Crazy Things We Did as Kids

If you have read my blog, you know that I spent my early childhood in Indianapolis, and moved to Smith Valley in 1962 when I was nine years old. Compared to what kids have today, in quantity and technology, we were in the stone ages. But I'm sure we had just as much fun with our simple toys as kids have today with Wii, Xbox, and that entire class of video game systems.

During my really early years, we lived in a duplex on North Rural Street in Indianapolis. On the other side of our duplex lived Ginny, Pinkie, and their son Ricky. Ginny had some neat stuff that we couldn't dream of having. She had an oven that had a glass door! Back in the late 50's, we had never seen such a thing. When Ginny baked a roast or anything, and one or two of us happened to be over playing with Ricky, we'd actually pull chairs up to the oven window and watch food cook! How's that for excitement?

She also had a deep fryer with an engraving of a chef where the temperature lights were. When the grease reached the desired temperature, the chef's eye's glowed red. Honest to God, this fascinated me to the point where I would sit near the fryer and watch the red eyes glow. A few years ago, Mom and I went to Illinois to visit Ginny--she moved there to be close to her sisters. I told Ginny how, as a kid, I loved that deep fryer because of the eyes. She went over to her cabinet, pulled out that same fryer and gave it to me. It still works like a charm, with the exception of the chef's red eyes. They no longer work. When you consider the fryer is over 50 years old, it's pretty amazing that it even heats up.

In our own home on North Rural, we had a place in the ceiling of our living room where a light fixture had hung. The light was gone, but the decorative "thing" it hung from was still on the ceiling. Something about that decorative thing caused us kids to place ourselves directly below it, look straight up at it, twirl around, and make this guttural sound as we twirled. Don't ask me why...it was just something to do. And if I'd been Mom, it would've driven me crazy.

Mom was great at keeping us entertained as well. She would put us (one at a time) in a pillowcase, gather up the opening, and then swing us around in a circle. Now that was a hoot! At times, she would hang us on the doorknobs by our shirts. What fun! Kids today have never been swung around in a pillowcase or hung from a doorknob. Today either one of those activities would probably be grounds to call CPS.

She also would get on the floor onto her back, lift her legs up (don't worry...this is clean), and one of us kids would "belly up" to her feet. She held our hands, then lifted us up in the air by straightening her knees and bending her legs at the hips at a 90-degree angle. Then we'd all yell, "Tra-dant!". And although I never swung my own kids in pillowcases or hung them on doorknobs, we did do Tra-dant quite often.

Another activity, probably dreamed up by my mom, was "The Quiet Game". That consisted of one kid yelling "QUIET". After that, the first one to make a peep lost the game. It kept us occupied for a few minutes.

Both of my brothers had hobbies that were horribly gross. (Kids, don't try this at home.) Mike liked to sit on the steps in front of our house and wait for a smoker to go by. If he threw his cigarette butt down, Mike picked it up and smoked it.

Now, if you think that's gross--hang on. Mark's hobby was to take one of Dad's big screwdrivers and walk up and down the sidewalk. When he found a *somewhat* fresh piece of ABC gum, he scraped it off the sidewalk with the screwdriver, stuck it in his mouth, and chomped away! To this day, I can still hear the grit in his mouth as he chewed! Mark must've had a mineral deficiency or something. Our back yard was nothing but dirt due to us kids grubbing around in it all day long. It was nothing to go out into the back yard and see Mark with a mud ring around his mouth. Yes, folks...the child ate dirt!

And for those of you that don't know what ABC gum is, ABC stands for "Already Been Chewed". Speaking of chewing-sometimes on a Saturday we'd walk through the alley to our alma mater, School 81. Since it was Saturday, we could walk through the alley to get to our school. We'd search the parking lot for some tar, scrape it off, and chew it! That was some pretty nasty tasting stuff. Luckily, we didn't do that often.

I know you're thinking that I must've been a more normal child than my brothers. But although I didn't smoke used cigarettes, chew sidewalk gum, or eat dirt, I did have my bad habits too. On a daily basis, I would stand up on my bed and stick my finger in the empty light socket attached to the wall. Heck, yes...it hurt! But now I could probably get struck by lightning and not blink an eye.

