Mikey Down on the Farm

By Michael Helfrich

Mikey Down on the Farm begins with a short history of the life of Michael Helfrich, where he was born and who his parents and grandparents were. The author then recites several events from his youth to show how essential structure, discipline, instruction, and love are in their lives of children. He takes you on his journey and shows how, as a m

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Branding LLC
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639453627

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Mikey Down on the Farm

Copyright © 2022 by Michael Helfrich

Ebook: 978-1-639453-62-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The views expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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MIKEY DOWN

ON THE FARM

Mikey down on the farm is primarily for young fathers. The book begins with a short history of my life; where I was born, my parents and grandparents. Chapter One recites experiences I had growing up as a young farm boy. These experiences emphasize that children need structure, discipline, instruction, and love. Hopefully, these events will be interesting enough to keep you reading the whole book. Maybe some of these stories will get you to remember your past and open your minds to the fact that what goes on in a child’s life will affect them for the rest of their life.

In Chapter Two, we see that children need instruction from the word of God; but before fathers can teach their children, they must learn how to live to glorify God; for this is the chief end of man. You cannot teach something that you do not know anything about. America is in trouble because we have no standards by which to live.

In Chapter Three, we see that scripture itself is the light to guide us on how to understand God’s word. Scripture gives us the instruction that we need to be the men that God intended when He created us. This book is not an in-depth study but enough for you to start learning how you can use these biblical principles on your own.

In Chapter Four, we ask the questions: Why is America in such disarray, and Why can’t Johnny read? A man must stand up and take control of his life and the life of his family. We show that God created man and then the woman and this continues throughout all of creation. Whether it is in marriage, the church, or in civil governments, I will show that the Old Testament is still viable and is relevant to be used for instruction in our lives today. We must ask ourselves after seeing these truths, how should we then live?

In Chapter Five, we ask the question: What is in a name? So many people believe that they are Christians because they go to church or because they live in America or because they pray a lot, or, well, you get the point. The church has not drawn lines of demarcation, and it accepts everything into its house without understanding that God has drawn His line. There is something in a name, and Christians must understand that Jesus Christ does stand for something, and we are to follow Him as all the Apostles did.

In Chapters Six, Seven and Eight, I show the end results of not having the correct instruction as a youth. Everything we do in this life with our children as parents has a direct effect on their entire life. Although we all struggle through life, it is far better if there is compassion, caring, empathy, charity, and love within the family.

Michael Helfrich

CHAPTER ONE

This is my story. I was born Michael Alan Helfrich, the second of four children. I was born in Tillamook, Oregon on March 31, 1942, just after the start of World War II. My father, Nevan Arlington Helfrich was born in Piqua, Ohio and was of German descent. My mother Margaret (Billie) Viola Dahl-Helfrich was of Swedish descent. I had two sisters and one brother. Margaret Ann, who was called Midge, was born in 1939 and was the eldest. Marsha Arlene Helfrich, my younger sister, was born three years after me, and my brother Martin (Marty) Ames Helfrich, three years after that, in 1948. We all had the same initials, MAH. Mom had also given us names for when we misbehaved. Midge and Marsha’s names were Desdemona and Ophelia. I was Ichabod and Marty was Murgatroyd Aloysius. I knew that Ichabod Crane was a character in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but I never knew who the other three characters were or why each of us received our name.

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Midge was always a pushy person but very protective of me when we were young. I always thought of her as a moose because she was so much bigger than me when we were younger. She always had to have her way and she was Mom’s favorite. I always thought Midge was the smartest of us kids, and I was the dumbest. She always had the nicest things and got what she wanted at Christmas time. She did very well in school and worked hard to make it through college. She married a man named Jim Sims, who was just like her in many ways. Jim is gone now but was very likeable. Jim was always involved in something shady and would do anything to accomplish what he set out to do. Jim was very showy; meaning that he had to have the best of everything. He always drove a Cadillac or some other fancy car. Whenever he did something, he would try to involve one of us kids to help with his plans. He also got Dad to invest in his schemes and always at a loss to everyone, except to himself. Midge and Jim got involved in gold and silver and then into antiques.

