Small Town Kid

Drew Pickering

Small Town Kid



In 1968 a boy was born in the small town of Lincoln. His parents named him Thomas, which very quickly grew into Tommy. The kid didn't speak a lot , quite, content, always kept more to his father. He grew up quick, strong, stubborn, and hard working which most small town kids do. Tom was smart but having the attitude that you cant get paid to go to school, he spent more of his attention on work then on class.
Toms father was a logger, which was the only other profession in this small town other then working in the paper mill. Tom started to help his father at age 14, running the skidder, and hauling logs. By the age of 15 he was running his own operation on the weekends, from chainsaw to skidder, using the equipment while his father was taking the weekend off.
In high school he did not focus on physics or calculus but region classes that included mechanic's, heavy equipment, and woodworking. Tommy would bring his car into class to work on it, focusing on skills that had more practical applications. Tom had also developed a strong personality, the “no bull shit kind.” He only saw one thing that was important, “the harder you work, the better off you are.”
After graduation he went right into the mills, working nights full time, trying to make enough money to ask his girlfriend to marry him. About 5 months after he graduated his family home burnt to the ground. Tom then asked his girlfriend Cindy to marry him on Christmas Day, a month after the tragic incident with the home. Then things turn bad for Tom's family as his father suddenly had a heart attack and died that February leaving no one to reconstruct the widowed mothers home.
Tom took it upon himself to build the house for his mother. Having no experience, and no knowledge of what to do, he took on this large project alone. People around town would stop by and show him different things, which he would work at till done. He worked full time,in the mill an hour away, driving home after work to construct. Every free moment of Tom's life at that time went into a house that wasn't even his. It took him only four months to finish so his mother could move in.
Tom then married Cindy about a year later, starting a family and having 3 kids. He also built five more houses for his family. He would not have done so if not for the skills that he learned in desperate times.