A Journey Blessed-My Life & Learnings

By Tim Pratt

This is a story about a little boy, raised on a farm in southwestern Iowa, who dreamed of making something of himself, something different and maybe better. His name is Tim Pratt. Tim's early dreams were constrained by his environment and nagging insecurities. He set out to do what he had been trained to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Pratt
• Release date: Apr 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869312655

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

PROLOGUE

"Don’t give up on your dreams,

or your dreams will give up on you."

—JOHN WOODEN

EVERY CHILD HAS DREAMS. YOU look at others around you, or people on TV or in the movies, or read rags-to-riches stories written by Horatio Alger, and you think… maybe, just maybe. What would it be like to be them, to grow up to be something different, better? Some dreams are realized. Others drift away due to laziness, bad luck, the proverbial reach exceeding the grasp, or nothing more than changing interests. Old dreams are replaced by new ones, sometimes loftier but not always because old unrealized dreams can leave scars. You change your wants. Realism creeps in. Life intervenes. And what you wanted to become those many years ago might bear no resemblance to what you are today. You may be less or more. If you are well-adjusted, you have come to accept your lot in life, and if you are not, you wallow in misery.

Did he dream, that little boy on that farm in southwestern Iowa in the 1950s with patched denim jeans, an Alfalfa cowlick, and scuffed shoes with frayed laces? Sure, he did. But he was not starry-eyed. His dreams were moderated by his landscape—the time, the place, the circumstances. He had few role models beyond the family. His parents loved him and all of their seven children, but there was little encouragement or guidance. Then and there, not many kids grew up and moved away or even attended college.

His dreams involved farming because that is what he knew, but perhaps a larger farmstead than his Dad had. When exhausted by the farm life, he dreamt of other jobs, like the insurance agent on Main Street who seemed to have an easier life, the business owners in town, or the teachers at the school. There were always those manufacturing jobs in the town a few miles west. His dreams about what he might do were downsized by his own pessimistic assessment of what he could do. He suffered insecurities borne of an inherited humility and acquired self-doubts.

He also grew up in an era when there were questions about how much control you had over your life. There was a resignation to fate back then. It was 1955, and he was five, when Jay Livingston and Ray Evans penned the song Que Sera, Sera, made famous by Doris Day: When I was just a little girl / I asked my mother what will I be / Will I be pretty, will I be rich / here’s what she said to me / Que sera, sera / Whatever will be, will be / The future’s not ours to see / Que sera, sera. He loved that song, but there was little preaching of self-determination there.

So, his grand plan was to work hard, damn hard, and just keep dreaming. More of a head-down shuffling strategy than a long-term visionary strategy, and he kept surprising himself when he looked around and saw where he was. There were times he felt like a young fledgling, soaring high only to be simultaneously exhilarated and terrified at the heights he had flown. Was he a soaring eagle with vistas to conquer or a reckless Icarus flirting with the sun? There were twists and turns, ups and downs, successes and failures, and starts and stops, but always a steady trajectory upwards step by step by step. Funny thing about success, however you define it. It creeps up on you. You are so busy seeking it that you lose track of where it is.

He was lucky. He found himself in the right place at the right time. Just when he needed help, he had mentors who helped him. He found jobs that matched his passion at that moment. He was blessed beyond measure with a family who loved him and whom he loved more than life itself. He had friends all across the country and beyond. Those were the billowing sails that kept him moving forward, upward, on a steady course, a course that produced both success and happiness.

He looks at the decades past, filled now with surprise and awe. Growing up on that farm in southwestern Iowa, he didn’t see any of this coming. No one did, to be honest. Yet here he stands with a satisfied smile and awash in the wonder of By God, I did it. Against the odds. Beyond his dreams.

This is the story of that little boy. His journey. His learnings.

CHAPTER 2

THE SPIRIT ANIMAL GROWLS

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.