Jim has passed but as far as I know my sister Midge is still involved in making money this way. I have not talked to her for some time because of her and Jim’s treatment of my mom before she died. Midge has always looked out for Midge first, and that included her treatment of Mom and Dad. Midge and Jim had two great kids, Karla and Eric.

My sister Marsha Arlene Helfrich seemed to resemble the Swedish side of the family in looks and had a passive nature, very much like Mom. I thought Marsha was smarter than me too. Unfortunately, she had an accident when diving into a swimming pool when she was a teenager. She hit her head on the bottom of the pool and almost drowned. Since then, we have called her the Dingbat. It is not that she lost all her faculties; it is just that she has done some very screwy things. She married Tom Weber and they had three nice girls, Pamela, Veronica, and Cynthia. Marsha divorced Tom and has never remarried. She became a born-again Christian and is involved in the charismatic movement. This fits her character and her personality.

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Marty, my younger brother is mild-mannered and stands six feet tall. He also did better in school than me. As a kid, he was a follower, and he followed me around a lot. I have not seen Marty often since Mom died in 1982. He was also sucked into Midge and Jim’s schemes over the years. He spent four years in the U.S. Navy and is a Vietnam veteran as I am. Marty has been married four times and has several children. Marty is a good head but has not had a good direction in his life. He is still married to his fourth wife, Melba, and lives in Oregon. Marty is also a born-again Christian but is misguided in the things of Scripture, as is Marsha.

I know little about my father’s background or his parents. His mother I knew as Ann Smiley. She must have had several husbands, for her name before Smiley was Roberts. She was somehow related to Oral Roberts from Oklahoma, from what my father told me. She was a Spiritualist, which I knew nothing about while growing up. Ann was married to Mark or Mart Helfrich when my father was born. She died sometime in the fifties in a nursing home.

Several times when we went to see her in the nursing home, she did not recognize or know us. I heard that my father was married once before he married my mother. I heard that he had a son, but that is all I know. He did not talk about his life much, except when talking about his best friend Frank Malino. My Dad and Frank made peach brandy in a bathtub during prohibition when he lived in California.

During the war, my father worked at the Tillamook Naval Air Base as an aircraft painter. After the war, he worked at several different jobs. He was a powder monkey on a road crew. He served as a warden for the U.S. Forestry. He worked at the Trask sawmill. My father was a jack-of-all- trades and a master of none.

Dad bought 180 acres from my grandfather, Charlie Dahl, on the Trask River. Dad, with the rest of the family; built a house on the upper Trask River. We also built a large barn and loafing shed across the river from the house. The house was built on the east side of the south fork of the Trask River while the barn was built on the west side of the Trask River. Dad bought ten head of cattle and increased that number over the next few years, to about thirty head. Dad also drove a school bus as an extra source of income. My folks built our house, one board, at a time. They worked several years, but the house was never completed the way they wanted before they died. The folks built a store onto the front room of the house, and they did very well in the fifties and sixties because of all the logging on the Trask River.

I remember my father as a bull of a man in my younger years. When he wanted us, kids, to come home, he would yell and could be heard from over a mile away. As we kids grew older, he started to slow down in his harshness toward us. He was a typical German man without the softness of love or comfort toward any of us. In thinking back over the earlier years of my life, I do not remember once where he told me that he loved me. Dad was harsh but fair. He was a good, hard worker and he expected all of us to be the same. He did not understand the nature of children or their needs. We were not a rich family by any means, but we did have the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter but not the love that everyone needs.

After Dad died in 1976 of a heart attack, my mother told me that my father loved me very much.

This was hard to understand because I was never told by him or shown by him anything that would indicate that was true. Maybe I could not see his love because I did not know what to look for. Mom told me that my first child was the first baby that he ever picked up. This meant that he never picked up any of us kids. I cannot remember much about my early years with my father. I do remember that in my teens I hated him off and on. Later, I did learn to love him even with his ways.

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My mother was just the opposite of my father. She was of Swedish descent and was very passive. She did not ever want to get involved with anything controversial; she played the silent game. Mom played both ends against the middle, and we never knew where she stood on anything. Mom worked hard milking the cows and running the store. Mom drove school buses for about twenty years to bring in extra income after Dad quit driving. She was a good cook but a poor housekeeper. The house was always in disarray. She loved to read and play the organ, which she did very well.