I also had a habit of swallowing nickels--no other currency--just nickels. It's not that I had a nickel in my mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Nope, I did it on purpose. A couple of days later, I would hear a *clink* and knew I had gotten rid of the last nickel I'd swallowed. I don't have an explanation why we did any of these weird things, but I guarantee you that your kids did some pretty weird stuff too--or if they are still young, they're still doing weird stuff. You just probably don't know about it. And no doubt you did too.

We three kids and Ricky formed a club. We voted on the name and decided on "The Dingbat Club". I imagine it was pretty close to being a perfect name for our motley crew. Our dues were ten cents a week. The main goal of "The Dingbat Club" was to beat the heck out of Marvin and Kenny, who lived a few houses down the alley from us. Marvin and Kenny were brothers, and if I remember correctly, their mother seemed to have a weird arrangment with someone the boys called "Uncle Cal".

When Marvin and Kenny) invaded our turf, that was reason enough to launch a full-scale war. Those two had no reason to be in the alley behind our house. They were just asking for it, and we gave it to them. After a sound whooping, they'd run home crying. If Uncle Cal was "visiting", he'd come out and yell at us. We didn't beat up Marvin and Kenny merely for being in the alley behind our house--we beat them up because they were creepy kids.

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Mom always said yes. I'd go get my PJs and head over to Ricky's. Ricky's mom and dad had a little bit of money and only one child at home. Ricky had toys lavished upon him. He had it all. I can remember a Hi-Ho Cherry-O game, a nice set of Lincoln Logs, a horrible stuffed chimp that I absolutely hated, and a very cool chemistry set. One day, I succumbed to temptation. On Ricky's chest of drawers was the coolest thing I had ever seen, purchased from a penny gumball machine. It was a silver plastic skull with red ruby eyes. That treasure would be mine before night's end.

Before I went home, I took the silver skull with the red ruby eyes and stuck it in my pocket. I didn't dream that Ricky would miss it--he had so many toys. But miss it he did, and it didn't take Ricky and Ginny very long to come over and ask for the skull. That was the last time I took something that didn't belong to me.

It's just a good thing that I haven't ran into another one of those silver skulls with red ruby eyes. I don't think I can take the temptation.

Some Things Just Aren't Meant to Be

When my husband and I were in our early 30s, we were asked by his brother if we'd like to go canoeing down the Blue River. Heck, why not? We never did anything like that, and we needed to do more things together. So we packed up our 11-year-old son and took off. We left Carrie at home with a sitter--she said she was a wimp and didn't want to go.

So after an hour or so we arrived in Milltown and got signed up for the canoe trip. We decided on the seven-mile run, since we've never done this before...and for sure we didn't want to go on the 14-mile trip. The "launchers" loaded up our canoes, we jumped in their van and off we went. My son got a partner, so it was just going to be Leroy and me in the canoe.

At the launching site, the "launchers" put the canoes in the water and got everyone into the water. The couple ahead of us made it in the canoe, but when it came time to actually "go", they both leaned sideways in the same direction. They and their cooler ended up in the river. That was funny enough, right?



When it came our turn, I climbed in the rear of the canoe, facing downriver. When Leroy climbed in, he sat down facing me--and facing upriver! I looked at him and said, "I'm not turning around!". The launchers cracked up!

He finally got turned around and we were off...and at least we were still dry. We spent the next seven miles zig-zagging back and forth. For some reason, I just naturally paddle harder than Leroy--or could be he was holding his paddle sideways in the water. He kept griping at me because we weren't catching up to the others in our group. The way I saw it was...he should paddle harder to match my paddling--or hold his paddle correctly in the water.

Halfway through the trip, we found a landing. All of us "parked" the canoes and had a little picnic. After lunch, we climbed back in and began the last half of our journey. At least Leroy faced downriver this time! At the very end of the canoe trip, the water got pretty deep, and then flowed over some sort of concrete dam. You either got out or ended up over the dam. My sister-in-law was the first one out of the canoe. For some reason, my brother-in-law John couldn't wait ten more seconds to light up a cigarette. As he lit up, his wife (not noticing John's lack of attention) bent down and pulled the canoe farther onto dry land.

That was just enough to throw John overboard, lit cigarette and all. Luckily, he managed to make it back to shore, but wasn't too happy about getting soaked. We drove back home and were sore for days. But all in all, we had a pretty good time.

A few years later, we were asked to go canoeing again. Little did we know, this would be our last canoe trip. We launched ok. Nobody got thrown into the water. But early on in the trip, we still had issues with me paddling too hard, or Leroy paddling too soft. He started griping at me again. That did it.

