the size of the rocks (boulders) the original builder used to form the foundation. In the rubble we found a huge gold ring that would go around two of my fingers. At church I've shaken hands with local men who are probably part of that genetic legacy. (Men with huge hands)

One of my students is writing a novel based upon his heritage. His writing has developed into a very flowing and lucid style. I sense that he is torn between being true to the actual record, as he knows it, and what it takes to optimize interest in the story. His is not a true historical or biographically novel, but rather a tale based upon family events. This gives him a mixed bag of family baggage to contend with. Some relative is certain to point out, after it is written that… “Aunt Sue had a mole on the right side rather than the left side of her cheek.”