Charles I. Scudder, Jr.'s roots were in the dust bowl .
(For a fascinating documentary of the history of the dustbowl see Ken Burns' treatment here: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/share-your-story/ )
But that legacy during his early life quickly changed to become what was an advancing popularity of factory work and post WWII economics which benefitted an expanding economy causing a boom of work into the bread basket of the U.S.A. For my parents, their story unfolded with a new home purchase in Omaha, Nebraska and both of my parents taking on work at the Swift packing plant.
(Second link: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2259&context=studentwork)
The American economy experienced a shift during the 1950s that created more income for more Americans than ever before. Though during the early 1950s the American economy was negatively affected by inflation—prices were rising, currency was losing its value, and a recession was at hand—these problems were relatively short-lived. By the mid-1950s, the nation began to enjoy the fruits of economic boom and prosperity. The robust economy gave rise to the American middle class.
The masses of Americans who grew up during Depression-era poverty and sacrificed for their country during World War II were now marrying, starting families, and entering the workforce. Furthermore, the GI Bill, which offered government funding for veterans attending college, allowed those who otherwise could not afford to continue their education to earn college degrees and win better-paying jobs.
During the decade, small businesses started and grew, while major corporations were merging, thus becoming larger, more profitable, and more powerful. Companies big and small needed workers, both skilled and unskilled, to manage their assets, work their assembly lines, or sell their products to the public. --https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1950s-business-and-economy-overview
His life, shaped by the Great Depression meant that in basic practicalities a dollar for food was meant to last several days, and food at his childhood home was supplemented with goat milk, eggs from chickens, and a productive garden (in growing season) or canned goods during winter months. Indeed, my grandmother, Grace Scudder, informed me on how to prepare vegetables which they grew from her and my grandfather's large garden so that from the time I was young, I learned from her how to steam, prepare and can vegetables .
My Dad shared with me later in his life that one day he was told by his parents that he had to be sent into servitude in order to fulfill a need for money for his household (that is his parents household). Around the time he was 10 or 11 years old (?) he had been picked up and driven in a truck by a farmer who gave him quarters in another town, in a basic loft in a hay barn. He was thus sent away from his family home and school to work on a farm in order to enrich not his goals but the basic need for food for his sisters and his parents. He worked very hard during those times, both with uncertainty if he would return home and also in isolation, at least this is what he shared with me. Also, when my dad was young he shared how there were members of town that were really bad eggs requiring my dad to fight, to defend himself, yet hold to his principles of a better life. All of this took great discipline. He would soon utilize that same discipline to work in the slaughter house of Omaha Nebraska, marry my Mom and start his new family.
Scudder Jr. came to be a young adult and newly crafted himself out of the poverty of Juniata, Nebraska with a move into Omaha, Nebraska where there was work available. However, with the help of new wealth of the fortune of my mother's household he began life in great contrast to the culture that he grew up with. His father-in-law seeing a financial hardship agreed to provide financial assistance so that my dad was able to attend Creighton University where he achieved his degree in law as he eventually moved away from blue collar work to his white-collar career as a lawyer.
Before moving foreward, I want to first go back to Juniata... where my father's father, my grandfather had many years previous, given up his personal dream to be a medical doctor in order to work to pay for the twins that were the first born of their new family. He resented this in such a primal way that my father's accomplishment was abrasive to him and he became quite competive with his only son. My dad was bullied by my grandfather, uncles, other kids at school, until he himself grew to be a tough guy himself, and he himself became a bully - at home at least. But more on that platform later.
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He took on, or he lived, a Studs Terkel's novel and then, he attempted to eclipse it. He became a defender of human rights related to racism, welfare, fair housing and food allotments. As his daughter I did one better, becaming the fragmented despot that he glorified, the downtrodden that he fought for, the foolish who needed rescue. Those were the people he appeared to like!
