Tell Me A Story

A co-worker invited me to her daughter's engagement party. She said it would be nice to meet her daughter & her fiancee. The party would be at 6:00pm.
I got there 20 minutes early. There was only one car in the driveway, so I thought I'd wait. I parked across the street. It was just starting to get dark. I reclined the seat & played the stereo.
After a couple of minutes, a young guy walked out of the house, got into the car in the driveway & started backing out - rather quickly. He was headed right for my car & he slammed into my back door. Then, he quickly drove off. Obviously, he didn't see me sitting in my car with my seat reclined, so he thought he'd get away with a hit & run.
I followed him, & wrote down his license plate number. He started checking his rear-view mirror & I'm sure he was surprised that the "empty" car he hit was following him.
He pulled over, got out & the first words out of his mouth were: "I'm sorry....I didn't know I hit you."
I said, "Then why did you stop?" He said, "Well....uh.....I don't know." (Yeah...and he didn't feel the big impact, either.)
I said, "Never mind; just give me your information." We exchanged phones & addresses, then he left.

So......I get back to the party & 6 or 7 people arrived by then. I go into the kitchen to meet my co-worker's daughter. (I didn't mention the accident because I didn't want to spoil the party.) We chatted for a few minutes, then more people show up.
My co-worker & her daughter go into the living room & say to me, "Come & meet my daughter's fiancee."
Yup.....that's who the fiancee was - Mr. Hit & Run.
When I walked into the living room & he recognized me, he looked petrified. I just smiled & shook his hand. I wasn't about to ruin the evening by saying how we'd already met.

On Monday, at work, I found that someone told my co-worker about the accident. She said, "Why didn't you tell me what happened?"
I said, "I saw no reason to spoil the party."
Then, she started telling me what a wonderful guy her daughter's fiancee was.....and how he didn't know he hit my car because if he did, he wouldn't have driven away.
I just nodded & thought: "Those two are made for each other."
 

win231 said:
A co-worker invited me to her daughter's engagement party. She said it would be nice to meet her daughter & her fiancee. The party would be at 6:00pm.
I got there 20 minutes early. There was only one car in the driveway, so I thought I'd wait. I parked across the street. It was just starting to get dark. I reclined the seat & played the stereo.
After a couple of minutes, a young guy walked out of the house, got into the car in the driveway & started backing out - rather quickly. He was headed right for my car & he slammed into my back door. Then, he quickly drove off. Obviously, he didn't see me sitting in my car with my seat reclined, so he thought he'd get away with a hit & run.
I followed him, & wrote down his license plate number. He started checking his rear-view mirror & I'm sure he was surprised that the "empty" car he hit was following him.
He pulled over, got out & the first words out of his mouth were: "I'm sorry....I didn't know I hit you."
I said, "Then why did you stop?" He said, "Well....uh.....I don't know." (Yeah...and he didn't feel the big impact, either.)
I said, "Never mind; just give me your information." We exchanged phones & addresses, then he left.

So......I get back to the party & 6 or 7 people arrived by then. I go into the kitchen to meet my co-worker's daughter. (I didn't mention the accident because I didn't want to spoil the party.) We chatted for a few minutes, then more people show up.
My co-worker & her daughter go into the living room & say to me, "Come & meet my daughter's fiancee."
Yup.....that's who the fiancee was - Mr. Hit & Run.
When I walked into the living room & he recognized me, he looked petrified. I just smiled & shook his hand. I wasn't about to ruin the evening by saying how we'd already met.

On Monday, at work, I found that someone told my co-worker about the accident. She said, "Why didn't you tell me what happened?"
I said, "I saw no reason to spoil the party."
Then, she started telling me what a wonderful guy her daughter's fiancee was.....and how he didn't know he hit my car because if he did, he wouldn't have driven away.
I just nodded & thought: "Those two are made for each other."
Click to expand...
What a gracious gentleman you are! Great story. :D
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Do you have an interesting story to tell? It can be about anything.
Click to expand...
I've several stories
Have a lot of them in my vivid memories thread

Here's one now;

Anybody having trouble sleeping?

Hey....I write
Mostly true stuff....mostly

Anyway, here's a little story to put you insomniacs to sleep;

Labor

Let's start from the beginning (or as I've been told, mine)
Mom was in a maternity ward, toiling away.
Me? I was doing all I could to stay warm, and at home.
I was quite comfy and couldn't care less about goin' anywhere.
But this indescribable force propelled me into the chute much like someone cramming dirty laundry into an overstuffed washer.

Seventeen labor filled hours later;
'Hey, ya oughta see the mutt of a baby next to ours, geeeezus, head looks like a plumb bob!'
The young mother, next to mine, is frowning and signaling with her head toward mom.
Apparently, my trip thru the eerie canal was a tad narrow, and my noggin had taken on the shape of a butternut squash.