—J.D. SALINGER,

"THE CATCHER IN THE RYE"

I SWORE I WOULD NEVER write a book in retirement. It seems that is what people think you should do when you retire, and most suck at it. Me, too, so I swore off the whole writing a book thing. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing. I do. I’ve written published articles, columns in newsletters, opinion editorials, and more than a few speeches and closing arguments. I like to turn a phrase with the best of them, but I’m no Truman Capote. There are actually few Truman Capote’s, authors who can write a paragraph that moves the reader to read it once and then again, amazed that anyone could put those words together in that order. I’m not that. Not even close.

But that’s not the biggest reason I didn’t want to write a book. The main reason is that writing a book is really hard. Writing a bad book is as hard as writing a good book. Locking myself in a library surrounded by reference materials, legal pads, and sharp pencils for hours at a time slipped far down the priority list of what I wanted to do in retirement.

And then, as the hours stack up in retirement, you get nostalgic. You focus less about what you remember about yourself and more about what others may remember about you. That got me thinking. How much does my family, and those I have met on this journey through life, truly know about me? About my early upbringing? About my family? About decisions I have made along the way? What would my children like to learn from and about me? Or grandchildren? An idea started percolating. I could write chapters about different stages in my life, and what I learned along the way. Perhaps I could create something enduring for those who count most in my life—family and friends. It’s a self-serving vehicle to be remembered.

We all want to be remembered. All of us suffer from a fear of death, and that fear grows during the ascending timeline of life. Corresponding to that fear of death, maybe surpassing it, is the fear of sliding into nothingness, being forgotten. One of Rome’s most famous writers and orators, Cicero, said that Writing is the only true form of immortality.

It was not coincidental that I started the process after retirement. First, that is when I possessed this vast reservoir of memories. Second, it was the right stage in my life, the spirit stage. You see, Carl Jung famously posited that there are four stages of life. The first, which narcissistically obsesses about physical appearance and self, is called the athlete phase. It is all about us. We attribute this stage to the younger generation because, as we mature, we realize how dumb we were way back then. The second stage, per Jung, is called the warrior phase because we begin to take on responsibility and think about others. This stage typically occurs in young adulthood, though there are abundant examples of people who never reach this stage in a lifetime. The third stage, called the statement stage, reflects yet another level of maturity where one moves beyond the pursuit of personal goals and starts thinking even more about others. Parenting, for example. The final stage is the spirit stage, characterized by reflection and spiritual predominance. The earthly journey, long and arduous, is mainly in the rearview mirror, and one starts focusing on metaphysical things like what one has accomplished and the true source of happiness.

So, in the pages, the spirit animal growls. Insecurity has vanished. There is comfort in realizing that you might not be a lot, but you’re not nothing. In this phase, things seem to make more sense. You understand problems better because so many have been confronted and tested. Experience begets wisdom, at least the good experiences. Maybe, just maybe, someone might learn a little something from your life experiences. That was the seed that grew into this book. Writing this book, a much longer process than I imagined, has allowed me to get back in touch with myself in all the phases of my life and make the faded memories less faint. It has been grueling, occasionally frustrating, and always fulfilling.

This book is divided into two parts, though they sometimes morph together. The first part is my personal and family history, detailing what I did, how things were, what a rural upbringing was like, and who influenced me along the way. It spans the years from my birth to now. Think of it as a memoir. Hopefully, it is interesting and more than a little inspiring, but I’ve been blessed with a life relatively bereft of horrible tragedies or misfortunes. That seems to be the flavor of the day for memoirs—physical or mental abuse, drug dependence, personal trauma, and the like. I am glad I did not have to suffer through such things growing up, though that may make things a little boring. That is a fair price to pay, after all.

