More About clifton!
My interest to write stories was birthed in my early years, and the passion grew, as scenes from each special moment were tucked away in my memory.
Childhood began on a dry-land farm during the 1940s in the Panhandle of Oklahoma, an area once called No Man’s Land. We had cows, a gentle horse named Vegas, turkeys and chickens, and a collie named Ring. A small pond, formed in a bend of a stream through the property, had fish and tadpoles. The cows cooled themselves on hot days and sipped a drink while crossing to pasture. It was a slice of nature typical of a Southern Plains environment.
Childhood began on a dry-land farm during the 1940s in the Panhandle of Oklahoma, an area once called No Man’s Land. We had cows, a gentle horse named Vegas, turkeys and chickens, and a collie named Ring. A small pond, formed in a bend of a stream through the property, had fish and tadpoles. The cows cooled themselves on hot days and sipped a drink while crossing to pasture. It was a slice of nature typical of a Southern Plains environment.
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Dad passed away when I was sixteen months old, leaving a young wife to raise four children under seven. Each of us had chores and pulled our load for the family. I gathered eggs from the chicken house—squeezing through the small chicken drop-down door—and helped bring the cows in from pasture for the evening milking. We were poor, but blessed, though, as grandparents and neighbors helped us survive the tough times that lingered beyond the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years.
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Clifton, Mom and Sisters
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Clifton, age 10
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Mom remarried when I was five, and soon I had a baby brother named Floyd. We moved to a large, labor-intensive farm with a 120 cow-dairy. It also had irrigation- and dry-cropping, 4-10 horses, about 10 Shetland ponies, laying and eating chickens, a vegetable garden, and a half dozen hogs. Ring was still by our side. I thought I was “Big Stuff,” as I tried to keep up with the men working around the place by lifting 10-gallon cream cans and bales of hay.
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Floyd Pre-School Picture
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I drove my first truck at age seven when a young farm hand put the truck into Grandma, Grandma-gear (lowest), pulled the throttle out because I couldn’t reach the foot pedal or brake, and said, as he jumped into the truck bed to throw feed shocks to the hungry cows, “Clifton, steer this truck along the curve of the creek bank.”
Soon I spent long hours on horses, bare back—even learning how to lie down and sleep while herding cows. I also drove my first tractor, a Model L Case, when I was seven, plowing the field. I wasn’t big enough to push in the clutch, and the only way I could stop it was to kill the engine by throttling down. By age ten, I’d be on the tractor sometimes in the late afternoon shift until the stars popped out. I imagined the lights I could see to the north and south were surely in Kansas and Texas. A hint of my writing passion surfaced during the long hours, as I’d sometimes compose story lines, in my head, for country songs.
I witnessed many phenomenal wildlife events over those years—once watching a hungry coyote trot intently behind the plow and pounce on small animals that scurried out of the way.
My daily jobs these years included feeding the calves and rounding up the milk cows for the twice-a-day, 5 o’clock milkings. It seemed I’d pull the bed covers up to sleep and the next instant Mom would call out at 4:00 in the morning, “Clifton, time to get the cows.” When finished, I’d wrap up in a blanket and catch a 30-minute sleep on the barn’s concrete floor before feeding calves. These jobs continued during school months, and I’d rush to dab some clean-up water on my hands and face, gulp down some breakfast, and hustle to the bus. Our school, with lots of farm kids and no air conditioner, surely stunk from the country odors.
My pre-teen years were also filled with rodeos, hunting, pond fishing, and exploring nearby hills and running creeks. I was fascinated to discover where buffalo, in their long ago migrations, had wallowed out depressions in the ground. I imagined myself standing among them as they snorted and rolled in the dirt or kicked dirt up on their backs to block the stinging bites of flies. On the bank of my favorite fish pond, I toyed with a water moccasin, almost paralyzed with a half-swallowed frog, totally at my mercy. A sister and I once chased a skunk, and Mom made us wash the stinky smell off in the cattle tank. On one of those school show-and-tell days, I didn’t think it was any big deal to bring a live baby rattlesnake in a jar. Boy howdy, was that a learning mistake! Special moments and scenes like these were tucked in my memory.
My adventures expanded greatly, as I avidly read anything around the house, or what my older sisters brought home from school. Short or long books, comics—loved those—didn’t matter. whether for adults, except romance, unless westerns. Zane Grey’s stories were favorites.
When television came to our part of the country, it was mostly one snowy channel. Radio remained king. Thus, my writing creativity matured when I imagined radio scenes and stories like “The Shadow,” which came on at 4 o’clock each Sunday afternoon, “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Great Gilder Sleeve,” and others.