And why do they say the mothers are in labor?
Seems the kid is doin' all the work.
Then again, everything is work, really.
Dad proved this to me all through my growing up years.
I don't think he ever played a day in his life.

We got a boat, a large one, a cabin cruiser.
Dad had worked day and night to get it.
Actually he hadn't worked to get it.
He worked around the clock no matter what we needed or wanted.
The boat just happened to be the thing that seemed would be enjoyable, for the whole family.
Only every aspect about it was made into work.
Even when we were just cruising up the river, 'Gary, you stand here and watch for dead heads, you know what a dead head is dontcha? A dead head is a log that is just barely stickin' outta the water...can't see it right away, but it will tear a hole in the boat, and we'll all drown.'
'OK'
'And tighten that life jacket.'
'OK'
'Watch out for the wakes of other boats. You can get thrown out.'
'OK'
'DON'T TOUCH THAT!!'
'OK'
'Fun, huh?'
'OK'

Years later, I invited Dad to help me knock out a couple buckets of balls at the driving range. Maybe get him away from his life of toil a bit and relax.
Heh.
He swung so hard at those evasive little dimpled eggs, I thought he'd screw himself into the ground. After watching him do several pirouettes, half the time falling down, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing under the sun he didn't work at.
Turns out, he loved work.
And he wanted me to love it too.

His frustration with me was evident when we'd go into the back yard and 'just toss the ol' ball around'.
I had better than average hand/eye coordination, and probably better than average athletic ability, so playing ball came rather easy.
I made it look easy.
No awkward moves.
A bit of flow to things.
He thought I wasn't playing hard enough.
When he caught the ball, or threw it, he'd make a little grunt.

Actually he made that little grunt just picking up the newspaper, or shaving...'See you just take little strokes, ungh, like that, ungh.'
In 'just tossing the ol' ball around', he always had a fixed, determined stare....at the ball, coupled with a grim look, like he was just sentenced to a life of breaking rocks.
I'd toss it back to him and watch his countenance tighten into a grimace as the ball sailed into his out stretched glove.
If I threw a moderately wild one, and he happened to miss it, he'd scurry back to get it like Peewee Reese was stealing home.
'OK, let's see how your fast ball is doin'.'
'Hey, nice curve, you've got a natural curve ball, boy.'
(my fast ball is goin' so slow he thinks it's a curve ball)
'One more hard one.'
Four hours of 'one more hard one' into the dark of night, three hours after Mom had advised that, 'our #&*%# dinner is getting #&*%# cold', I was given permission to carry my arm inside and plop it on the table.
It was work.
I liked to play.

But this is what I've come to determine; play is just fun work.
In my very early childhood years, I had several small toy cars and trucks. These were mostly rubber with yellow wheels. Several decades later, I looked up these cars. They were made by Auburn Rubber Company. I had the '56 Plymouth wagon, the '57 Ford Ranchero, the T-Bird, and the '32 deuce coupe hot rod.
I also had the red Harley, but it was larger and my early obsessions would never allow myself to incorporate it into the scheme of things.
That scheme was building towns and neighborhoods.
The whole back yard was my universe.
I did my best to make it all as realistic as possible, carving roads in the side of the hill and building tiny houses and stores out of bricks and 2x4 mill ends. Using care to keep it all in scale.
Tuna cans became swimming pools.
Weeds became landscaping.
Tag, my overgrown ogre giant dog, became a pest.
The scourge of Tiny Town.
A happy, playful scourge.
Sometimes kids would come over, and bring their cars.
Only their cars were too big. They hadn't noticed.
I preferred to just play by myself.
My very own dirt erector set.
I needed nothing or anyone else.
But
The fun was in building. Once everything was built, it was over.
If I did let a kid play with me, they'd get all wrapped up in a plot of some kind, and jabber away at who everyone was, and several scenes would be discussed. None of that did anything for me.
I did, however, in my toddler years, sit in on a couple tea parties my sister and Bessie Dodge put on.
But, they too were enmeshed in setting up scenarios. It was as though they were miniature playwrights, discussing various acts and scenes. And I, I was the best boy, or key grip, or maybe gaffer.
'OK, you were upset because Rock Hudson didn't show up, but I was happy because my handsome boyfriend, Cary Grant, was here, more tea?'
(seems I was hauled in to be the Cary Grant stand in)
The tea (tepid water), and the mud scones (mud scones) looked quite inviting, all set up on the tiny card table with frilly napkins and minute fine chinette.

After initial set up, all this became an unbearable bore. So, as interest faded, and the mud around my lips dried (yes, I actually ate the scones) I sidled away from their little playhouse setting, finding fascination with bugs and ants and a magnifying glass.