I threw down my paddle in the bottom of the boat and folded my arms. I told Leroy, "Fine...YOU paddle". And paddle he did. I sat in the back of the boat like some Navaho chief, my arms crossed and a fierce look on my face. About every mile, Leroy would ask me to pick up my paddle. Nope......PLEASE pick up the paddle! Nope.....

He paddled the entire trip, with me still doing my "Sitting Bull" impersonation. After that, we realized that this is just one of those things we should not do together. In fact, I've come up with a list of things we will not even TRY to do together.

Repelling
Mountain climbing
Tandem bicycling
Pairs ice skating
Ballroom dancing
Trapeze
Bungee jumping
Parachuting
Snowboarding
Synchronized swimming
Curling
Eyebrow waxing

And here's one activity we CAN do together.

Snow Day

Looks like I won't be going to work today. I hate that. It's not the same as when we were in school and school closed for the day due to snow. This costs me. I have to either take leave (which I'm trying to save for a trip to Italy), LWOP, or make it up on my RDO (regular day off) this Friday.

I really don't want to do any of those. I prefer to go to work, but if I can't--then I want a free snow day. Just give me the day off and pay me for it too! I certainly work hard enough that I've earned it. Give me the same feeling I had when I was a kid and in school. Call the local radio stations and have them announce that work is closed due to snow. Yay! No work! I promise I won't waste the day!

When daylight hits, I'll put on my snowsuit, hat, and boots. I don't have gloves so Mom will put socks on my hands. If the snow's a wet one, Mom will put breadsacks over our socked hands to try to keep them dry.

I'll go outside and throw snowballs. If the snow's real wet, I'll make a snow wall to hide behind to keep from getting smacked with the snowballs my brothers are throwing at me. When we tire of that, we'll make a snowman. Then we'll grab the sled and take a few rides down the hill. We might even grab a few bites of the white stuff, avoiding any yellow patches of snow.

Hey, the Waltman boys are making an igloo again! You'd swear Nanook from the North lives in their yard because their igloos are just like the real thing. "Mom, can we go to the Waltman's and play in their igloo???? Puh-leeeeaaaase???" We knew the answer would always be "no", but we still had to ask. Mom was scared it would collapse on us (they never collapse). Maybe one of these days she won't be paying attention to what we are asking and she'll say "yes".

When we get cold and our fingers turn numb, we'll track all that snow inside the house and begin throwing off breadsacks, sock mittens, boots, hats, and snowsuits. Mom will make us some hot cocoa and we'll sit by the oven and warm up....

....Reality check. I stayed home and switched a doctor's appointment so I could work this Friday to make up the nine hours I missed today. Nobody's giving me the day off without a cost to me. There are dishes and laundry to do, but that's not what I want to do. I'd like to go outside and take some photos, but that seems like a lot of trouble. And then I'd end up tracking snow all over my new carpeting. The kid inside me would love to go out and play in the snow, but the lazy adult in me says to stay inside and do some housework.

The sleet is starting back up again. They said we'd have two waves of this stuff. The first one's over and sounds like the second one is beginning. The weather guys say we will have nine inches of this stuff before the end of the day. Hope I can make it to work tomorrow. I've got lots to do before next month's software subrelease.

Sometimes being an adult sucks.

Valley Days

Lately my sister and I have been in blog contact with some fellow "Smith Valley-ians", and the chatter has conjured up a ton of memories from the days we lived in Smith Valley. One of the places they mentioned was "Effie's". Effie was a sweet little old lady that lived in the heart of Smith Valley in one of the older houses on Old Smith Valley Road. Out of her house, she ran "Effie's Variety Store". There were two rooms in the store; the first room had a counter full of candy bars. That's what attracted all of the kids from "The Valley". If you had a nickel in your hand, you had to go to Effie's to buy a candy bar.

I think this house is the one that used to be Effie's. If I'm wrong, hopefully a fellow Smith Valley-ian will let me know.

Very close to Effie's...maybe even next door...lived an older woman that had three thumbs. Her right thumb had a smaller, but perfect, thumb attached to it. She kept it perfectly manicured, just like her other two thumbs. Any time one of us kids had a reason to visit her, whether it was Halloween or selling something from the school, we made sure we hit her house so we could see her third thumb. It seems like she always bought whatever we were selling.