The second part pivots to the things I learned. These things did not come in a single moment. They span time. I learned some of them too late. They are lessons that promote greater fulfillment and happiness. They are, simply put, some lessons of life from one who has lived it, struggled with it, thought he had the answers, and was reminded he did not but kept on trying. Among those lessons are these:

A good team is essential because you can’t go it alone. Lean into opportunities, even when success is daunting. Entitlement strangles the life out of self-sufficiency. Victimhood is a despairing place. Failing is better than not trying at all. Aspiring to be a leader is the first step toward becoming one. Listening is more important than talking. Resist the temptation to share everything you believe. Compassion, sharing, humility, and decisiveness trump meanness, possessiveness, arrogance, and diffidence every time. Every damn time. Life will throw you curveballs, so be patient and wait for your pitch. Personal relationships, nurtured over time, pay generous dividends down the road. With a supporting family, who share their love with you and yours with them, nothing is insurmountable. Just when you think nothing can be more joyous than parenthood, along comes grandparenthood. Friends are more important than acquaintances. Restraint produces better results than impulsiveness. Giving is more important than taking. Forming your own opinions is more rewarding than succumbing to the views of others. Spending every day trying to improve yourself will certainly make for a better you. And heed the advice of Warren Buffett who, when asked how to lead a good life, replied: You should write your obituary early and then figure out a way to live up to it.

That’s it. That’s why I’m doing this. It is probably not very objective. Reflection can breed embellishment, and I’m not ashamed of that. As Churchill once said: History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. Buckle up. Let’s get this party started. How and when did it all start?

CHAPTER 3

THE NEW YEARS BABY

Bouncing baby boy first 1950 tot born in Bluffs.

—COUNCIL BLUFFS NONPAREIL,

JANUARY 1, 1950

1950 HAD SOME CONFLICT AND drama, but also many things going for it. World War II had ended over four years before, with the armistice signed by Japan on August 14, 1945. Americans were enjoying the break from the two world wars over the previous 35 years, which sapped energy, money, and bright young people from their midst. But peace was not to last. Six months into 1950, North Korean forces moved across the 38th Parallel, and the Korean War was on. The Cold War with Russia intensified, and people were building bomb shelters for protection from nuclear attacks. These geopolitical rumblings shook the populace.

Domestically, Harry Truman was President, having defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 election. Things were cheaper, with a gallon of gas costing 18 cents, and a new home $8,500. The median family income was $3,300. Hair was tamed with Vitalis, pipes filled with Prince Albert tobacco, babies fed with Gerber’s baby foods, meals cooked on a Kelvinator electric range, and families with money drove a fancy Oldsmobile 88. Kids watched Howdy Doody on black and white TVs because color TVs were five years away. Families, thirsting for normalcy and humor, watched shows like Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriett, Father Knows Best, Make Room for Daddy, and I Love Lucy.

If you had a movie theater and the money to buy a ticket, you might have seen All About Eve, which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Many people listened to the radio, where songs like The Weavers’ Good Night Irene and Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa were among the most popular. Many celebrities were born in 1950, such as Stevie Wonder, Cybill Shepard, Morgan Fairchild, Bill Murray, John Candy, and Lionel Richie. One of the non-celebrities born that year, on a cold night in a small hospital as the new year dawned, was Timothy Allen Pratt. The State was Iowa, and the town was Council Bluffs.

Keith and Ruth Pratt had moved to Council Bluffs from Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1947 with their two boys, Tom and Phil. Council Bluffs is located on the east bank of the Missouri River, just across from Omaha, Nebraska. They settled into a house at 3565 Sixth Avenue, near where I-29 currently runs. It was a nice residential neighborhood with average-priced homes, small lawns, and tall trees. Keith was making decent money as a salesman for Insul-Wool Insulation Company, a job he had started in Lincoln.

They made friends in Council Bluffs, and Ruth became socially active. Per the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, on December 3, 1948, Ruth hosted a Circle 3 social event at her home. The newspaper also reported on April 1, 1949, that Ruth participated in a fashion show at the Fifth Avenue Methodist Church: One of Mrs. Keith Pratt’s ensembles was a brown and white stone-cutter cloth daytime dress. That was an important event in the month of April, but there was another one unknown to Keith and Ruth at the time. It was that month when Ruth became pregnant for the third time. The pregnancy was uneventful, and Ruth felt well throughout. She would go to her obstetrician regularly but not frequently. Everything was looking good for a delivery in late December or early January.

