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Wild Krumpos

Day

Monday, January 1, 1979

23 entries

  1. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Back Porch and Hollow Pillars

    Event Date: 1979–1982 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The back porch was the border between the “house world” and the “farm world.” Inside meant rules, chores, quiet voices, wash your hands. Outside meant mud, goats, Dori, and adventure. But beneath the back porch…

  2. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Chores were religion in our house. Splitting wood, stacking wood, hauling wood

    Chores were religion in our house. Splitting wood, stacking wood, hauling wood — entire weekends swallowed by the rhythm of survival. I didn’t think of it as “character-building” at the time. I thought of it as just life — what…

  3. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Daycare of Grandmothers

    I grew up in the soft perimeter of grandmothers — the ones who stepped in when my parents worked nights. Their houses all had a certain texture: thin curtains that let in the morning light, ceramic knick-knacks, the smell of…

  4. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    For Christmas in 1979, Dad built me a barn.

    For Christmas in 1979, Dad built me a barn. Not a store-bought plastic one — a replica of our family barn, made of wood, with hinged doors and removable roofs over the stalls and hay section so my small hands…

  5. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Goat Days and the Uninvited Tourists

    Every so often, a school would come visit our farm—not because we were a tourist place, but because Mom simply said yes when teachers asked. The farm became a classroom, and I became the odd little resident boy watching strangers…

  6. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Event Date: 1978–1985

    Event Date: 1978–1985 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The pump house sat at the edge of the play yard like a small fortress — concrete walls, a metal door, always a little mysterious. It wasn’t big, barely enough room for an adult to…

  7. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    I got Dori when I was four — a lab puppy, small enough to curl up above my

    I got Dori when I was four — a lab puppy, small enough to curl up above my head on the pillow. She was more than a dog. She was an accomplice. We dug together under the porch, her paws…

  8. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Event Date: 1979–1983

    Event Date: 1979–1983 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The chicken yard sat just beyond the goat pen, a small world enclosed by wire and the rhythmic cluck-cluck-cluck of hens who always seemed to be gossiping. Chickens were ordinary creatures to adults, but to…

  9. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Event Date: 1979–1985

    Event Date: 1979–1985 Drafted: 2025-11-23 We had many goats over the years, each one with its own personality — stubborn, sweet, curious, chaotic. Goats have a certain presence, a mix of holy mischief and old-soul calm that made them endlessly…

  10. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Mean Goose

    Event Date: 1979–1983 Drafted: 2025-11-23 Every farm has one. The tyrant goose. Ours was a grand old gander — white, loud, and irritable. His orange beak was like a warning sign, and his eye had that sharp, prehistoric glint that…

  11. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Pump House: Secret World of Water

    Event Date: 1979–1983 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The pump house sat on the east side of the yard, a small cinderblock structure that hummed with a mysterious mechanical pulse. To adults, it was just the building that kept our well water flowing.…

  12. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Raking leaves was our autumn ritual. The yard was huge, so leaf-raking took

    Raking leaves was our autumn ritual. The yard was huge, so leaf-raking took hours. We rarely talked during it. We didn’t need to. The scraping of the rake on the grass, the rustle of the pile growing, the moment when…

  13. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Riding the Tractor Seat

    Event Date: 1979–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23 There was nothing in the world like riding on the tractor with Dad. His Allis-Chalmers — that classic orange — didn’t have a buddy seat. No tractor did back then. Kids didn’t need safety rails…

  14. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Event Date: 1979–1984

    Event Date: 1979–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The hay hook was one of the most mysterious objects in the barn — a long iron tool with a wicked curved end used to haul bales or loose hay. To an adult, it was…

  15. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Sand Pile Kingdom

    Event Date: 1979–1982 Drafted: 2025-11-23 If there was one place on the farm that felt entirely mine, it was the sand pile. Not a sandbox — not something purchased, installed, or shaped — but a natural heap of sand and…

  16. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Behind the barn, our land bled into a small patch of woods, not large enough

    Behind the barn, our land bled into a small patch of woods, not large enough to be called a forest but large enough to be a kingdom for a child. There was a path — not official, just a line…

  17. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Memoir Year: around 1978–1981

    Memoir Year: around 1978–1981 Written: 2025 We didn’t have a modern tractor; we had an Allis-Chalmers WD, a bright orange relic that looked like it had rolled out of a 1940s farm calendar. To me, it was enormous—the first machine…

  18. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Event Date: 1979–1982

    Event Date: 1979–1982 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The pigpen sat in the southeast corner of the yard, a little kingdom of mud, wood, and noise. To a grown-up, pigs are just pigs, but to a child — especially a child on a…

  19. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Every childhood house has a threshold space — the in-between of outside and

    Every childhood house has a threshold space — the in-between of outside and inside. Ours was the mudroom. It smelled like: • wet boots • woodsmoke • old coats • the metallic tang of winter air warming too quickly •…

  20. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    The Tractor Shed

    Event Date: 1979–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23 The tractor shed always felt like a sacred place — quiet, dim, full of potential energy. It wasn’t really a “shed” so much as a long lean-to attached to the old barn, a structure that…

  21. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Before the structured world of adulthood, before clocks became tyrants, time

    Before the structured world of adulthood, before clocks became tyrants, time was a soft organism. It stretched and folded itself around play. Our backyard had two pear trees, their branches bent with fruit. I remember climbing them barefoot, scratching my…

  22. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    Some of our windows didn’t have curtains. Not because we preferred openness

    Some of our windows didn’t have curtains. Not because we preferred openness — because we couldn’t afford them. At night I could see my own reflection, faint and ghostlike, superimposed over the blackness outside. I used to stare at it,…

  23. Monday, January 1, 1979 · Don Krumpos

    When the fire caught, the woodstove made a sound like an old creature waking

    When the fire caught, the woodstove made a sound like an old creature waking up — metal ticking, creaking, expanding molecule by molecule. It was almost language. The house had a rhythm during winter: • tick tick tick of the…