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    Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm
    Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm
    Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm
    Ebook78 pages48 minutes

    Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm

    By Robert Z. Hicks

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    About this ebook

    In Once I Was a Kid, Robert Z. Hicks shares stories from his childhood adventures growing up on a farm in Michigan during the ’40’s. Whether or not you lived in that era, and whether or not you lived on a farm, you will love the warm and humorous stories from Bob’s memories. Bob’s encounters with cows, bees, birds, raccoons, skunks, and many more of God’s creatures will entertain both children and adults. His sometimes hilarious encounters with God’s creatures will stir your imagination.

    In between the stories, Bob treats us with his gift for rhyme with humorous, poignant, and delightful rhyming stories written as he relished the memories from his childhood. Step back in time and imagine when life was sweet and innocent, and sometimes spiced with a bit of mischief here and there.    

    Crystal Bowman, best-selling Christian children’s author  

    13,332 words 

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRZ Enterprises of Florida
    Release dateMar 31, 2018
    ISBN9781386205715
    Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm
    Author

    Robert Z. Hicks

    Robertt Z. Hicks grew up on a farm in central Michigan in the ‘1940s’, and had many delightful experiences, especially with wild critters. A collection of those memories, paired with poems inspired by them, are compiled in Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On the Farm. Bob retired after teaching speed communication twenty-four years at the University of Hawaii. Mr. Bob’s vision is to create fun rhyming stories for children to help them learn to read, and to spark a life-long love of reading. He delights to hear that children are asking for his books again and again. Bob’s first book, Tommie Turtle’s Secret, won several awards, including Best Children’s and Book of the Year in the Florida Writer’s Association’s Royal Palm Awards competition. Bob's second book, Mouse in the Manger, was a Finalist in both the Royal Palm competition and the USA Best Books Award. During his high school years, Bob was paralyzed and had to turn to learning verbal skills. Bob earned a bachelor of arts degree from Michigan State, and masters degrees from the Universities of Michigan and Hawaii. Bob taught speech communication three years at Penn State, and twenty-four years at the University of Hawaii. Bob and his wife Betty reside in New Port Richey Florida, and can be contacted at RobertZHicks.com

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      Book preview

      Once I Was A Kid, With The Wild Things On The Farm - Robert Z. Hicks

      ONCE I WAS A KID,

      WITH THE WILD THINGS ON THE FARM

      ––––––––

      In Once I Was a Kid, Robert Z. Hicks shares stories from his childhood adventures growing up on a farm in Michigan during the ’40’s. Whether or not you lived in that era, and whether or not you lived on a farm, you will love the warm and humorous stories from Bob’s memories. Bob’s encounters with cows, bees, birds, raccoons, skunks, and many more of God’s creatures will entertain both children and adults. His sometimes hilarious encounters with God’s creatures will stir your imagination.

      In between the stories, Bob treats us with his gift for rhyme with humorous, poignant, and delightful rhyming stories written as he relished the memories from his childhood. Step back in time and imagine when life was sweet and innocent, and sometimes spiced with a bit of mischief here and there. 

      Crystal Bowman, best-selling Christian children’s author 

      ––––––––

      Mr. Bob:  I totally enjoyed your stories and poems — they definitely spark my imagination and lift my spirits. I’ve never lived anywhere but in the city — full of cement, noisy closely built neighborhoods, and tightly fitted cars parked along lanes and around us. I’ve dreamed of more elbow room, acres of farmland and green meadows, plucking vegetables and fruits from my garden, and raising farm animals with dogs by my side.  Those dreams will never come true, but you take me there with your funny episodes and great imagination — and you have allowed me to live out my dreams! 

      Thank you, Mr. Bob!

      Aileen Chinen

      FOREWARD

      Come enjoy with me some fun things I did, and happy days I had, as a child growing up on my grandfather’s farm. 

      The cover of Once I Was a Kid, With the Wild Things On the Farm, is a portrait of me, age eight, drawn by professional artist Ashley Otis, from a photograph taken in 1943.

      Ashley added the crow on my shoulder, and the raccoon, to show two of my favorite pets of that time, Barney the crow, and Bandit the ‘coon.

      Remembering those childhood experiences inspired me to write poems to capture the imagined feelings of my adventures.

      Imagine too, the lessons I learned from Mom and my experiences, that imagination and empathy are key skills for good relationships and communication, and that God’s creatures are born to be free.

      Come reminisce, and imagine along with me.

      Robert Z. Hicks

      Bobby — now Mr. Bob

      INTRODUCTION

      It all began when...

      I raised my foot to stomp on the ants on the big rock by the house, when Mom grabbed my arm and said, "Wait! How would you feel if you looked up to see that giant shoe coming down on you?" I squinted my eyes shut as I looked up into the bright summer sky, and imagined the bottom of my tennis shoe gradually filling the sky above me. Scary!

      Mom and I got down on our hands and knees and watched the ants going back and forth. She asked, What do you suppose those ants are doing? Look at that one, he’s carrying something. Maybe it’s food for the queen. Imagine how important you would feel if you were carrying food for the queen!

      Yes! Imagine! Imagine, indeed! My lifelong journey with imagination, and empathy for God’s living things had begun.

      THE FARM

      It was 1942. Pearl Harbor was attacked the previous December, and the United States was at war. For a seven year old boy, a move from Big City Detroit to my grandparent’s farm in the country near Ionia Michigan, was like moving almost to heaven.

      The farm was a wonderful place to be seven. One hundred sixty acres, Mom said. The house, barn and buildings were on forty acres west of Michigan Highway 66 that ran north and south dividing the property. East of the highway was 120 acres of fields divided by a lane that stretched to distant trees.

      The house was a big old, two-story farmhouse my grandfather built at the turn of

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