It seems, at least in the '50s, that 'play' was a bit overrated and overplayed.......I guess hyped would be the word.
TV ads would show kids eyes light up when they played with things like Tinker toys and Lincoln Logs, or (be still my heart) Lionel trains.
They would say things like 'Gee' and Gosh' and have an eternal smile pasted on their little gleeful mugs.
So, me and sis would be layin' on the floor, elbows helping our hands prop our faces up, starin' at the grey and white ads, absorbing thoughts like, 'Huh, so that's what happy looks like.'
Parents would look on, paralyzed with guilt, unable to flip the channel, mainly because that was the only one that had decent reception, let alone have to get up and turn the knob.
Come to think about it, actual play hardly existed back then.
Anticipation
Unwrapping
Putting together (by illiterate overconfident parents that abhorred reading any printed matter)
Crying
Going to bed
That's what mostly existed.
I just liked building, fun work.

Around twelve, or maybe thirteen, we moved further out of town.
The neighborhood was spread out and six acres of woods, that bordered a few thousand acres of woods, was our back yard.
I scrounged some 2x4s and sheets of ply, along with some sheets of tin and fashioned myself a little hut. I loosely called it my cabin.
It was just a lean-to with homemade door and scavenged cot.
However, it was mine, my place.
Again, once it was built the fun was over.
Sure, I'd sleep in it sometimes, but it was cold, and damp, and leaked like a sieve.
I learned to appreciate the finer things of life, like a house, and a proper bed, and a refrigerator, and a toilet.
That work thing that my dad was so en rapt in took on a whole new admiration.


You still awake?


Man, you got problems
 
My own 'hit & run' happened over 50 years ago... Now you have to know the vehicles involved - my Morris Minor and a Lambretta motor scooter. The Morris had fairly prominent bumpers (fenders for non-Brits) and the Lambretta had a large front mudguard.

Right, out side a cafe we used to frequent was a small lay-by. I parked my car and went into the cafe. Sometime later the scooter owner arrived and parked behind my car. When we left, I realised I would have to reverse slightly to get out, and as I did I felt a slight bump. I looked behind, but saw nothing amiss so I drove off.

A short distance down the road, my friend said there's a scooter following us. I stopped, and there was the scooter firmly attached to my car. What we think happened was that as I reversed, my rear bumper had slipped under the mudguard of the scooter. As I drove forward, it scooter came off its stand and settled firmly on the bumper.

It was a real job to lift it off, but there appeared to be no damage, so we did the right thing and scarpered as quickly as we could.
 
This was not exactly a hit and run, but close. Kayelle and I were on a Columbia River cruise on a paddle wheeler. After dinner, we went back to our cabin, and I noticed we were missing a towel. I knew the big laundry closet was right across from us, so I opened the door.
To everyone's surprise, One of the male stewards was sitting on the floor with a girl on his lap. I looked at them, and having savoire faire, I said ,"towel", grabbed one and left. For the rest of the cruise, neither one of them could look us in the eye. :)
 
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Well, after being divorced for 21 years, and spending 20 1/2 searching for another lady, I finally found her! I had placed a Personal Ad in a local magazine, she answered it thru a voice recording and we got together at a local Denny's. I showed up wearing a black felt cowboy hat, Wrangler jeans, black Roper boots and a descent Western shirt. She showed up wearing a Wrangler straw cowboy hat, Ladies Roper jeans, nice Western blouse and pointed cowboy boots. We wound up getting rid of her pointed boots and getting her a pair of black Roper boots, like mine.

She told me, "When I read that you didn't have any tattoos or body piercings, I was extremely happy."

She really, really loved it that I could cook, had been involved in professional rodeo, had owned/rode horses, could drive a powerboat, knew about livestock/farm crops, loved fishing, loved mountain wildlife and so on and so on.

Got engaged/married and 20 years later, many rodeos (as fans), lots of photography of Western stuff-wildlife-rodeo are still going strong in a great marriage.
 
When my daughter was dating a boy I got invited to his brother and the brothers girlfriends engagement party . When I arrived the girl introduced me to her Dad . His name was Pat and he looked a little familiar to me. As the night progressed he came over to me and asked if I remembered him. He said when he was younger they called him Patty Boy. It was then I remembered when I was 13yrs old my friends and I were at a local park one night and we met a bunch of boys. Being the naughty girls we were we made out with the boys. I made out with a boy called Patty Boy. We went back 3 nights in a row and did the same thing.Well this guy was the same Patty Boy and he remembered me.He even asked me why we didn't go back the 4th night. I was so embarrased because he told the whole story of those 3 nights to my Husband and Daughter. I couldn't believe he even recognized me after alllllll those years. I couldn't wait until we could leave the party. Of course my Hubby talked about that night for years.
 
