Somebody From Somewhere

To appreciate the Sturz family, knowing a little about mine might help. We were dairy farmers. Me and my siblings wearing hand-me-down clothes and the family eating Velveeta instead of the cheese our milk went to make helped keep our farm in the black, if only just barely. By today’s standards, we didn’t make much, but compared to the Sturz family we were well off.

Forgoing health insurance was another way my folks kept our farm profitable. One time, when my brother had finished filling a cart with cow feed, he threw the pitchfork he was using without noticing I had grabbed the cart to wheel it away. One of the fork’s tines went straight through my hand. I wasn’t taken to the doctor. Mom wrapped my hand with a poultice of Epsom salts and hoped for the best. Another time my leg had an encounter with a barbed wire fence. The fence won, tore a deep gash along my right knee. No doctor, no stitches, no tetanus shot, more Epsom salts.

Like me, Les Sturz was the son of dairy farmers, neighbors…