BOOK REVIEW: Former USU professor releases memoirs
I formed in a cocoon of love and poverty stuck to a live oak tree on a rocky Texas ridge
So begins Me ‘N’ Alvin – Growing Up in the Great Depression by Thad Box.
In this book of poetry, Box tells about growing up in a poor Texas family during the ’30s. Its 33 poems cover such topics as pulling wool off of dead sheep for money and running from a headless ghost in the graveyard to Alvin to learning about Pearl Harbor over the radio.
Alvin was a year older’n me he was my uncle besides we was always together ’cause he lived real close an’ we couldn’t remember not havin’ the other’n around
The book took me a little while to get used to because it is written in the language of Texan farmers and has no real punctuation to speak of.
But after the first few poems, I started to get used to “far” meaning “fire” and “Misres” being “Mistress.” I soon got into the feel of the book and could picture Box and Alvin on their many adventures. The photographs that accompany many of the poems especially helped in this regard.
I especially liked the poem called “Birds ‘N’ Bees (On figuring it out).” In it, Box describes how he and Alvin discovered the facts of life, learning from watching animals and trying to figure out how it applied to humans.
that evenin’ we was settin’ up in the grape vines wonderin’ what it was an’ if people really acted like chickens we knew girls was dangerous we didn’t like to play with ’em but we couldn’t see how they could make you jump and flop
Other poems contain stories of skinning skunks and wanting to swim in a small pond but not being able to because of the fear it caused polio. The book contains all sorts of titles from “Havin’ to Play with a Girl” to “Stinkin’ School House.”
One of the last poems in the book, “Pearl Harbor,” tells how he heard about the attack and how hard it was for him as a small boy to understand.
people didn’t talk about nothin’ but the war the big boys was joinin’ the army or gettin’ married cause daddys was not drafted as quick … I wasn’t old enough to go fight but even a 12 year old can get a little scared when he don’t know why the grownups are so sad an’ touchy
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I’m always open to different kinds of poetry, and this was unique in its language and rhythm.
But it’s not a book for those who like poetry that rhymes, because this certainly doesn’t. Neither is it for those who are strict with grammar rules because it breaks many of them.
People fascinated with the Great Depression will find it interesting because it is a first-hand account of what it was like for the common man, stories which are getting harder to come by as many of those who were alive in the 1930s are no longer living.
Many of Box’s poems are funn.,Ssome are sad, but all of them tell a story. Most of those stories are different from anything I as a city girl have experienced in my life, so I learned a little about another side of growing up which was interesting.
Box is a professor emeritus at Utah State and was the dean of Natural Resources for 20 years. He is also the author of From a Cocoon of Love and Poverty, which isn’t poetry but a memoir of growing up in the Depression. He has written more than 200 poems.
GRADE: B+