Kayelle just reminded me of an incident we had with TSA. We were on an Alaskan cruise, and to keep her bottom warm while out on our balcony, I brought along a heating pad and an extension cord. Well, the ship made a mistake and gave us a double order on my favorite liquor. We were leaving the ship, and there was a lot left, and I was not going to leave it, so I poured it into 4 half liter water bottles.
Well, I packed the the 4 bottles in my carry on, along with the heating pad, extension cord, and my Dopp kit, which included a wind up clock.
I checked my carry on, because of the liquids, and I thought nothing about it. The checked luggage also went through X-Ray screening, and we were pulled aside to open it. If you looked at my carry on through the X-Ray, you saw 4 bottles, wiring, and a clock!:eek: Thank goodness we were not arrested.
 
Pappy said:
😢😢😢😢😢😢

Hi, so I'm here to say goodbye to this group which I love so much. My wife says I'm on this group every 2 seconds and she can't stand it anymore....😭😭😭😭

Well we argued and she told me to choose between her or the group...therefore I'm gonna be offline for a couple of hours while I prepare her luggage and call her a taxi!!!!! I'll be right back!!
Click to expand...


Pappy you scared me ! You are forbidden to leave ! 🙃
 
Gary O' said:
I've several stories
Have a lot of them in my vivid memories thread

Here's one now;

Anybody having trouble sleeping?

Hey....I write
Mostly true stuff....mostly

Anyway, here's a little story to put you insomniacs to sleep;

Labor

Let's start from the beginning (or as I've been told, mine)
Mom was in a maternity ward, toiling away.
Me? I was doing all I could to stay warm, and at home.
I was quite comfy and couldn't care less about goin' anywhere.
But this indescribable force propelled me into the chute much like someone cramming dirty laundry into an overstuffed washer.

Seventeen labor filled hours later;
'Hey, ya oughta see the mutt of a baby next to ours, geeeezus, head looks like a plumb bob!'
The young mother, next to mine, is frowning and signaling with her head toward mom.
Apparently, my trip thru the eerie canal was a tad narrow, and my noggin had taken on the shape of a butternut squash.

And why do they say the mothers are in labor?
Seems the kid is doin' all the work.
Then again, everything is work, really.
Dad proved this to me all through my growing up years.
I don't think he ever played a day in his life.

We got a boat, a large one, a cabin cruiser.
Dad had worked day and night to get it.
Actually he hadn't worked to get it.
He worked around the clock no matter what we needed or wanted.
The boat just happened to be the thing that seemed would be enjoyable, for the whole family.
Only every aspect about it was made into work.
Even when we were just cruising up the river, 'Gary, you stand here and watch for dead heads, you know what a dead head is dontcha? A dead head is a log that is just barely stickin' outta the water...can't see it right away, but it will tear a hole in the boat, and we'll all drown.'
'OK'
'And tighten that life jacket.'
'OK'
'Watch out for the wakes of other boats. You can get thrown out.'
'OK'
'DON'T TOUCH THAT!!'
'OK'
'Fun, huh?'
'OK'

Years later, I invited Dad to help me knock out a couple buckets of balls at the driving range. Maybe get him away from his life of toil a bit and relax.
Heh.
He swung so hard at those evasive little dimpled eggs, I thought he'd screw himself into the ground. After watching him do several pirouettes, half the time falling down, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing under the sun he didn't work at.
Turns out, he loved work.
And he wanted me to love it too.

His frustration with me was evident when we'd go into the back yard and 'just toss the ol' ball around'.
I had better than average hand/eye coordination, and probably better than average athletic ability, so playing ball came rather easy.
I made it look easy.
No awkward moves.
A bit of flow to things.
He thought I wasn't playing hard enough.
When he caught the ball, or threw it, he'd make a little grunt.

Actually he made that little grunt just picking up the newspaper, or shaving...'See you just take little strokes, ungh, like that, ungh.'
In 'just tossing the ol' ball around', he always had a fixed, determined stare....at the ball, coupled with a grim look, like he was just sentenced to a life of breaking rocks.
I'd toss it back to him and watch his countenance tighten into a grimace as the ball sailed into his out stretched glove.
If I threw a moderately wild one, and he happened to miss it, he'd scurry back to get it like Peewee Reese was stealing home.
'OK, let's see how your fast ball is doin'.'
'Hey, nice curve, you've got a natural curve ball, boy.'
(my fast ball is goin' so slow he thinks it's a curve ball)
'One more hard one.'
Four hours of 'one more hard one' into the dark of night, three hours after Mom had advised that, 'our #&*%# dinner is getting #&*%# cold', I was given permission to carry my arm inside and plop it on the table.
It was work.
I liked to play.