Mom worked at a little store in her later years called Kit and Kaboodle. The proceeds went to help the poor and needy. She was written up in the local paper several times for her charitable work. She loved the work, even though she had to drive sixteen miles to town.

I guess she loved me, even though Midge was her favorite. I do not know where Marsha and Marty’s relationship stood with Mom. Neither Marsha nor Marty came to visit her when she was on her deathbed in the Tillamook, Oregon hospital in 1982. Midge and Jim visited occasionally, but only to receive sympathy from others.

Mom’s parents were very different from Dad’s. Her mother came from Sweden in the early 19th century. Grandma missed several ships coming over here to marry Karl Hjymer Dahl, later to be known as Charlie Dahl, my grandfather. Grandma’s maidens name was Forslien, and she spoke Yiddish. She hated Sweden because it did not enter World War II but remained neutral. I always knew her as Grandma Peggy.

Later we gave her the name of Grandma Shadow, named after her black dog whose name was Shadow.

Grandpa came to America after studying a trade in Germany. I have no idea when he left Sweden for Germany or what training he had received, but he ended up in Los Angeles, California where he had a furniture factory. Later Grandpa and Grandma moved to Juneau, Alaska, where Mom was born, and where Grandpa Charlie built boats. I saw pictures of some boats that he left there when he moved back to Los Angeles again. One day back in L.A., Grandpa brought home a drink for my mom to try. He wanted to invest, but she did not like the drink. It turned out to be 7UP.

My grandparents moved up to the northwest where he owned a sawmill that was south of Tillamook, Oregon. He bought 360 acres on the Trask River and built a small ranch. Grandpa and Grandma convinced my parents to move to Tillamook, and they moved there after Midge was born around 1939.

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Dad built a small house not far from where Grandpa and Grandma Dahl had built their farm. Grandpa and Grandma built on the land where Trask Mountain House had been. Trask Mountain House was where the stagecoaches had stopped on their way to Tillamook. Trask River Road was all dirt at that time. The road had been used as the route for the stagecoaches from Portland to the Oregon coast.

When I was born, I lived in this small house that Dad had built. Grandma told me that I almost died of pneumonia when I was six months old. She said she found me crawling on a cold, damp floor with snot running out of my nose. Sometime after this, the folks moved into town where we lived at the Naval housing in Tillamook.

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The next thing I remember is living in a farmhouse in Tillamook on McCormick Loop Road. This house set out in the middle of a field that bordered the Trask River, close to the Air Base.

This house was a two-story house, and one of the things that stands out to me is that it had a trap door at the top of the stairs. At the top of the stairs was where Midge and I had a bedroom. We slept together during that time. There are several things that I remember about living in this house. With the trap door closed, we could play on top of it, and we did often. The most important thing that comes to mind is while we were taking a nap on a hot late summer day, a fireball came through the opened window. The fireball was about the size of a soccer ball, and it circled the room. Midge and I hid under the covers, but we could still see it circle the room through the covers. It made about three circles around the room before going back out the window, burning nothing. The third thing is that one day Midge stuck me in the belly button with a safety pin. To retaliate, I took her doll and hit her across the bridge of her nose which broke her nose. To this day her nose is one of her most outstanding features.

Another time I remember is when the folks were gone; that I took some box matches, which I loved to do, and started a fire on the front porch. I took the box of matches from off the wood cook stove and placed some newspaper in the corner of the porch. I lit the newspaper, and the porch took off in a blaze of fire. It had just started burning when Dad and Mom came home; just in time to put the fire out and save the house. Several times before this, I had built small fires with the grass that I found outside. I loved fire at that time in my life.

Dad had given me a black, hard rubber plane; that was like what the Navy used to identify enemy planes. This is the only toy that I remember during this time of my life. Years later after we moved from there, the house burnt down. How I do not know; but I did not do it.

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The following are events in my life that happened to me or things that I did while traveling on life’s road. These events may not be in sequence but are as accurate as I can remember them.

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I remember that I wet the bed a lot longer than I should have, maybe sometimes past the age of seven. I do not believe that I was a happy kid because I cried a lot during my younger years. I flunked the first grade at Wilson Grade School twice, but the folks decided to put me in the second grade the second time I flunked. I never learned to read very well, but they pushed me