Most people don't realize the hardships rural Ozark Mountain people faced without electricity, phones, employment, and money. Folks raised in urban environments cannot understand the hardships rural families had to endure to have food and shelter. The chores and duties of rural children provided them with values that they used throughout their life. The environment with animals to care for, which the animals provided milk and food, with food to raise and harvest and preserve from gardens, and the examples observed from good honest rural folks with little to no formal education, provided attitudes of independence, strong ethics, and day light to dark work habits that served rural children throughout their lives. This is a story about a rural child through school, Future Farmers of America, the Marine Corps, college, a career with the USDA, and into retirement. This is a youth who hunted and fished for family food. This is a youth who shot a neighbor when ten years old, who was shot at a few times, was threatened to be shot as an USDA agent, and survived other hardships with the values and work ethics learned as an Ozark Mountain country child.