But this is what I've come to determine; play is just fun work.
In my very early childhood years, I had several small toy cars and trucks. These were mostly rubber with yellow wheels. Several decades later, I looked up these cars. They were made by Auburn Rubber Company. I had the '56 Plymouth wagon, the '57 Ford Ranchero, the T-Bird, and the '32 deuce coupe hot rod.
I also had the red Harley, but it was larger and my early obsessions would never allow myself to incorporate it into the scheme of things.
That scheme was building towns and neighborhoods.
The whole back yard was my universe.
I did my best to make it all as realistic as possible, carving roads in the side of the hill and building tiny houses and stores out of bricks and 2x4 mill ends. Using care to keep it all in scale.
Tuna cans became swimming pools.
Weeds became landscaping.
Tag, my overgrown ogre giant dog, became a pest.
The scourge of Tiny Town.
A happy, playful scourge.
Sometimes kids would come over, and bring their cars.
Only their cars were too big. They hadn't noticed.
I preferred to just play by myself.
My very own dirt erector set.
I needed nothing or anyone else.
But
The fun was in building. Once everything was built, it was over.
If I did let a kid play with me, they'd get all wrapped up in a plot of some kind, and jabber away at who everyone was, and several scenes would be discussed. None of that did anything for me.
I did, however, in my toddler years, sit in on a couple tea parties my sister and Bessie Dodge put on.
But, they too were enmeshed in setting up scenarios. It was as though they were miniature playwrights, discussing various acts and scenes. And I, I was the best boy, or key grip, or maybe gaffer.
'OK, you were upset because Rock Hudson didn't show up, but I was happy because my handsome boyfriend, Cary Grant, was here, more tea?'
(seems I was hauled in to be the Cary Grant stand in)
The tea (tepid water), and the mud scones (mud scones) looked quite inviting, all set up on the tiny card table with frilly napkins and minute fine chinette.

After initial set up, all this became an unbearable bore. So, as interest faded, and the mud around my lips dried (yes, I actually ate the scones) I sidled away from their little playhouse setting, finding fascination with bugs and ants and a magnifying glass.

It seems, at least in the '50s, that 'play' was a bit overrated and overplayed.......I guess hyped would be the word.
TV ads would show kids eyes light up when they played with things like Tinker toys and Lincoln Logs, or (be still my heart) Lionel trains.
They would say things like 'Gee' and Gosh' and have an eternal smile pasted on their little gleeful mugs.
So, me and sis would be layin' on the floor, elbows helping our hands prop our faces up, starin' at the grey and white ads, absorbing thoughts like, 'Huh, so that's what happy looks like.'
Parents would look on, paralyzed with guilt, unable to flip the channel, mainly because that was the only one that had decent reception, let alone have to get up and turn the knob.
Come to think about it, actual play hardly existed back then.
Anticipation
Unwrapping
Putting together (by illiterate overconfident parents that abhorred reading any printed matter)
Crying
Going to bed
That's what mostly existed.
I just liked building, fun work.

Around twelve, or maybe thirteen, we moved further out of town.
The neighborhood was spread out and six acres of woods, that bordered a few thousand acres of woods, was our back yard.
I scrounged some 2x4s and sheets of ply, along with some sheets of tin and fashioned myself a little hut. I loosely called it my cabin.
It was just a lean-to with homemade door and scavenged cot.
However, it was mine, my place.
Again, once it was built the fun was over.
Sure, I'd sleep in it sometimes, but it was cold, and damp, and leaked like a sieve.
I learned to appreciate the finer things of life, like a house, and a proper bed, and a refrigerator, and a toilet.
That work thing that my dad was so en rapt in took on a whole new admiration.
You still awake?
Man, you got problems
Click to expand...
Gary...you are a treasure! ROFLM*O! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Sassycakes said:
When my daughter was dating a boy I got invited to his brother and the brothers girlfriends engagement party . When I arrived the girl introduced me to her Dad . His name was Pat and he looked a little familiar to me. As the night progressed he came over to me and asked if I remembered him. He said when he was younger they called him Patty Boy. It was then I remembered when I was 13yrs old my friends and I were at a local park one night and we met a bunch of boys. Being the naughty girls we were we made out with the boys. I made out with a boy called Patty Boy. We went back 3 nights in a row and did the same thing.Well this guy was the same Patty Boy and he remembered me.He even asked me why we didn't go back the 4th night. I was so embarrased because he told the whole story of those 3 nights to my Husband and Daughter. I couldn't believe he even recognized me after alllllll those years. I couldn't wait until we could leave the party. Of course my Hubby talked about that night for years.
Click to expand...

WOW!!!!! I do have to give you credit for not giving him a good solid well deserved punch in his stupid maw. On the flipside no married person should ever hold their significant other to account for events before they stepped into their life. Funny story still. Now if that were me I would've slunk out the back door and hit the road.
 
Another "daughter's first date story":

Boy comes in, is introduced and we visit for a few minutes.

They drive off and he says to my daughter, "I know your dad from somewhere. He was a Scoutmaster, right?" "No."