Though intuitively kind and of very good heart, I had heard enough times to know I would never measure up. I began projects and then gave up endlessly; recklessly confusing my own active brilliance as an act against the potentiality of endless punishment and subsequent withdrawal of the narcissism of parental love, instead steadfast to show my dad a genuine affliction, perhaps to reveal my humanity so that he would ease up on heavy-handed judgement against me, his own daughter. And much like those he seemed to align with I was having a much more difficult time in life than necessary. I really believe that myself too. I truly, really thought I could appease him, if only to simply just not endure his cruelty any longer. (One of many contemporary videos I watch in OCD manner to understand how to recover from parental narcissism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFLVpelZ8Aw)
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I was born 5th of what was to be a 4-children family - 5th in a family of intellectualists, power-fed by egoic habits of knowing more than most people and laughing at those who just didn't know as much as our family did - (the other were obviously losers) - to believe like they did - those others were lovers of Christ, white bread, country music, muscle cars, disco and they were to be seen as losers. That meant certain types of music were scoffed at, laughed at, unless intellectually purified through the memes of lectures, of reading and writing (Smithsonian Institute rubber-stamped).
It was not ok to just like something - just because - there had to be a reason and a logiccal reason. It was lonely in way to not be allowed a full embodiment of our own personality; expression was allowed by good grace in stories of Thurber, New York Times magazine, tasty tidbits from classic novelists. but it meant to say a forever 'goodbye' to the sacred spontaneity of our childhood hearts. Even as youth we were in terrible trouble if we were laughing too hard , not playing in intelligent ways, but just being silly kids.
In our household there were ever-changing rules, not to mention it was terrifying to be the focus of an adult's rage, My role was shown to be to ease the load for the true rage-aholic, my father and the co-dependency of my mother who worried about triggering my father's rage. I learned early enough to mainly just appease everyone else around me in co-dependent ways, then after the peace was established temporarily at least, I was able to secretly or quietly do what I wanted without interference. It may have looked as if I was always hiding. I don't know, it just felt comforting to me...that is... to be alone.
As a child what I felt where his mesmerising cycles of stories while he kept guard and lied to me about his worthiness he was very hard on me and my siblings. In our community he did act so much more compassionate than I experienced his expression of his personality. As an extension of that, his meanness towards others was hidden, causing what I thought was unnecessary suffering for me at home which seemed unfair, to which my mom would routinely say, "Life is unfair.". Because he claimed to be more than he actually was: astute in heart, caring in his emotional intelligence, genius in his pursuits and as he took actions in favor of those golden people who shaped Americana in the West during the 1940's, -50's and -60's a cheerleader for the underdog he embraced more preoccupation with that story.
The temptation to become a hermit remains strong in me. Some one thought that may be a past life i had as a hermit. Even though I was to be loved by many I self hated, having abandoned my truest nature at a young age for mere survival. I always felt I would do slightly better at life than my father, at least statistically. I becoming angry and difficult when others showed me love. I hated it, I feared it , more often than not somewhere in my reptilian brain I felt as if it would define my dying at the hands of my family as in being raised and defiantly surviving what may have been an untreated, alcoholic sociopathic father. And so I coaxed others to please not love me, begged them, showed them temper tantrums, threw things.. tried to chase them away and they loved me evermore. I just wanted to be left alone.
Appreciating the sentiment of others while not claiming it as my own. It hurt to be not much more than 'furniture' that fit the ambience of our home. Not measuring up: or the cost of knowledge begins a deeper more intimate portrayal .
I was younger , just a small child , when I knew by instinct that my local and 'caring' adults kept caving me into a false ness, in contemporary terms, fake news.. and at that, a category that blew any intuitive emotional knowing and appreciation of myself out of the way, it was "a maxim, echoing through the haunted hallways of our home, , "you don't measure up. you never have and you never will. to ascertain the extent, dimensions, quantity, capacity, etc., of, especially by comparison with a standard:to measure boundaries.to mark off or deal out by way of measurement :
It didn't matter, the who I was, not really,
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