My father wrote this poem recently for his mother’s friend, Susie Bernheart. He says, “Susie was Sweetheart of the Ag Club, and anywhere else she went at the University of Illinois in 1903. In addition to her nice looks and gracious manner she was intelligent and courageous. Her loyalty and her friendship was as solid…
Dear Ruth, Our daughter, Janet, asked me to write a short summary of our marriage of almost sixty-four years on the sixty-fifth anniversary of our marriage. This assignment ranges from the “difficult” to the “impossible”. However, I will try. Some people said we had a lot of courage to get married in the midst of…
June 6th, all my natural-born life, has been my parents’ wedding anniversary. Mother died last year on May 1st, 2006, very close to what would have been their 64th wedding anniversary. June 6th is one of the few dates of the year that I have not only memorized, but have etched in some deep recess…
When my father read at the Alton, Illinois library this Spring, someone in the audience asked him, “Did you work the farm during the years you were at Union Electric?” My father responded as follows: We worked it, but not as a working farm. Evergreen Heights was founded by my grandfather E. A. Riehl, at…
My wife Ruth Thompson taught in the grade school classroom for thirty-two years. Our son Gary Thompson and daughter Julia Thompson both were awarded “Teacher of the Year” the same year in totally different settings. Our younger daughter Janet Riehl taught English as a Second Language and literature, set up a sewing center, trained Popular…
THE GREAT AMERICAN BUM SONG Come all you jolly jokers, and listen while I hum, The story I’ll relate to you of the Great American Bum. From the East to West, From North to South, Like a swarm of bees they come They sleep in the dirt, and wear a shirt That’s dirty and full…
My father wrote me that recently one of his friends had educated him on the difference between bums and tramps. These were terms in use during the Great Depression…before Street People and Homeless. Listen and learn.–JGR I had always thought that the words “bum” and “tramp” were interchangeable. Not so. A tramp is a person…
Reader Views features my father Erwin A. Thompson on their homepage this week. This is the article released on PR Web today: Born in Schuyler County, Illinois, in 1915, Erwin A. Thompson has lived on the bluffs of the Mississippi River for nine decades in the house his grandfather built in 1863. A unique gem…
Persimmon, sasafrass, and ash Reclaim the land that once was theirs. “Submarginal”, the experts say. Once, hillside plows were used to turn The fertile ground. It nurtured, and produced the crops, Sustained, with money crops, and food The pioneers. They didn’t have a guarantee of annual wage. Their maps, drawn out with pointed sticks In…
Today I’m part of an invited poetry reading for the Land Trust in Lake County up here in Northern California. We’ll read at Rodman Slough. One of the poems I’ll read will be one of my favorites, and one I consider to be my father’s most powerful. Here are my father’s comments on his poem–It…