"Oh, I know, he coached Little League!" "Nope"

"Was he a teacher?" "Yes, but not in this state."

"Well, what does your dad do?"

"He's the supervisor of the juvenile detention center." Dead silence. Panic. Apparently the young man, with some friends, had thrown rocks through a couple of windows of an empty house and had gotten caught and sentenced to four Saturdays of mopping floors at the detention center.

He never asked her out again.
 
This is about my Grandmother. She grew up in the North Dakota territory, where her parents had a small cabin on the plaines.
There was an Indian raid and her parents knocked out windows to put their rifles through. There was a hatch under a rug, and he put my Grandma,age 3 1/2, her sister,age 2 and her baby brother,6 months old, in the hole in the floor.
He gave my Grandma a loaded,cocked revolver and put her finger on the trigger. He said, "Mattie, If anyone but me opens this hatch, I want you to shoot your sister in the chest, shoot your brother and turn the gun on yourself and shoot yourself in the chest."

This is kind of a heavy thing to put on a tiny little girl. I think it helped her become the extraordinary pioneer woman she was.
 
FastTrax said:
Gary O' is a gem.
Click to expand...
OneEyedDiva said:
Gary...you are a treasure! ROFLM*O!
Click to expand...

You guys are too kind

I've always settled for 'adorable'

my onesie.jpg


Reminds me

.....actually, doesn't remind me of anything

But

While I'm here, might as well plop down a recollection;


SCHOOL

Year One

We didn’t have kindergarten.
Hell, we didn’t even have all eight grades in that one room school tucked deep in the Chapman hills.
And we didn’t have a bus, or lunchroom, or gym, or indoor plumbing.
What we did have was Mr McDunn.

Looking back, he was the best grade school teacher I’d ever have.
Field trips were field trips, thru the woods behind the school house, down to the creek, buildin’ mud dams, and makin’ wood sail boats, or we’d head up stream to the beaver dam, and when the steelhead were runnin’, before I even knew of a sea run rainbow fish that would grow to enormous proportion, he’d stand straddle legged in the stream and bail out those monsters with his hands.
Then we’d watch him cut one open, displaying the biggest fish eggs I’d ever seen.

One time, when it was snowin’ like a banshee, we took an old mop wringer and made igloos.
Yeah, we went every day, snow, ice, whatever.
And yeah, no bus, so kids appeared at school early, and while we were waiting for teacher to arrive (from his attached living quarters) we played with these little plastic red bricks that would snap onto each other….they fascinated me.
We made planes, and built forts, and skyscrapers. It was like goin’ to the beach, I could never get enough.

But school, it was work books, my own pencil, my own desk.
Desks were the old wooden ones you see in old movies, the kind that hook up in a row, had the ink well, and groove to put your very own pencil, and you had a place underneath, housed in black wrought iron, to put your work books, and the seat flipped up, and so did the person’s in front of you.
That person was Francis Keller.
She was a tad messy, as her workbook place was eternally jammed with wadded up papers, and leaky pens, and broken things.
And Francis herself was a bit unkempt.
But she did have a fetching look about her, and she was tough as nails.
She could beat the crap outta most kids there even though she was only in third grade.
One rather disenchanting thing I recall about her was her habit of snorting whatever was in her throat and nose and swallowing.
First I’d ever heard such a noise. Kinda like a reverse gargle…..and she ate paste.
Thinking about it years later, those unseemly habits may very well have become attributes………

Anyway, one time during recess, nature called, and I headed to the outhouse.
It was a three holer, and it had a trough.
I grabbed the middle hole so I could peek thru the crack in the door for female invaders.
But Francis got the jump on me.
There she was. But she wasn’t there for business.
Next thing I know she’s flippin’ her dress up and her underwear down. Standin’ there starin’ at me.
Whoa, I immediately had a flash back of me and Connie in grampa’s tool shed, and made the brilliant deduction that Connie was not deformed, as most or all girls were missing some very vital things.
Then I took care of my back side and jumped off my perch to button up and head the hell outta there, but not quick enough to skirt Mr McDunn’s shadow.
So there we all were, Mr McDunn in his aura of teacher/god like omnipotence, Francis of who magically had put herself back in the altogether, lookin’ at me like I was satan, and me, standin’ there with my bib overalls huggin’ my ankles.
I learned a couple things that day.
1) Wimin are way ahead of any mind game you may ever venture to get conned into playing.
2) It’s because they are not distracted by all the apparatus us guys have.

So, yeah, we didn’t have all the facilities of the schools in town, but my first classes in psych and anatomy were right there in the three holer.

Over all, I learned more about social life that first year, than all the other seven grades put together.

And now, every time I go fishin’, wading a small stream, and catch the faint scent of roiled mud and creek water wafting thru my nostrils, my mind flashes back to those first golden autumn days of school.


