Chapter 1

 Hard Times

          Michael Cross was born August 1, 1939, the first of three children. His father was a day laborer, working in logging and anything else he could find. The area they lived in, Northern Arkansas wasn’t very well known for a wealth of jobs so his father did what ever he could to earn a living. The largest industry was hewing hardwood ties for the Rail Road that passed through the small community.

          During the war years, WW2, Michael’s father’s job paid well because a lot of freight was transported through the area. His father was judged 4F by the draft board because he had hit his foot with a broad axe, used to hue ties and almost amputated his big toe, splitting the flesh between his big toe and the second toe. It healed badly and caused the second toe to set on top of the big toe which caused a problem with getting a shoe to fit properly. The branch line always needed more ties for the rails due to frequent wrecks and floods washing out the tracks in the mountainous area. His foot didn’t interfere with his ability to cut timber with a cross cut saw and hew ties with the broad axe so he had a job until the war ended. Wars don’t last for ever though and this one finally came to an end and the branch line went broke and closed down. Michel’s mother and father tried to make a go, his mother raised a garden and his father scrounged any work he could find. During the war two more children came along, a sister in 1941 and a brother in 1944.

          Michael started school in 1945 in the first grade. In those days they didn’t have Kindergarten or any of the fancy things they have now, such as breakfast for children whose parents couldn’t afford breakfast so he went to school most mornings hungry. His education was soon to be interrupted by a mother and father who became gypsies of the road like a lot of people in the late forties and fifties.

          In nineteen forty-seven, digging and cleaning out wells was pretty good but that didn’t last for ever. Population in the small Rail Road town was dropping like a stone. Something had to be done. They moved to southeast Missouri and worked in the cotton fields where he went to school for a few months in Braggadocio, Gideon and Kennett then the family moved on north to Michigan to pick berries. This is where Michael’s education began. He was nine in the summer of nineteen forty-eight. He had dragged cotton sacks through the fall and winter, burning his young skin in the sun and straining every muscle in his body. It was grow to meet the task or die. He grew to meet the burden placed on him. Beans, potatoes, corn bread and a biscuit with fat back occasionally wasn’t much to grow with though. He ate everything he could find and survived. In spite of his meager diet he out grew most kids his age.