December 31, 1949. It was a typical Iowa winter night in Council Bluffs. The temperature was 33 degrees Fahrenheit but feeling colder with a slight breeze. There were no clouds in the sky, so the stars cascaded above like a canopy. The moon was nearly full, casting shadows wherever you looked. New Year’s revelers were taking to the streets, happy and buzzed, full of hope for the new decade.

Not everyone was partying. Ruth, never a partier, had other things to tend to on that chilly night. She had started labor earlier that afternoon. At 6 p.m., Keith drove her to Jenny Edmundson Hospital pretty fast, making the normally 12-minute drive in eight minutes with New Year’s Eve traffic light and his right foot heavy. Ruth was relatively relaxed. Being the mother of two boys, she knew the routine by now. She would stay in the hospital alone, and Keith would go home to tend to the rambunctious five-year-old and three-year-old sons. This was long before prospective fathers were invited into the delivery room. Ruth’s labor was intensifying as the ball was dropping in Times Square at 11 p.m. Central time. There was no discussion with her husband, Keith, about whether to hasten delivery to achieve another tax exemption for 1949. He was not making enough money to craft a tax avoidance plan. Que sera, sera / whatever will be, will be.

As midnight approached, it was nip and tuck on whether the child would be a late-1949 or early-1950 entry into the world. The obstetrician let nature take its course, and its course was set as midnight came and went. There was some excitement in the delivery room, as there always is when a patient is near delivery in the early morning hours of January 1. Will the baby be the first of the year? Being the first brings some publicity and gifts to the family and positive attention for the hospital. Maybe they tried to handicap the odds by urging Ruth to push a little harder, or the delivery nurse applying a little extra pressure to the upper abdomen. No one knows.

Whether facilitated or not, the delivery happened. At precisely 1:10 a.m., a healthy little boy with a loud scream and abundant dark hair was born. Ruth was only a little disappointed. After two boys, she was quietly hoping for a girl. Little did she know that she was eight years, two pregnancies, and three boys away from getting her wish. Of course, Keith and Ruth had to come up with a name. They both liked the sound of Timothy, knowing that he would be Timmy in the early years and Tim after that. The middle name, Allen, is rooted somewhere in the forgotten archives of the family.

The Council Bluffs Nonpareil was crunching the birth data in the early hours of January 1. Ruth was surprised to get a call after breakfast telling her that the newspaper had determined her child was the first born in 1950 and that a photographer was on his way. Later that day, above the fold on page 1, Ruth is pictured holding her newborn baby boy, a smile on her face, and little Timmy acting like he didn’t much give a damn. Lots of congratulations and diapers followed. Then, the hubbub was over, and the new parents went home to tend to their expanded family.

That was the world that welcomed Timothy Allen Pratt. He was fortunate. He was born to loving and caring parents. He was healthy. What life offers a newborn is always uncertain but being the front-page Prince of Council Bluffs on January 1, 1950, is a pretty good start. And it proves the point that though success requires hard work, strategic thinking, intelligence, and a lot more, some of it comes from being in the right place at the right time. But the right place for the expanded Pratt family was going to change. They would soon be on the move.

CHAPTER 4

IOWA, AND A LITTLE TOWN IN IT

"I am proud to have been born in Iowa.

Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was

a place of adventure and daily discoveries."

—HERBERT HOOVER

IOWA BECAME PART OF THE United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. It was occupied exclusively by Native Americans at the time. Over the next 50 years, there was an influx of Euro-Americans attracted by the burgeoning railroad transportation system and the fertile farmland. Iowa became the 29th state in 1846 when the population was 80,000. By 1950, the population had soared to 2.6 million, though only roughly 700,000 lived in the 12 largest cities in Iowa at the time—Des Moines (177,000), Sioux City (84,000), Davenport (74,000), Cedar Rapids (72,000), Waterloo (65,000), Dubuque (49,000), Council Bluffs (45,000), Ottumwa (74,000), Burlington (31,000), Clinton (30,000), Iowa City (27,000) and Ames (23,000).