You would think she would've had the thing amputated years ago, but I supposed if I had something as cool as a third thumb, I'd have kept it too. I wonder if she had to pay more for a manicure since it involved 11 digits instead of 10. But back then, people weren't so concerned about themselves that they felt the need to spend $50 for a manicure job.

We had friends that lived in the heart of the valley--the Goodwins, the Branhams. Then there were the Watermans--not friends, but not enemies either. One of the Waterman boys was maybe a year or two older than me and always wore cool Dingo boots. When he got on Harry's school bus, he sauntered on and even had a cool way of sitting on the bus. It takes a cool guy to invent a cool way to sit on a school bus. He was a "Fonzie" kind of guy, for sure. The younger Waterman boy was quite a pistol.

Farther "up" the valley was the EUB church. Our neighbor "Ode" went to church there. I was good friends with Vicki, who's father was the minister there during high school. Nice people.


At the end of Old Smith Valley Road where it intersected with Morgantown Road, was the Beehive Restaurant. When we had enough money for a Chocola, we walked to the Beehive. Chocolas were great drinks on a hot summer day, but the best reason for getting a Chocola was to watch the owner, Ron, shake the drink by bouncing it on his biceps. Those were the days of glass bottles--not cans--and you had to shake the drink to mix the chocolate syrup. Ron's mom owned the restaurant as well. I can see her face, but can't quite remember her name. Maybe it'll come to me before I finish this story. Oh, wait. I'm pretty sure her name was Doris.


Coming back home from the Beehive, we usually stopped in at the Community Center to play on the playground equipment. With any luck, we never ran into the "Valley Gang" during one of our valley trips. I'm not sure what they called themselves--it was just a group of valley boys, and I think one of the Watermans was included. The Valley Gang liked to ride around on their bicycles and when they saw a car coming, they would block the road and not let the car through.

The gang tried this once with my mom. Little did they know Mom's old car was equipped with diesel horns that could rip the eardrums right out of your ear canals. So just north of the old iron bridge on Paddock Road, the gang blocked Mom's car. Heck, Mom had four little hoodlums herself. Did they think THAT was going to instill fear into her? Mom slowly brought the car right up to the boys. She got real close, and then blasted them with the diesel horn! Those boys were falling all over themselves trying to get the heck out of the way!

I don't think they messed with her any more.

There was a very interesting man that lived in the Smith Valley area. I never knew his name, but he was always dressed in a black suit and flat, wide-brimmed black hat. He looked like he just stepped out of the old west. We always called him "Bat Masterson". I never heard of him hurting anyone; I think he was a little strange, but harmless.

Then there was the creepy old coot that lived in the house at the corner of Old Smith Valley Road and our road, Paddock. Somehow we always knew we needed to stay away from him. I'm not sure what the rest of the valley called him, but we called him "Old Man Stayton".

One day, my brothers and I were playing hide and seek on a foggy day. Mike and I were hiding, and Mark was looking for us. I'm not sure where Mark was, but it seems like he was up in a tree. Out of the fog, Mike and I could see Old Man Stayton walking towards the bridge next to our land. We did not want to be in the area when Old Man Stayton got to the bridge, so we hid in a ditch. We had a vantage point where we could see the old man, but he couldn't see us.

Mark couldn't see much of anything from his vantage point. He knew Mike and I were hiding and he couldn't find us. He did not know Old Man Stayton was walking our way. Stayton walked to the middle of the bridge, stopped, and watched the creek for a few minutes. Then he turned towards his house and began walking back home. Like I said, Mark didn't know Old Man Stayton was there, but he decided to try to lure us out of our hiding spot. So very loudly Mark said, "Mon Dieu! Come back!" Old Man Stayton turned around and looked to see who was calling to him!

Not seeing anyone, he again turned and headed for home. Again, Mark yelled, "Mon Dieu! Come back!". Again, the old coot turned around. Mike and I were about to split a gut trying to keep from laughing out loud. Every time Stayton turned and started walking away, Mark would bellow out his semi-French "Mon Dieu! Come back!". The timing was impeccable. The old man finally gave up and eventually disappeared back into the fog.

Then there was the very eccentric Mary Sutton who lived up the road from us. When Mary could still drive, she was a frequent visitor to our place. Mary deserves an entire story, so I'll save her for a later time. And all I've got to say about that is...

"Mon Dieu! Come back!"

