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Wild Krumpos

Day

Tuesday, January 1, 1985

17 entries

  1. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Do You Know How This City Got Its Name?

    My father had a routine. Not a routine he would have admitted to having. Not a performance. Not anything polished or rehearsed in the formal sense. Just a few jokes, stored and ready, each attached to a particular town. They…

  2. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Elementary school hallways have their own ecosystem — the speed-walkers, the

    Elementary school hallways have their own ecosystem — the speed-walkers, the slow drifters, the loud ones orbiting attention, the quiet ones avoiding it. It was my first exposure to hierarchy. Not adult hierarchy — kid hierarchy, which can be even…

  3. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    The Farmstead Rooms We Only Heated

    Our house was a patchwork of eras: stone basement, hand-hewn beams, odd little rooms built onto other rooms as if each generation had added a secret without telling the next. In winter, whole sections were cut off with blankets or…

  4. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    One winter morning, I woke before my parents for the first time and the house

    One winter morning, I woke before my parents for the first time and the house felt strange — cold, quiet, unguarded. The stove hadn’t been fed yet. The floorboards were freezing. I remember walking slowly, as if the house could…

  5. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Fishing meant time with the men who shaped me — my dad, and the family friend

    Fishing meant time with the men who shaped me — my dad, and the family friend who became a kind of uncle. They were quiet men, practical men, men who knew things about the world that I took as gospel.…

  6. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Frozen Pizza Thursdays

    I didn’t know we were poor. Not at first. Not when my parents worked nights, mom waitressing, dad cooking, both of them slipping in and out of the house like ghosts putting in long shifts at the edge of the…

  7. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    There’s a moment in childhood when the world shifts into categories — not rich

    There’s a moment in childhood when the world shifts into categories — not rich and poor, but “like mine” and “not like mine.” For me, it was stepping into the homes near the golf course. The ranch houses had carpets…

  8. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    The Rooms We Didn't Heat

    Old houses have ghosts — not the supernatural kind, but the emotional kind. Ours had rooms we barely entered in winter because they swallowed warmth faster than we could generate it. But some rooms we avoided year-round for different reasons:…

  9. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    We didn’t have much, but we had Saturday mornings.

    We didn’t have much, but we had Saturday mornings. Cartoons. Cereal. Pajamas until noon. The sense that the world paused for a few hours and let kids exist without expectation. The TV glow in a dim living room felt like…

  10. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    It’s strange how you can remember a certainty without remembering the moment

    It’s strange how you can remember a certainty without remembering the moment it broke. For me, it was in the middle of a conversation I wasn’t meant to hear. Two adults — arguing quietly in the kitchen, but not quietly…

  11. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    I remember the church basement better than the sanctuary. The sanctuary was

    I remember the church basement better than the sanctuary. The sanctuary was performative — polished wood, hymns, sermon voice. But the basement was where truth lived. Coffee in styrofoam cups. Cookies on beige plastic trays. Folding metal chairs aligned like…

  12. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    The deer skull I found behind the barn stayed with me for years. I hid it in

    The deer skull I found behind the barn stayed with me for years. I hid it in the loft of the shed like a secret altar. I didn’t think of it as morbid. I thought of it as mysterious. Beautiful.…

  13. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    The Man Who Didn't Like Music

    Once I asked my father what kind of music he listened to. I expected an answer. Everyone had music, I thought. Everyone had songs they loved, records they returned to, singers who belonged to them somehow. Even if the answer…

  14. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    The Silent Curriculum

    There were things the farm taught without explanation. No one sat you down and said, this is what country life requires. The lessons arrived through chores, accidents, deaths, and the strange adult certainty that some hard thing had to be…

  15. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    I always drew. I couldn’t help it. But somewhere around middle school, I sensed

    I always drew. I couldn’t help it. But somewhere around middle school, I sensed that drawing wasn’t neutral in my world — it was indulgent. Suspicious. Potentially dangerous. Art was fine as decoration, but dangerous as vocation. Dangerous as passion.…

  16. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Shame doesn’t descend fully formed. It creeps in like a cold front, subtle

    Shame doesn’t descend fully formed. It creeps in like a cold front, subtle at first — a comment, a smirk, a correction too sharp for its context. For me, early shame came from small moments: • being told I spoke…

  17. Tuesday, January 1, 1985 · Don Krumpos

    Work wasn’t just labor.

    Work wasn’t just labor. Work was absence. My mom worked nights. My dad worked long hours. My grandparents filled the gaps. The house often felt like a relay race where I was the baton. I didn’t resent it. But I…