Harry: (part 1) The Milk Delivery Boy

52 Stories in 52 Weeks: ## 21 Harry: The Milk Delivery Boy

By: Mr. George D. Patnoe., Jr.'s Ambidextrous Brain + Mind.

Harry was born in his parent’s farm house, in the dead cold of winter. The farm house had electricity, but it also had candles and fireplaces to help keep room’s lit and people warm, in the dark cold nights of winter. Harry was born during a time of change for America and for the world; but then again, there is always change in the world; or is there? Harry had learned that some things almost never seem to change, in the world, or in people.

But a farm with land and cows and pigs and chickens, along with long hours of hard work kept Harry’s family from begging for jobs and for food, unlike the many city dwellers who had been laid off from their city jobs and the factory jobs and stock market jobs during America’s hard economic times. Yet, milk was always needed for babies and children, just as it is today. Back then, like today, milk was a small part of the overall economy, yet without milk and the milkman, the tummies and health of all children would never have been the same.

As Harry grew up on the farm, he learned about life as mother nature seemingly intended life to be, away from the city. Animals were animals, while people were people. Or humans were plainly humans. At first, that seemed a simple concept for Harry when he started to visit the city as a helper on the milk route. Sometimes, early in the morning, Harry would ride along side his dad or a farm worker who was assigned to deliver milk to the city people. Harry would ride along just to visit the city, to see the houses and buildings, even when it was dark and cold outside. Of course, it was cold and dark in the house during those hours anyway, so why not seek adventure instead of just freezing in a cold bed. For a long time, young Harry had never met any of the city people, because they were all sleeping. But one day, Harry and his family started to go to church on Sunday.

The first time young Harry went to the church, he saw a blocked shaped cross on the front wall. It was a plain white cross, but he did not know what it meant. He thought that he would find out later what the plain blocked cross meant. He also attended the church’s Sunday school where he soon learned about The Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1-7) that were written by a man named Moses thousands of years ago. Harry had heard the words, ‘Do not kill.’ But when they returned home, he was ordered by his mother to kill a chicken for their dinner. As Harry picked up the first chicken he could catch, he brought it over to a big tree stump, laid its neck on the tree stump and very quickly raised the axe into the air and swung it down on the chicken’s neck. The head fell off and then Harry had to puck the feathers out of the chicken and then he had to gut and skin the chicken. All the while, Harry thought of those words, do not kill. He wondered what they really meant. Harry felt confused, even as he and his family sat down to a very delicious meal of chicken and buttered corn and potatoes and apple pie, and of course milk.

Furthermore, Harry would read the Sunday newspaper and he would learn about America’s soldiers and foreign soldiers who were all being killed or who were all killing each other for defending America’s freedom or protecting another nation from bad people who wanted to overtake the whole world; as if it was a real life comic book story about good versus evil. The evil people were trained to kill innocent people just for the fun of it, because they were brainwashed into thinking that the innocent everyone were evil. Each group of evil killers all had their reason for killing people, but in the end, killing innocent and helpless people was wrong. Nevertheless, all of those reasons led America and other countries to defend themselves against the really evil people who wanted to kill. So in the end of it all, the killers were killed by the good people who had to defend themselves against crazy minded people.

So Harry the farm boy started to think more and more about human nature in general; about what was truly good and evil in that human nature. Harry started to wonder how killing a chicken for food versus killing a human in self-defense would hurt his soul, if he indeed found out that he had an eternal soul with a memory of his human life on earth. He just did not know about the issues of good and evil, except from what he had learned in Sunday school, and from the church’s preacher, and from what he had read in the daily newspapers. Harry thought that there was a great big divide between the church’s concept of good and evil, and the world’s concept of good and evil. And yet, after church, his dad and friends would all carry guns on the farm to hunt for food and for self-defense and protection from the bad men and the normal animals who wanted to rob the farm for food.

The farm life was simple way of life for the boy Harry because cows were always cows, the chickens were always chickens, the pigs were always pigs, the horses were always horses. Dogs and cats seemed to be part wild animals and partly domesticated. For the most part, people were always people, except for those thinkers or discoverers of new ideas which led to new inventions, like the automobile and electricity. Harry would help milk the cows and put the milk into milk bottles and he would also load the milk bottles into the milk truck. Harry’s muscles grew big and strong by all that hard work and by drinking milk.