North Rural Street Memories

Dad and I were on the front porch of our duplex on North Rural Street in Indy. (Seems like no one else was home but us.) Dad didn't have kids merely to carry on his family name and DNA. He had kids to fetch his beer and cigarettes. That day, Dad told me to go down to the gas station and buy him some cigarettes. I was only five at the time, but back then a kid could walk around the block and not be worried about a drive-by or some pervert picking them up. And a kid could run down to the gas station and buy a package of cigarettes for her dad.

I got up from the porch steps, and Dad told me there was money on the kitchen table. As I walked into the house to pick up the money, he added, "...and get me a beer too". I picked up the money, stuck it in my pocket, and headed out the front door to go to the gas station. At the end of the block, I crossed 19th Street, making sure I looked both ways. Then I was in the gas station's parking lot.

I entered the station. Two attendants were at the counter. One of them leaned over to see what I wanted. I placed my money on the counter and said, "I want a beer and a package of Chesterfields!". The two attendants looked at each other and chuckled. One of them leaned over and said to me, "Honey, we don't sell beer here!". But he handed me the cigarettes and the change.

I walked back to the house and gave Dad his cigarettes. Then I told him that they didn't sell beer at the gas station. He gave me "the look" and said, "I didn't mean for you to BUY a beer. I wanted you to get me one out of the refrigerator!". Man, what a dopey kid I was. That was almost as embarrassing as the time I walked into the tavern where my grandpa bartended and sat down at the bar.

As you may have guessed, the top photo is the duplex we lived in on North Rural as it appears today. The next one is the gas station. I retrieved the photos from Google Maps, and am amazed that I was able to "virtually" walk up and down North Rural again. I was even more surprised to find that the old gas station is still there, and going a little farther north and across the street from the gas station, the old Garnett's market building still stands. It's evidently now a day care center.

The photo to the left is my mom walking home from Garnett's carrying her groceries. You can even see Garnett's in the photo. How cool is that? The cars give away how old this photo is.

Using Google Maps, I even traced my steps back to the school where I attended kindergarten. That was Public School 81. I think my teacher's name was Charity Showalter. We always walked 18th Street to the school. I remember not being able to tie my shoes for the longest time, and Miss Showalter said something about it one day. That made me determined to learn. In our classroom, we had a Fisher-Price "Old Woman that Lived in a Shoe" toy, complete with laces. I took that toy every day and played with it until I learned how to tie my shoes.

PS81 is also where I had my first crush. I was in love with David Qualkenbush, who had strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. I can still recall what he looked like--he was the cutest boy in the class. One day our teacher announced that we were going to have a field trip that day and we would choose partners. We all had to sit in a big circle on the floor to "choose up". Here's my chance, I thought. As soon as my name was called, I was going to pick David as my partner for the field trip. Little did I know until that day that EVERY girl in kindergarten had a crush on David Qualkenbush.
I didn't realize that, alphabetically, my name was way at the end of the pack--and that's how the names were being called. Sure enough, the first girl called ran over and picked David. My heart was broken. I remember hanging my head and tears going down my cheeks. Then at my deepest minute of despair, I saw a pair of shoes stop in front of me. I looked up and saw another little boy in my class. He asked ME to be his partner! Hey, maybe I was the cutest girl in the glass and every boy had a crush on ME.

I wiped my tears, stood up and took his hand. Who needed dumb ol' David Qualkenbush, anyway.

"Bird in the House, Ma"

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table as usual, puffing on his cigarette and sipping his beer. He did his deepest thinking at the kitchen table. You could see the wheels turning, and just know he was devising a get-rich-quick plan. But this particular night, his thinking was interrupted.

We were visiting for the weekend. My husband was in his usual place too--in the family room laying on the couch watching television. My kids were maybe three and six. They were with the rest of us in the family room. Dad came out of his thought balloon long enough to say, "Bird in the house, Ma". No excitement. Just a statement about the bird he saw flying around in the kitchen. I hopped up and ran into the kitchen, telling Dad, "Don't hurt it!".

Then the "bird" took a swoop at my head. I ducked just in time and yelled, "IT'S A BAT!!!!". Then pandemonium broke out. I panicked. The kids absorbed my fear and they started yelling and crying. I grabbed my babies and ran from room to room, trying to keep them away from the bat. The bat kept following us through the house. I was not thinking clearly, or I would've realized that all I had to do was put the kids in a bedroom and shut the door! All I could think about was one of us being bitten by a rabid bat.

