Poetry Prose and Other Words
by Ken Ingham
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For Curriculum Vitae, click here
Autobiography -the book:
Feet in the City, Heart on the Farm
A memoir of my approach to adolescence, growing up in the suburbs of Detroit,
spending summers on my uncle's farm near Shelbyville Michigan, barging through adolescence, going to college, marrying my highschool sweetheart, attending graduate school, carreer at NIH and as a blood researcher for the American Red Cross, family, parenthood, grandparent hood . . . . available at Amazon.com
Preface
This project began as a collection of Kenny on the Farm stories aimed at children. My twin daughters were 11 years old. For most of their lives I had been regaling them with third person stories of my childhood summers on my uncle's farm in southwest Michigan. They never tired of hearing about Kenny's true-to-life shenanigans and predicaments. Telling those stories, and even more so writing them, was not just fun, it was therapeutic. Reflecting on that period of my life helped me realize how those rural experiences had affected my values, my love of animals and plants, my need for outdoor solitude, my concern for the environment and my desire to conserve open space, clean air and clean water.
Gradually I began to think of the project as more of an autobiography than a collection of stories for children. In 1995 I completed a draft of what eventually became Part I of the present book, covering the pre-adolescent years. I distributed several photocopies to aging relatives who I feared might not live to see the finished product. They passed those copies on to others. The feedback was positive enough to keep me motivated. I had already drafted several stories about my teen years and was trying to decide whether to include them. Meanwhile, I was living whole new chapters and recording some of them in a journal. I was writing the book at both ends, forward from the beginning and backward from the ever-shifting present. The only hope for continuity was to fill in the middle: college, marriage, graduate school, family and career. That took another 15 years, in part because finishing my first book of poetry, Ecoepic & other Poems, gained higher priority.
But who am I to write an autobiography? I am neither famous nor infamous. I lost my father at a young age, but I had plenty of help to overcome that. There were no tragedies, no holocausts to survive, no molestations, no harrowing or heroic war experiences, no sex change operations. And yet, in retrospect—the second time around—you have before you an inside look at the life of a man of those times, his growing up and coming of age, his intellectual and spiritual development, his evolution from a wannabe country boy to a scientist conducting health research for the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. Part history, part science, part philosophy and travelogue, this is the story of my odyssey through the last half of the 20th century and into the third millennium. It is a privilege to share it with you.
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
I. Motown vs No Town: Growing Up in Two Places . . . . . 9
1. The Heavy Front Door . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. Up Home in Shelbyville . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. Welcome to Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4. Every Child Deserves a Good Thrashing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5. MacArthur Undefeated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6. Dogs I Have Known . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7. Roomers and Boarders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
8. A Room of My Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
9. I Had a Mom Like That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
10. Three Reasons To Cry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
11. Undergoing a Hurdle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
12. Horse Barn Memorabilia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
13. Heath Bars Lead to Harder Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
14. Huckleberry Tavern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
15. Return to Petersburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
16. Bully's First Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95
17. Gladys the Frugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
18. Macho Rooster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
19. Carlene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
20. Seven Come Eleven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
21. Miracles and Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
II. Affections and Affectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
22. The First Thing I Should've Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
23. Yard Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
24. Fat Lip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140
25. Skip Run Sing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146
26. Hoops and High Hopes for a Hy Phi . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154
27. Driving Me Mad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
28. Transition to Normal School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
29. Fraternity Fatuities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172
30. Adrift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
31. Big Guy's Demise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
32. Becoming Engaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
33. Staying Engaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
34. Helpmates of One Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
III. Much Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
35. Heat and Light in Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
36. Hindered Internal Rotation in the Rockies . . . . . . . . . . 220
37. Finishing Up and Moving On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
38. MSU and Infants Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
39. East Coast Almost: Garrett Park, Maryland . . . . . . . . 248
40. Two Good Years at NIH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254
41. Bright White Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261
IV. Blood Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
42. My First (and only) Permanent Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268
43. Two Texans and a Yugoslav . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .276
44. Becoming the Trunk of My Family Tree . . . . . . . . . . . 287
45. Physical Chemistry of Plasma Proteins . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
46. Nuclear Free Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .294
47. Slaughter Beach, Delaware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .299
48. Briary Bottom, West Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
49. Ein Jahr in der Schweiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .313
50. Final Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .319
51. Hunting Island, South Carolina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327
52. California Ramble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
53. Little Irene and Sonny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
V. Soviet Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341
54. A Collaborative Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .342
55. Comradery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349
56. Coming and Going Between Boondoggles . . . . . . . . . . .363
57. Draining the Brain of Sovereign Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . .372
VI. Overlapping Slices of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
58. Have Pain , Will Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
59. What Became of My Family's Farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .389
60. Getting Greener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399
61. My Good Friend Was A Therapist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402
62. American Red Cross Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .408
63. Briary Bottom Forever Wild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .412
64. Becoming Nana and Bapoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Portions of Family Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .428
Index of People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Extracurriculum Vitae (under development)
a detailed all-inclusive resume' of childhood employment history and post-retirement activities,
embellished with reflections.