One day, Harry rode into the city for a day ride. He noticed that most people wore different clothes than did the farm guys. He compared the farm guy’s blue jeans and work boots to the city peoples’ dresser clothes of dark suits and white shirts and colorful ties and hats and dressy shoes. He wondered what these city people were really like. On that first day into the city, Harry saw a fight break out between two school aged boys. One boy pulled out a boot knife and he stabbed the other boy. The guilty boy ran away as the police were arriving. Harry had seen the two boys in church and Sunday school, so he wondered what had caused them to fight; and for one boy to stab the other boy with a knife. Was good and evil involved before the fight, and during the fight, and even after the fight? What had caused the two boys to fight each other in the first place, which led to the possible death of one boy? A girl or maybe money or maybe just a bunch of bad words and hurt feelings!

As Harry rode pass the scene, he could not help but confusingly wonder about this funny nature in humans. To go to church on Sunday to pray and be peaceful, while fighting outside of church. What was the mystery? What madness! Harry started to believe that humans had two natures in them, an animal nature, and a more advanced human nature. Furthermore, all humans had to constantly choose which nature they wanted to be, the animal or the advanced human. The cows were almost always peaceful, so were the pigs and chickens and roosters and horses and the snakes and the turtles and the birds. So how could humans who were supposed to be more advanced than the animals, be sometimes more cruel than the farm animals? How could people be constantly fighting over religious beliefs for thousands of years and thousands of years? Nations fighting nations over religious beliefs. While in grade school, Harry had read about the America’s civil war. About the thousands of men and people who died because they believed in freedom to practice their own concepts of religion and forms of government, free from the British Empire.

One day, Harry was sitting in class when he looked at a girl. Another boy was so jealous over Harry’s looking that he wanted to fight Harry. Harry looked down at his own fists, and he wondered what it would feel like to hit, to punch, to kick, to damage the skin and bones of another human being, for whatever reason. Harry knew that he did not want to fight, but he also knew that he did not want to be hurt or beat up either. Later, when the boy confronted Harry, no harm was done because a teacher had walked up to the two boys to prevent any trouble.

Later that night, Harry walked outside and he looked up to the sky’s stars and he wondered out loud, ‘Why oh why must humans have to fight and kill each other like no other animal creature on earth?’ Harry did not even wait for an answer; nor did he expect an answer from the stars.

On another day, when Harry was older, he started his first payment collection route for the farm. His mother dressed him up in dresser clothes for appearances sake, but to also prepare Harry for the man he would become after he left the farm; if indeed he wanted to leave the farm. In his sportier clothes, Harry felt like a new person. New enough so he could talk to anyone. There would be no division between him and the others, or so he thought. Harry started off on his money collection route by knocking on the first house on the list. As Harry waited for the person to open the door, he created a few simple lines for his introduction. ‘Good afternoon. I am Harry from the milk farm and I am collecting the money due for the weekly milk. He guessed that simple introduction was better than a long and winded one. As he saw the door knob open, he caught himself slowing down his racing heart beat.

A lady opened the door. ‘Hello.’ Harry almost put out his hand to shake her hand, but he remembered that he was not selling anything. ‘Hello, my name is Harry, from the milk farm. I am collecting this weeks milk money.’ She said, ‘Come on it, young man.’ (Back in those days, people were much friendlier than they are now.) After Harry entered the house; he waited at the door while the lady went upstairs to get her money. Harry looked around the house and he noticed something that shocked him. He saw a rather large cross with a human male hanging on it, with its hands bound or nailed to the cross while his feet seemed to be standing on a piece of wood, keeping his legs and body from solely dangling from the hands and arms.

When the lady descended from the stairs, she walked up to Harry and gave him the money. After Harry said thanks, he could not resist asking the lady a question. ‘We have a block shape cross in our church, but there is not a human hanging from it. What does it mean and who is he?’ The lady opened her eyes wider and replied, ‘Well young man. Your name is Harry, isn’t it? Harry shook his head up and down, for a yes. ‘Well, young man. Over two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire used to crucify people when those people were a threat to the Roman Empire or the Roman government. That guy on the cross represents many things to many people. But to me, one of the things it represents is the evil in human nature. The Romans used to crucify thousands of people on trees and wooden poles, without a blink of a guilty conscience. But people in power have tortured people for all kinds of reasons without an ounce of a guilty conscience. How shameful for the human race. That man is usually referred to as the Savior Jesus, but since the Romans crucified thousands upon thousands of humans, I think that in one sense, the cross symbolizes a sense of good and evil in the human nature.’ Harry felt a numbing in his soul that he had never felt before.

