When I moved from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania to Venice, Florida one of the first things I was told was, “At night there are two things in the inland waters of lakes and rivers.” One is alligators, the other one is alligator food. So….if you are in the water at night and you are not an alligator, three guesses to what you are and the first two don’t count.
Because YOU ARE ALLIGATOR FOOD!
Forty little “white face” calves! That is what was on that big semi truck that just pulled up beside our house in York Center. What a delightful surprise for this little girl, me. I ran out through the yard to see them up close. They were so cute, just adorable, even though they were all bawling their heads off. They were probably hungry, about four months old and had just been weaned from their mother’s milk. Plus they had just been trucked all the way from Texas.
With these forty little heifers my dad built his herd of herford brood cows by raising all the new born heifer calves. My dad’s newly purchased Fox farm was the perfect home for them. It wasn’t long until any business men who came to the stone quarry soon found themselves in my dad’s car driving around through the fields where they roamed. They weren’t afraid of people as long as they stayed in the car so he could slowly drive very close among them.
The steers were sold each year for “prime beef” . For them to bring top “prime beef” price they had to be sold at a certain body weight.
My Self Portrait, age 16
THIS WAS SUPER GREAT! One night each week the neighboring town of West Mansfield invited a local school to hold an amateur contest which was held at the town movie theater. The year was 1935. Mrs. Herring, our school music teacher, happily entered her prize high school boys’ octet. As a trio the three Hinze sisters entered. We had four entries, all high school students.
Always anxious to take front and center stage, I convinced my friend Margaret, both of us eight graders, to enter with me. The big night for our little country school came. We sang “Breaking in a Pair of Shoes”. Then she sang while I did a soft shoe tap dance pretending that my feet hurt with each step, like Ooch! Ouch! Ooch!
Mr. Warren Harding…..that is our eighth grade teacher’s name. The assignment he gives for our next day is to write a story of our most embarrassing moment, then stand before the class and recite it.
One really stands out for me far above all the others. Besides it happened just this summer before this school year of 1935 started and I am thirteen years old.
From Sweet Little Baby…….
It was late summer of the year 1936. I was about to start my freshman year in York Center High School. Living with me in the house beside my dad’s stone quarry were my brother Bee, ten years older than me, and my younger brother Bugs (Howard). My sister Bobbie (she gave herself this nickname, because she didn’t like her given name Hazel) declared she was coming to live with us and finish her senior year. This gave my sister Fannie the courage to come home to finish junior and senior years. Our father had made all of his children quit school, so this was much against his wishes.