The rest of the population was dispersed in small towns and farms around the state. Not city folk, these Iowans of the 1950s. Hardscrabble stock. Inexhaustible work ethic. Self-sufficient. Surviving off the land. Calloused hands. Sharp tan lines. Eye wrinkles etched by sun squints. Stiff-necked in the best of ways. They gathered in tight-knit communities, taught their own, lived within their means, loved God, and held picnics and ice cream socials in the town park.

And no place in Iowa was more rural than southwestern Iowa. In the six counties making up that part of Iowa, no town had more than 7,000 residents in 1950. It was an expanse of fields, terraced hills, small ponds, tree clusters, and every few miles, a small house beside a large barn, grain bins, and stacks of hay. Graveled roads rolled up to these homesteads, so you could see a car coming miles away as plumes of dust spiraled into the air. People drove old Chevy pickups and orange Allis Chalmers tractors. Cows grazed in the open fields. Hogs rooted in their pens. Dogs and cats ran wild. A horse or two in the barnyard. People milling around in overalls and white T-shirts, where packs of cigarettes were snuggly secured in rolled sleeves. There was always some activity because that is what farms required—planting, plowing, milking, harvesting, mowing, raking, loading, unloading, fertilizing, cleaning, repairing. That’s the endless cadence of farm life.

Deep in southwestern Iowa, in Taylor County, is a small borough called New Market, tucked between the larger towns of Clarinda and Bedford. Back in the mid-1880s, New Market wasn’t a town at all. Its roots began in a little village called Memory in Dallas Township. Memory thrived until the Humeston and Shenandoah Railroad decided to put a track, not on the outskirts of Memory, but a mile away. That decision destroyed Memory as a commercial center and, therefore, the town itself. They created another town closer to the railroad and named it New Market, referencing a brand-new market for the settlers of 1881.

By 1910, there were 800 residents in New Market, which served as a trading post. That year, bustling New Market had four general stores, two meat markets, two hardware stores, a millinery store, three restaurants, two harness shops, one lumber yard, two blacksmith shops, three hotels, four churches, and two banks. They had a newspaper, the first of which was the New Market Sun started in 1882 and followed shortly thereafter by the New Market News in 1883. The newspaper’s name was eventually changed to the New Market Herald.

New Market was a mining town—coal mining, to be more specific. Coal mining, a dirty and dangerous business, started there in 1860, and by 1880, 29 coal mines were operating in the area. Most were east of town, and a smaller number to the north. This wasn’t strip mining. It was underground mining that involved the placement of shafts deep in the ground. Eventually, the coal mining business dried up, and most mines in the area closed by 1945. World War II siphoned away most of the labor, and by then the mines were in such poor condition that it would have been prohibitively expensive to upgrade. The town suffered, shriveled.

As 1952 approached, there were many momentous events. During that year, the only Iowa-born President, Herbert Hoover, turned 78 but was still writing, speaking, and politicking. Iowa’s best baseball pitcher and Hall of Famer, Bob Feller, was nearing the end of an amazing career with the Cleveland Indians. Iowa’s best-known actor, John Wayne, made two movies that year — Big Jim McLain and The Quiet Man. Iowa’s most famous TV personality, Johnny Carson, was gaining popularity, but 10 years away from replacing Jack Paar on The Tonight Show. Iowa’s best crooner, Andy Williams, was embarking on a solo career, and ten years away from bringing down the house singing Moon River at the 1962 Academy Awards. And on August 18, 1951, proving that even small things are consequential to those most directly affected, 33-year-old Keith Pratt, his 32-year-old wife, and their five young boys moved to a farm in southwestern Iowa.