Harry unthinkingly walked over the next house. He again, knocked on the door, only to be greeted by a lady with a strange accent. ‘Hi. I am Harry and I am collecting the milk money this week.’ She said that she would be right back. Harry noticed a picture on the wall. To Harry, it looked like a prison, but he did not know exactly what it was, so when she returned with the milk money, Harry asked her, ‘If you do not mind, can you tell me what is that building is in that picture.’ ‘Sure Harry. That is the concentration camp Auschwitz in Germany, where my uncle and over two million other jews and people died because the Nazis Party. You will learn more about it in your history class. But needless to say, the Nazis hated the jews and other people too; so they killed many of them as if they were cattle.’ Harry knew that they were not killed like cattle because they were killed not for food, but because people hated other groups and kinds of people.

Harry waved good bye to the lady. He was now even more confused about the nature of the human race if people have been hurting each other for thousands of years. Harry knocked on the next door for the milk collection and another lady answered the door. She invited Harry into her house for a moment, to escape the heat of the day. As she went looking for her money, Harry noticed a whip on the fireplace. When the lady returned to give the money to Harry, Harry asked her, ‘What is the whip for? If you do not mind me asking.’ Oh that old thing. That whip was used on the slaves in the south when whipping slaves was legal. But then Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation of Proclamation in 1863 to free certain slaves in America. Then in December 6, 1865, the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment wiped out slavery in America for good.’ Harry asked her, ‘Why would a slave owner whip a slave?’ She replied, ‘Usually because they tried to escape and then they were caught by the slave owners. Of course, whipping those poor slaves only caused them to keep escaping until they were not caught. Sometimes freedom came with a price, like scares on their backs.’ As usual, Harry said good bye as he left the house.

Harry walked slowly to the next house. He was afraid of what he would learn from the next lady. Harry sat down on the side walk for a moment to ponder to himself the question of good and evil in human nature. ‘If humans are supposed to be a more advanced creature than the wild animals, then why do they enjoy hurting, torturing, and even killing other people? Did all of these people drink milk when they were children? Harry stood up and walked to the next house.

Another lady answered the door and she invited Harry into her house. Only this time, Harry was mentally prepared for anything. As the lady searched for her milk money, Harry saw a couple of belts that were hanging on some hooks on the wall. Harry knew better, but he just had to ask what were the reason for those belts because they looked as if they had blood stains on them. The heavy lady’s feet pounded the air with each step as she descended from house’s upstairs.

‘Thank you for the money. May I ask you a question?' 'Go ahead kid, ask away.’ 'Why do you have leather belts hanging on the livingroom wall instead hanging instead a bedroom closet?’ ‘Hey kid, your name is Harry, isn’t it?’ Harry silently shook his head up and down. ‘Well first, it is none of your business kid, but since you asked. Those are for beating my dogs and kids when they are bad or when I just feel like teaching them who is boss.’ Harry replied, ‘But as a mother, aren’t you supposed to be loving to your kids, like a mother cow is loving to her baby cow, or like a mother pig is loving to her baby pig, or like a mother horse is loving to her baby horse, or a mother elephant is loving to her baby elephant, or a mother monkey is loving to her monkey children?’ Harry felt his anger rising when he heard the two young children weeping in the kitchen.

Harry raised his voice just a tone, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you talked to your kids, teaching them the lessons they need to survive in the world instead of beating fear into them?’ The lady looked down at Harry in utter contempt. Harry quickly left the house as he said, ‘Thanks for the milk money.’

Harry finished collecting the weekly milk money with without asking a single question to anyone. When he arrived home, his parents were waiting in the kitchen. ‘So Harry, did you finish your first milk money collection ok?’ Harry answered, ‘Yea. But I heard some real sad stories every time I asked a question, so I stop asking questions from the ladies.’ His parents slightly giggled at Harry. Harry looked up and said, ‘What is so funny.’ His parents said, ‘We received a phone call from one lady who said that you were preaching to her about talking to her kids instead of beating her kids. Harry did not feel any tension from his parents. ‘We are so proud of you Harry. The whole town (it was a small town) is talking about how you told that old bag to treat her children the way they should be treated. Before she hung up the phone, we told her a thing or two too. Even the preacher called us. He thinks you might be a good preacher one day. And by the way son, I told that lady if she or her husband ever lays a hand on you, they will be dealing with my fists or maybe more, so do not worry about her. They will not bother you.' Harry smiled!

