Richard L. Fluker

The Cows Are Out

and Other Tales from a Farm Kid of the 50s

The 27 "tales" recall simple and happy times in a Texas community of small farms tended by hard-working families. A big white house a good ways off the main road. Dad on his tractor in a nearby field. Mom frying chicken for supper. Kids playing outside. For the author, it was “the good life,” well worth remembering by those who lived it, worth learning about even for those who didn’t.

Most of the stories have a light-hearted tone. Here and there, a chuckle might give way to a tear. All of the stories are meant to entertain, written in such a way that even readers less than half the author’s age and who never lived on a farm can still enjoy reading the book.

The Cows Are Out is not a page turner, a rush to “The End.” Quite the contrary. It’s the author’s hope that readers will stop now and then to let their mind drift back to their own “good old days.” Maybe they, like the author did, should jot down some of those memories. Even if we are mostly looking back at ordinary people doing ordinary things, years from now some will view those reminiscences as the history of the times, told in first person by an eyewitness.

The stories in this book tell of life with cows, chickens, horses, and pigs; of hoeing and picking cotton, picking up pecans, hauling hay, working in the garden. Readers will learn what it’s like to wash with a wringer washer, watch TV in its infancy, take out the slop, attend a two-room country school, worry about water, fish from an inner tube, and rumble down a steep hill on what’s left of an old wagon.

Appreciation comes with the passing years. This book is about a child who realized as a man that he had indeed lived a boyhood worth writing about.

"Start at Any Chapter"

“Personal events told to perfection from a happy farm-reared kid. The 1950s will prove in history to be the decade of God, family, and fun. Richard well recalls them all with a must read. So authentic! Start at any chapter and this is a wonderful, positive read. Should you not have had the privilege to live life during this period, you may have missed what America really was.”

Jack Dillard—well-known radio personality, newspaper columnist, and auctioneer; former county ag agent, radio farm director, school teacher, and bull rider!