School, The following years

The local craftsmen had united and built us a real school.
Closer to town.
Two rooms.
Indoor plumbing, one for boys and one for girls.
Newer desks.
Swings.
…and a huge field.
Mr McDunn took us out to the field to explore.
Now I’d been runnin’ thru fields all my life, so I was a tad unimpressed….until he had us kneel down and move slowly thru the weeds and thistles, identifying everything that grew or crawled.
It got so I couldn’t wait for the next discoveries.

OK, we were all a bit rowdy, but he had a presence about him that got your attention.
It sorta made the teachers that followed pale in comparison….and we took advantage.
Seems every one after him ended up having some sorta nervous breakdown right in the middle of the year.

Not sure what happened to Mr McDunn, but I got drift that our folks were not impressed with his philosophy, cause he was quite direct and they were a bit protective of their little darlings.





The Year of Taboli

Mr Taboli arrived my third year, straight from the Philippines….or as he said, the ‘pillippeens’.
He wore a suit.
Reminded me of Desi Arnaz, hair all slicked into a pompadour with half a can of pomade.

And that accent. He didn’t have a chance.
‘OK turd grade, turn to page turdy eight.’
We slowly sacrificed that poor soul.

An event that I recall was pretty much the end of Mr Taboli.

Francis had a little brother, Dicky.
Remember, this was in the ‘50s. The term ‘dick’ had yet to have a negative connotation.
Fun with Dick and Jane was just that.
We called him ‘Dicky’.
The kid was just one happy little guy.
Always grinnin’ that huge grin, buck teeth spaced wide apart, gigantic mouth….but had some intellect issues.
However, happy…just glad to be included in anything we did.
Unfortunately what we did was mostly to his detriment.
Andy had this oversized gravenstein apple.
‘Hey Dicky, I bet you can’t put this whole apple in your mouth.’
Turns out he could.
It’s just that he couldn’t get it back out.
So, we’re all laughin’ our asses off, and Dicky is laughin’ and droolin’ and chokin’ some, when Mr Taboli blows the recess whistle.
We all file back inside to our desks.
Dicky’s sittin’ there with his gigantic mouth stretched to the max, buck teeth clamped on that apple, just starin’ down at page turdy eight, droolin’ all over his work book.
We’re all lookin’ straight ahead.
Then Dicky begins to get a little red and choke.
I gotta say, he held it together pretty good, not bein’ able to swallow and all, but once he commenced gagging, it was pretty much all over.
Remarkably, Mr Taboli was pretty good with a knife.
He leaped over Bart’s oversized legs hangin’ in the aisle, and proceeded to perform an applectomy right there in class.
So, he was a hero…….for a few minutes.

It was only a matter of weeks that his rosy outlook of teaching the children of the trees would take a turn.
The event that became the clincher to his destiny was our zip guns.
Little simply made ‘guns’ from clothes pins, springs and pebbles.
Just enough zip to cause a welt.
A well placed shot destined for a girl’s hind end…unless it was Francis….she’d take it from you and feed it to our own hind end.
Well, after all the lunchtime screaming and running, Mr Taboli rounded us up and just sat at his desk for several minutes.
Then calmly gathered up our zipguns and placed them on the floor in a little pile and commenced to jump up and down on them, screaming something in a language other than English.
Then he strolled over to his desk, sat down, put his head down, and started beating the surface of it with both fists.
Fascinating.
We didn’t have school for a couple days after that.
The Wadsworth years would follow.



I bumped in to Dicky a decade or so later.
‘It’s Richard now’

The poor chap had been working in the woods.
If you are short on brains, the woods are not the place to work. It’s bad enough if yer quick and sharp.
Seems Dicky had run a chain saw up his hand, right between his fingers, up to his wrist.
They didn’t do much for him in the patchwork dept.
At first, seein’ him at a distance, I’d thought, geez, Dicky is a Trekie, showin’ me his Vulcan wave.

Wonder how they're all doin' now..............



The Wadsworth Years

Mrs Wadsworth was our teacher for a couple years…..actually 2 ½ years, as she stepped in when Mr Taboli made his infamous exit.
The white coats didn’t come to get him, but after the zip gun affair we never saw Mr Taboli again…our first conquest.

Mrs Wadsworth was different.
She was old, and done with it all, but folks gathered around her and conned her out of retirement.
Turns out she’d run a concentration camp of grades six thru eight back in Milton-Freewater for centuries.
Quite the disciplinarian, as she could still wield a bamboo rod with the deftness of a samurai.
And those high top orthopedic oxfords that housed her rheumatoid ankles were nothin’ to mess with either.
She stood about five six, and weighed in at oh say 97 lbs, but still had a presence about her.
I got her to smile a couple times, but usually she wore this sour look, like she just got fed some horse shit, of which we tried.
She had what was sometimes referred to as denture face, some real jowls, kinda looked like Deputy Dawg’s gramma….and she used it to her advantage, lookin’down on you oveer her bifocals.
Eddy P, the terror of turd grade, was putty in her gnarly hands, and even his little brother, satan of second grade, was no match.