The following Sunday, the preacher was standing at the podium, looking over everyone. ‘What a great day for living and thinking and preaching the Word of God. Today I will talk about kindness to our children. There are some here today who believe in the phrase, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child. (The notion that children will only flourish if punished, physically or otherwise, for any wrong doing. (He that spareth the rod hated his own son. Proverbs 13-24)). But I say unto you, Jesus himself loved children and he would never hit a child, especially his own, if he had children. Nor would he have taught people to hit their own children. So to those of you who believe that hitting your children is the way to teach your child the difference between right from wrong, hitting and beating them is not the way. When you hit your own children, you are just as guilty as those Roman soldiers who beat on the innocent and good man named Jesus.’

He continued, ‘Adults and children have brains for a reason, to talk to their children, to teach them about life in and out of the church and schools. Beating and whipping their bare skin is no different than when the Romans beat on the man Jesus and the thousands of other poor souls over two thousand years ago. Have we not improved our love for our children and for each other since the times of the Romans? Some people have not learned that pretending to be a Roman solider as they beat and whip on their innocent children is not the best way to be a parent. But you can change! You can stop beating on your children and you can learn to talk to them, to make them wise and healthy and loving, just as the mother cow loves its baby cow, and a mother horse loves its baby horse, and a mother pig loves its baby pig, and a mother elephant loves its baby elephant and a mother monkey loves its baby monkey. We humans are supposed to be superior and more advance than the animals, so lets start to act like it.’

Out from no where, a weeping sound was heard. Everyone in the church turned towards the weeping sound. Harry stood up and saw the lady with the two belts on her wall. She started to weep profusely. The preacher walked over to the lady and sat down next to her. He whispered a few words in her ears and she became silent. The preacher walked back to the podium and spoke. ‘We will help anyone improve their child raising methods, when they ask for advise from other church members.’ Everyone started to clap. As everyone began to leave the church, the teary eyed lady hugged her two children, as other mothers started talking to her.

Harry knew what he wanted to do with his life. He realized that even as a young boy with no real life experience or education, how he had changed the life of one family and a small town by speaking the truth. How much more could he change the world with the TRUTH once he gained real life experience, a better education, knowledge, wisdom. So Harry kept on working on the farm, and even collecting milk money from the families, but Harry started to read too. And he learned to write. And he learned to speak.

Harry made two wooden stands and podiums. Harry put one in the farm’s barn, and he put one out in the farm’s fields. He would then stand out in the open field when the sky was blue with white clouds and Harry would read from the Bible or another spiritual book or even a newspaper. He felt as if some angels were listening into his make believe preaching. He would also read books about government and economics and history. Harry would stand on the barn’s wooden stand and podium and he would read out loud to the farm animals. The cows and the horses and pigs and cats and dogs would all listen to the soul filled individual man child as he practiced giving speeches to the world, though at first only a world of farm animals and angels. Harry was not sure if he was ready to speak in front of people, but he would prepare anyway.

One day, Harry was standing out on the farm field’s wooden stand and podium. He was just talking off the top of his head about talking to children instead of hitting children. He saw his parents walking up to him, so he stopped preaching to the cows. Angels already know that parents should not hit their children. They began to explain to him that the preacher had passed away and that they needed a temporary replacement. Some of the town’s folks requested Harry because he was the town secret. He thought that no one knew that he was practicing to be a preacher, but everyone knew that Harry was playing preacher because the school children would ride their bicycles pass Harry on the farm’s dirt roads. The boys would laugh, but the girls loved Harry's plans for a bright future, not to mention his strong muscles and smart mind.

Harry agreed to preach on Sunday. So he started to prepare for his first Sunday speech, but before he fell asleep, Harry had a day dream that one day, all people would learn to stop hating other people. Then, Harry feel into a very deep sleep.


DVD TO WATCH....END OF THE SPEAR: based on a true story. One line in the movie seems to summarize this week's story. 'If you kill again, you will kill us all.'