I witnessed many phenomenal wildlife events over those years—once watching a hungry coyote trot intently behind the plow and pounce on small animals that scurried out of the way.
My daily jobs these years included feeding the calves and rounding up the milk cows for the twice-a-day, 5 o’clock milkings. It seemed I’d pull the bed covers up to sleep and the next instant Mom would call out at 4:00 in the morning, “Clifton, time to get the cows.” When finished, I’d wrap up in a blanket and catch a 30-minute sleep on the barn’s concrete floor before feeding calves. These jobs continued during school months, and I’d rush to dab some clean-up water on my hands and face, gulp down some breakfast, and hustle to the bus. Our school, with lots of farm kids and no air conditioner, surely stunk from the country odors.
My pre-teen years were also filled with rodeos, hunting, pond fishing, and exploring nearby hills and running creeks. I was fascinated to discover where buffalo, in their long ago migrations, had wallowed out depressions in the ground. I imagined myself standing among them as they snorted and rolled in the dirt or kicked dirt up on their backs to block the stinging bites of flies. On the bank of my favorite fish pond, I toyed with a water moccasin, almost paralyzed with a half-swallowed frog, totally at my mercy. A sister and I once chased a skunk, and Mom made us wash the stinky smell off in the cattle tank. On one of those school show-and-tell days, I didn’t think it was any big deal to bring a live baby rattlesnake in a jar. Boy howdy, was that a learning mistake! Special moments and scenes like these were tucked in my memory.
My adventures expanded greatly, as I avidly read anything around the house, or what my older sisters brought home from school. Short or long books, comics—loved those—didn’t matter. whether for adults, except romance, unless westerns. Zane Grey’s stories were favorites.
When television came to our part of the country, it was mostly one snowy channel. Radio remained king. Thus, my writing creativity matured when I imagined radio scenes and stories like “The Shadow,” which came on at 4 o’clock each Sunday afternoon, “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Great Gilder Sleeve,” and others.
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An English teacher gave my writing interest the equivalent of a kick in the pants in the seventh grade when she scolded me for not turning in the assignment to write a short story. “You will not leave this room today until you turn one in to me!” My story was about a boy fishing to bring home much needed food and finding a silver nugget stuck in a gill of a fish. He found the source, staked a claim, and the family lived happily ever after. The teacher read the story to the class the next day, and I received an A+. Interesting what one can do under the right influence!
My passion to write grew as I learned of the colorful history of my ancestors. There were journeys among the Indians, homesteading, fighting on both sides of the Civil War, serving in the Revolutionary War, and struggles to survive as immigrants. These ancestors cry out to me, “Don’t let our lives, our stories be forgotten!” It’s shocking to learn I wouldn’t have been born had it not been for a rusty nail—maybe I’ll get around to writing that story someday. |
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Unfortunately, though, my writing passion was mostly in cold storage over the next forty years. Career guidance sources showed low pay for writers. 1960's draft boards, over outcries of the Hippie Generation, were after bodies to send to Vietnam. With a 1A classification, creative writing was far from my mind. I also wanted a family. I soon found myself with multiple science degrees—B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.—and teaching and conducting research in a university setting. Marriage to a super woman and three sons filled each day, and life passed quickly.
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Still, from time to time, the scenes and stories tucked away in my memory tugged at my thoughts. “Clifton, don’t forget us. These stories and people in them deserve to live!” Slowly, I began to convert them to outlines and drafts, and they grew in size and titles. The time was ripe for my writing passion to bloom.
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Yes, I enjoyed professional challenges from my years in the State University System of Florida and in my lengthy career in state government and private consultant activities. I looked forward, however, to retirement from those responsibilities as the day approached. I planned to wrap my bucket list around my long-held passion to finish writing the stories and novels I had started but had postponed over the years. I gleefully yelled over my shoulder, as I headed down the trail, “Adios. Been a nice ride, but my horse wore out. My next rodeo is in another pasture where I hear there is a powerful mustang waiting for just the right cowboy.”
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Then one year after retirement and in the blink of an eye, literally, my life and dreams were turned upside down. My eyesight was reduced to almost nothing—to being legally blind. Slowly and with lots of angelic help, I have learned how to write using technology for the blind, and I have stories available at retail outlets or under contract to publish. Updates about my literary creations are available throughout this website. Contact me if you have any questions, and I'd love you to join My Campfire Stories below (you even get a free gift). |