At one point, I hit the kitchen on a return lap of panic and saw Dad with a flyswatter. He had the bat down to the floor, "whop whop whopping" it with a flyswatter. But soon the bat escaped and continued his flight back and forth through the house. My brave husband didn't move from his horizontal position the entire time. No show of fear, excitement, or anything. Just typical Leroy.

Thankfully, the bat finally flew out onto the enclosed back porch. Still in my unthinking state, I hurried to the sliding glass door between the kitchen and the back porch, slid the door shut, and locked it--like the bat had the ability to open the door and come back in! Thank God...now he was on the back porch where he couldn't get any of us. Then we heard a frenzied knocking from the other side of the sliding glass door. It was Mom! I had locked the bat and her on the porch! I didn't know if Mom had found a hiding spot out there, or what. But it turned out to be the worst spot in the house to take refuge once the bat was there and I locked her out.

We got Mom back inside and Dad went to the back porch, eventually getting the bat outside. Then it was time to take a deep breath and laugh. My son told us that he knew vampires weren't real, but that also encompassed bats--since bats turn into vampires and vampires turn into bats. Bats weren't real because vampires weren't real--until that night. When he saw the bat, he was forced into a swift paradigm shift. He now had to believe that bats were real, and therefore vampires were real too. And he thought that bat would turn into a blood-sucking vampire at any time.

...and I must've watched too many episodes of "Dark Shadows" when I was in high school.

Afternote...my sister remembers this a little differently than I do, and I must admit she's probably correct. She said her husband (now her ex) was there and I was climbing his back. I don't recall him being there, but I've been trying to forget that chucklehead for years. She also said I wasn't grabbing the kids to try to take them to safety, but only thinking of myself. I guess that's what hysteria does to a person!

The Garden of Eatin'

When we moved to Smith Valley in September of 1962, our five-acre plot had been planted entirely in stinking cabbage. We ate slaw. We ate boiled cabbage. We fried cabbage. We put cabbage in soup. We gave away cabbage. We were sick of cabbage.

Once you cut a head of cabbage from the garden, it leaves behind the root, plus whatever you didn't cut off when you harvested the cabbage. Those things take a long time to decompose. So we had the rotting cabbage smell around for quite a while. We don't know why the former occupants of our house planted five acres in cabbage, but they must've decided to sell when the cabbage started stinking up Smith Valley.

The next spring, we had the garden plowed and set to work planting tomatoes, potatoes, onions, radishes, and lots of sweet corn. I don't remember planting all five acres, but we did have a pretty good-sized garden---probably close to an acre.

I guess Dad thought he'd get some return on his investment on raising kids by buying us each a hoe, and enforcing his rule that we would hoe one row every day. We weren't happy about it, but we did it. I remember hoeing furiously just to get it over with. At times I would miss and hit the corn instead. So I'd pick up the cut corn stalk and stick it back in the ground real fast. Maybe Dad would think that there was some worm in the ground chomping his corn.

Every day I finished my chore before the boys. I'd straighten up, and loudly proclaim, "I'm the best hoer in Greenwood!". Nowadays, every fourth-grader knows what a "ho" is. To me, it was just a piece of metal attached to a long stick that caused blisters on my hands. Since I used a hoe and I was the fastest at it than anyone else I knew, I thought I had earned the right to call myself "the best hoer in Greenwood". (By the way, Smith Valley is sort of a "suburb" of Greenwood, so no... I hadn't forgotten where I lived--we had a Greenwood mailing address.)

Fast forward about seven years. I had taken a day off of school. I wasn't sick, but just didn't feel like going to school that day. It also happened to be my Dad's day off, so that wasn't good planning on my part. (What I wouldn't give for an entire day with my dad now!) Dad went to Farm Bureau and bought a couple hundred tomato plants. They came wrapped bare-rooted in wet newspaper strips. When he got home, he told me I was going to help him plant. Just like hoeing, I wanted to get this chore over with so I could do what I wanted with the rest of the day. So I dug holes and planted tomatoes in warp speed.

I was probably 30 feet ahead of Dad, who was planting tomatoes in his own row. Out of the blue, he started chuckling quietly. Then his laugh got louder and louder. I straightened up to look at him to see if I could figure out what was so funny. He finally said, "Helen, I have enough weeds in this garden without you planting them". Right in front of Dad in my row was a weed...in its own little spot, planted and watered. Evidently, there was a weed in the middle of my tomato plants, and I planted it right along with the tomatoes!