Their farm was roughly eight miles north and east of New Market, which by then had seen its population dip to a mere 573. It had lost several businesses, but still managed to hold on to a grocery store, cafe, liquor store, library, laundromat, drug store, two bars, telephone office, seed corn dealer, library, bank, post office, and two churches. At the southern edge of town, next to Highway 2, was a gas station. An abandoned set of railroad tracks cut through the northern end of town, the remnants of the Humeston and Shenandoah Railroad that was responsible for the creation of the town. There was a school, but many farm kids still attended one-room schoolhouses.

The new Pratt farm was a few hundred acres of cropland, hay fields, and pasture. Ponds, timberland, and deep valleys limited the arable space. The barn served as a site for milking cows and hay storage. There were hog houses, a small garage, a gas pump to fill a car or tractor, some grain bins, a large tree with an owl’s nest, and the assorted clutter one sees on a typical farm. The half-mile lane leading to the homestead was ungraveled, so during rainstorms, you had to park the car at the end of the lane and walk to the house. The two-story house was barely large enough for the seven of them, so bedroom sharing was necessary. The problem would be compounded in five years with the birth of another boy, Kenny. But Keith and Ruth had help. Keith’s dad and stepmom were five miles away on a farm closer to New Market. Ruth’s mom and dad were ten miles away near Villisca. Their siblings and cousins were speckled around the area. And as was customary in that era, everyone pitched in to help each other.

In a way, Keith and Ruth had returned home. They uprooted from the big city and ventured forth to start a new life. And what a life it would be. Before discussing that life, let’s learn more about Mom and Dad. Who were they? Where did they come from? Let’s start with Dad’s family.

CHAPTER 5

PRATT FAMILY GENEALOGY

"To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook

without a source, a tree without a root."

—CHINESE PROVERB

GENEALOGY IS AN INTRIGUING AVOCATION. Admittedly, I’m not very good at it. Nor do I have much passion or patience for digging into a bunch of faded archives. But I’ll be honest with you, I can see how people get addicted. You uncover many mysteries when you start looking at previous generations. With Dad and Mom having passed, I have few resources to learn the generational history of the Pratt family. Uncle Darrell Pratt, who died just shy of 100 years of age, was the acclaimed Pratt family genealogist. I reviewed a lot of his work. There were gaps, however. And I dug and dug. The layers went deeper and deeper. Finally, I just had to call it quits lest the quest absorb all else in my life. Here’s a bit of what I found.

Grandpa Roy. Roy Okley Pratt was born on November 28, 1892. That year, Grover Cleveland was elected President, Ellis Island opened as a gateway for immigrants to enter the United States, the first official basketball game was played in Springfield, Massachusetts, battles with the American Indians were intensifying, and the United States was six years away from the Spanish American War. Things were calm in Iowa, where Roy was born.

Roy’s parents were Delbert Maxim Pratt (1854-1926) and Isabelle Watson Pratt (1859-1909). In his early years, Roy listed his occupation as carpenter, though he would soon start farming full-time in Taylor County, Iowa. Oddly, on December 8, 1942, at the age of 49, Roy registered for the draft. World War II was in full force in Europe, and the United States had been involved for about a year, brought into the war by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In his draft registration, Roy noted that he was 5-foot-11 with blue eyes, gray hair, and a ruddy complexion. Despite his patriotic enthusiasm, Roy was never drafted, no doubt because of his age.

Grandma Edith. Roy met and fell in love with Edith Francelia Benson at an early age. Edith was born November 16, 1890, in Northfield, Kansas. Her parents were George Benson (1854-1929) and Carrie Ouderkirk (1868-1949). Edith moved to Oklahoma when she was three years old. In 1912, at 22, she took a job at the Clarinda State Hospital, where shortly thereafter, she met Roy. She was a nurse by training and helped with patient care at the hospital. Roy and Edith married in Clarinda, Iowa, on October 20, 1914.

Edith and Roy (wedding photo)

They moved to New Market, Iowa, in 1915, shortly after the wedding, and then to the family farm in 1918, where they spent the rest of their lives together. Their lives together, however, would be abbreviated. Tragedy struck. Edith was always one to help on the farm. She was feeding the family hogs on February 20, 1943, when one knocked her