|
|
|
Excerpts from an informal address before the Iowa Society
of Washington by Herbert Hoover in 1927.
I prefer to think of Iowa as I saw it through the eyes of a
ten-year-old boy--and the eyes of all ten-year-old boys are
or should be of growing crops. His days should be filled
with adventure and great undertakings, with participation in
good comforting things. I was taken farther West from Iowa
when I was ten, to Oregon and thence to that final haven of
Iowans--California...
...Someone may say that these recollections of Iowa are only
the illusions of forty years after, but I know better--for I
have been back and checked them up. I was told that when I
went back everything would have shrunk up and become
ordinary. For instance, there was Cook's Hill--that great
long hill where, on winter nights, we slid down at terrific
speeds, with our tummies tight to homemade sleds. I've seen
it several times since; it's a good hill...
...The swimming-hole under the willows down by the railroad
bridge is still operating efficiently, albeit modern mothers
probably compel their youngsters to take a bath to get rid
of clean and healthy mud when they come home. The hole still
needs to be deepened, however. It is hard to keep from
pounding the mud with your hands and feet when you shove off
for the thirty feet of a cross-channel swim. And there were
the woods down the Burlington track.
...I know there are rabbits still being trapped in cracker
boxes held open by a figure four at the behest of small boys
at this very time... One of the bitterest days of my life
was in connection with a rabbit. Rabbits fresh from a
figure-four trap early on a cold morning are wiggly rabbits,
and in the lore of boys of my time it is better to bring
them home alive. My brother, being older, had...read in the
"Youth's Companion" full directions for rendering live
rabbits secure...
...Soon after he has acquired this higher learning on
rabbits, he proceeded to instruct me to stand still in the
cold snow and to hold up the rabbit by its hind feet while
with his not over-sharp knife he proposed to puncture two
holes between the sinews and back knee joints of the
rabbit, through which holes he proposed to tie a string and
thus arrive at complete security. Upon the introduction of
the operation the resistance of this rabbit was too much for
me. I was not only blamed for its escape all the way home
and for weeks afterward, but continuously over the last
forty years...I never see rabbit tracks across the snowy
fields that I do not have a painful recollection of it
all.
There were also at the time pigeons in this great forest,
and prairie chickens in the hedges. With the efficient
instruction of a real live American Indian boy from a
neighboring Indian School on the subject of bows and arrows,
we sometimes by firing volleys in battalions were able to
bring down a pigeon or a chicken...
...And in those days there were sunfish and catfish to be
had... We were still in that rude but highly social
condition of using a willow pole with a butcher string line
and hooks ten for a dime. Our compelling lure was a segment
of an angle worm, and our incantation was to spit on the
bait. We lived in the time when fish used to bite instead of
strike, and we knew it bit when the cork bobbed. And,
moreover, we ate the fish.
I mentioned the Burlington track. It was a wonderful place;
the track was ballasted with glacial gravels where, on
industrious search, you discovered gems of agate and fossil
coral which could with infinite backaches be polished on the
grindstone. Their fine points came out wonderfully when wet,
and you had to lick them with your tongue before each
exhibit.
Iowa through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy is not all
adventure or high living. Iowa in those years, as in these
years was filled with days of school...
An Iowa Boyhood | Stanford | China | World Travelers
World War I | U.S. Food Administrator | Secretary Of Commerce
Presidential Years | Life After the White House
National
Archives and Records
Administrationhoover.webmaster@nara.gov
Last updated: June 20, 2001