So things were as quiet as they could be in those two years.

We all respected her, and I even admired her, and I’d like to think she got a charge outta me, as she would single me out as an example for others not to follow.
When she gave me her special attention, I’d notice her neck would commence to sorta blossom into a rather deep crimson, beginning at the start of her collar and creeping up to her chin.
This aurora was gradual, and mesmerizing.

Grammar was her specialty, and diagramming sentences on the black board was what we all did, over and over…past participles and me became friends, as we both found our little special place in the parse tree of life.

But the second room in that school held my fond attention.
Miss Dickerson taught kindergarten thru second grade.
She had a dimpled smile that would melt me into deep daydreams of her and I.
I’d sit thru history class, fanaticizing about us goin’ campin’.
Her lookin’ on with admiration of me building a camp fire with nothin’ but my woodsman’s prowess, and then skinny dippin’ and then, well things got sorta grey from there, so I’d be stuck on replay, filling in more details with each re-run of my boyish manliness and her absolute womanliness, then fog, then back to camping, swimming, fog….sometimes we’d just lay on the bank after skinny dippin’, all naked, basking in the sun, fixated on each other’s *******s…but there was always that darn fog…….



The Mrs Nelson half year….aka The Half Nelson

She tried to be nice.
‘You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.’
Killer bees

The white coats did come for her
 
Carrots, bananas & warm milk

My state side orders were for Lakehurst Navel Air Station. Air transportation was from Ramey Air Force base to Charleston S.C. While waiting for the DC-7 to finish refueling we fed our hungry 6 month old son some strained carrots, bananas & a bottle of milk. He was happy and asleep when we boarded. Good seating about mid plane and happy the flight left on schedule.

About 3 hours into the flight there was a really strong smell from my son. My wife was on the inside next to the window seat so it was on me to change my son. I asked the flight attendant where I could change him.

No problem there was a jump seat in the back not in use. Then there was a problem. The milk, carrots & bananas turned into one of the largest most nasty smell when the diaper was unpinned. I think the term it could gag a maggot applies.

I was doing the best I could to get this change done as as possible. But not soon enough for the last 6 rows of other passengers to leave their seats to walk forward in the plane.

Back then weight & balance was critical to keep the plane in trim. Trim meaning level flight. The shifting of weight [6 rows of people moving forward] caused the plane to be nose heavy. The pilot became concerned that the cargo had come loose and shifted.

Once the smell had been contained people returned to their seats. The plane then took a nose up attitude further causing the pilot concern. Correcting the planes trim let the pilot land without anymore concern. The pilot & co-pilot caught up to us in baggage claim & we had a good laugh about the cargo shifting.
 
My two little bubble-gummers!

Picture the hottest day of summer, and two toddlers outside playing. Into this, and into that they were (nothing serious), just exploring everything they could, and me popping my head outside regularly to check-up on them.

It had been about an hour since they had gone out to play when my oldest daughter came running into the kitchen... "mom, mom, mom... Janelle and Jacob, they're all covered in gum"!

"Gum", I though, "I didn't give them any gum", and out the glass doors I went and OMG! There wasn't a square inch on either toddler that wasn't absolutely covered in sticky, gooey, bubble gum! I'm talking it was everywhere, in their hair, their hands, all over their bodies, I never seen the beat of it ever in my life.

According to oldest dear daughter, she had spit her gum out onto the street and baby sister and brother went straight for it. As one child got deeper in the gum, the other was trying to remove the sticky gum from the others hands, and being as hot as it was, the gum just kept-on sticking, stretching, and spreading more, and more, and more.

With both toddlers parked on top of the kitchen counter by the sink, I took to using dish detergent, olive oil, and a cloth to try and clean them up, and what a chore it was. The olive oil worked surprisingly well in getting the gum out of their hair, and as for their hands and bodies, a little rub with the cloth soaked in olive oil, matched with a little picking, pulling, stretching, rubbing, and scrubbing, and slow but sure, each child slowly emerged gum-free once again.

Eternity, that's how long the cleanup process lasted, and once done, I plucked both toddlers off the counter, and with one under each arm, straight down to the bathroom I went. Into the tub with both, a good soaking, a thorough scrubbing, and a bubble gum experience I'll never forget!
 
Knight said:
The milk, carrots & bananas turned into one of the largest most nasty smell when the diaper was unpinned.
Click to expand...
I so remember the days...

With my kids, it wasn't the step of unlatching the pins that told the tale, it was when the rubber pants were pulled off, that's when the true explosive properties of a full diaper made itself known.
 

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