Abraham vs. Thomas

[Donna McCreary]

I love how we bring our personal experiences into the discussion. I loves Ms. Verge's comment about how her grandson can 'frost his mother's buns." Ah yes, the duty of a child . . . to "frost mother's buns." I have to borrow that comment - I love it! And Bill, I think you are correct that perhaps all it took for Thomas to raise his ire was to see Abraham reading or daydreaming. I can not speak for farmers everywhere, but it does seem that the ones I know and love on the small family farms in Southern Indiana have a low tolerance for 'lazy' offspring. Just a few generations ago, education was a luxury. I remember my grandfather telling me that he had wanted to go to high school, but the family only had one horse, and it was needed on the farm. The school was eight miles away. His father would have taken grandpa to the wood shed if he had been caught reading instead of plowing. And, he made my grandfather learn a trade (mechanic) just in case something happened to the farm or if the crops failed. This is how I see Thomas Lincoln - the same as my great grandfather. The theory is work hard, learn a trade, grow and raise what you eat, and all will be well. Neither my great grandfather nor my grandfather would have imagined that a member of the family would attend college. To make one's livelihood by reading and writing -- why that could not be fathomed.