July/Aug 2023 (Volume 15, Issue 4)

 

By Arvid Huisman

 

Seven decades ago college degrees were rare in the family and community in which I was raised. Yet, as a child I was exposed to an abundance of wisdom.

 

While I have great respect for higher education, I believe the folk wisdom of my family and the small rural communities in which I was raised better prepared me for life than much of what I learned in school.

 

A young person, for instance, begins to reach maturity when he or she understands consequences. My siblings and I made some less than brilliant decisions in our youth but we grew up sooner than some of our peers because our mother taught us the essence of consequences with a powerful bit of folk wisdom: “If you poop in your nest, you live in it.” Mom usually said it in German and while I have forgotten the German words I surely remember the meaning.

 

As stupid as I may have been at one time or another, I understood that while I had the freedom of choice I also had the obligation of consequence.

 

Though the “poop in your nest” bit of wisdom was not necessarily aimed at romance, we understood that connection, too. When one of my cousins asked his father about sex, my uncle said, “Keep your zipper up, boy, and you’ll stay out of trouble.” I believe young people need to know much more about the birds and the bees but my uncle’s wisdom was valid.

 

Corresponding to the idea that beauty is only skin deep, I heard folks say, “All cats are black at night.”

 

Of course, there was also the admonition: “Don’t make love by the neighbor’s gate; love is blind but the neighbors ain’t.” Enough said.

 

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