THE FOUNDATION FOR IMAGINATION

 

THE FOUNDATION FOR IMAGINATION 

The Tippen farmhouse might have been a little rough around the edges but the Tippen home was a safe, happy, shelter for country dwelling. The farmhouse consisted of a double duplex structure connected by a hall breezeway. At one end was the original log-cabin built by my grandpa, McDuff Tippen, in the 1880’s, and at the other end was an oak, plank, pioneer-type, structure used as the kitchen. A bedroom had been attached to the backside of the kitchen and the same to log cabin. A wide porch spread across the front of the cabin and the kitchen which allowed ample living space for country lodging. 

A stick-mud chimney was located at the end of both buildings which was the main heating element for the home. The farmhouse was far from perfect, but it was considered a temple in the hearts of the nine children born to Amy and Dennis Tippen.  

In front of the farmhouse was a wide, white, sandy area that was called the lane. The lane was used for parking cars because there always seemed to be plenty of company at the Tippen residence. Across the lane was a series of big, shade trees which served as the border line for the forest. At the north end of the lane were several big sweet gum trees. Under those sweet gum trees was my playhouse. With the leaved racked it exposed clean, white, sand that was perfect for a play area. My playhouse consisted of a large imaginary farm. The fence posts were toothpicks with white cotton string stretched between the posts that represented the wire fences that separated the fields. Green grass blades represented rows of corn and pieces of broken tree limbs with small balls of cotton wrapped around the wigs made excellent cotton fields. 

In my fantasy, I was a very successful farmer and my farm consisted of many animals. Brown dried pine cones were cows. Green pine cones were pigs and the dried sweet gun balls were chickens. 

I have told this story many times and each time others have questioned the statement that I had no store-bought toys. Nevertheless, that is a true statement. The reality of our domicile was that we had very little money, but money was not a necessity.  We had cows, pigs, chickens, and a garden, therefore we had food. My father had a job hewing railroad crossties, receiving 25 cents per crosstie, which proved that currency was scarce at the Tippen household. 

In my playhouse I had a hand-made wooden truck. The truck had wooden wheels for tires and was in the shape of a pick-up truck which I used to take my make-belief animals to the sales barn and return home with new ones.  The truck was perfect for my farm and money came easy in my fictional world. 

For a five year old, my playhouse was complete with a farmhouse and a farm pond. I used pieces of a broken glass mirror to represent water in the pond and my father had carved several small ducks that were painted white, and they sat peacefully swimming in the pond. I even concocted a small diving board that set off at one end of the pond that made the reality complete. 

I spent hours in that playhouse and maybe those were the formative hours that set the foundation for my imagination. Our closest neighbors were miles away and I never experienced a childhood playmate.  What you don’t know won’t hurt you, so I never suffered from loneliness as a child. 

I had one sister and one brother still living in our family abode, whereas all the other siblings were older and had moved on. There were times when I was raised nearly as an only child. That’s why my older brothers and sisters always said, I was the spoiled one.

(To be continued)