By the way, those hard reddish "rocks" you buy in the store are not tomatoes. If you have never eaten a Hoosier-grown tomato right out of the garden, you have no idea how good a real tomato tastes.

Mark-isms

Remember I told you that my little brother Mark has provided me with plenty of stories? It's time for a few short ones.


BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Mom and I were hanging clothes on the line when my brother Mark (maybe 11 at the time) came out of the house with a panicked look on his face. His right hand was covering his right ear. Of course, we were thinking, "What now?"

"Mom! Mom!...I got a fly in my ear!", he yelled. Mom had the perfect answer. "Well, let it out, Stupid!!!".

Mark took his hand away from his ear and the fly simply flew out. We didn't even bother asking him WHY he was holding the fly in his ear.


BRIDGE OUT!

When we were very young, we must've been staying with our Aunt Rita. She and Mom were non-identical twins. Aunt Rita was a fun aunt, but she also loved to scare the bejeezus out of us.

Mark was just a little squirt--maybe three years old. He and Mike were in the back seat of Aunt Rita's car and I was sitting in front. We were riding around in the countryside, and came upon a collapsed bridge. It was just one of those little one-lane country road bridges and had the typical warning sign for "BRIDGE OUT". Well, Aunt Rita turned the car around to go back the other way; but then got this look on her face. She put the car in reverse and started backing up to the bridge.

We thought she'd lost her marbles. The louder we screamed, the faster she backed up to the bridge. We screamed for what seemed like an eternity, and just before we got to the bridge and the big gaping hole, she stopped the car. Aunt Rita then put the car into forward, and drove away from the bridge in a cloud of gravel dust. I remember hearing this maniacal laughter from her, so I know she really enjoyed the scare she put into us.

It took all three of us a few minutes to catch our breath and calm our hearts down. None of us said a word--until Mark piped up with, "I like being scared, 'cause it feels so good when it quits!".


Bonjour, Class!

Our music education at Center Grove Elementary was cheerfully provided by Mrs. Hunter. Although she was a very nice lady, she was a pretty bad music teacher. When it was time for our weekly music class, Mrs. Hunter would push her little cart of stuff into our class. (I don't recall that she ever used anything off of that cart, but she always had a dried sunflower on it.) Anyway, we would start the class with...


Good morning to you!
Good morning to you!
We're all in our places
With sun-shiny faces.
Oh, this is the way
To start a new day!

God, we hated that stupid song.

Then Mrs. Hunter would choose someone from the class to come up to the blackboard. He or she would be instructed to draw "100" on the board. Then we were to turn the "100" into a sunflower. She never explained the reason for this strange lesson, but it was easy and it made her happy to see that we knew what a sunflower looked like. Every week was the same. Sing the dumb song and draw a sunflower. I'm sure we must've done something else during these classes, but I don't remember what it was.

One week it was my brother Mark's turn for music class. As always, Mrs. Hunter had Mark's class sing the dreaded song and then chose someone to draw the sunflower. As she was pushing her cart out of the door, as always, she tried to give the class one last piece of culture. She always said her goodbye as, "Bonjour, class!". Then out the door she'd go.

Well, this time when Mrs. Hunter bade the class "Bonjour" in her finest French accent and turned to go out the door, that goofy brother of mine said (and in a loud gruff voice)..."BONE-JORE!!!!". Mrs. Hunter wheeled around and demanded to know "WHO SAID THAT????".

Twenty-nine fingers pointed in Mark's direction. I don't know what his punishment was, but it probably involved a principal and a plank of wood.

The Grossest Thing I Ever Ate

I was about eight months pregnant with my first child. Pregnancy made me hungry all the time, and constantly craving chocolate eclairs. You can't possibly find eclairs in this neck of the woods, so the only time I got eclairs was when I was up at Mom and Dad's.

But this morning, toast sounded good. I popped two slices of bread in the toaster and pushed down the handle. In a few seconds, the toaster began to pop and crackle. "Great", I thought. "The toaster is going on the fritz."

The toast finished and I buttered and jellied both slices. Then I went outside and sat on the front porch to eat my breakfast. Boy, did that toast hit the spot. As I finished, I got up to make two more slices. Again, I threw a couple of slices of bread into the slots and pushed down the handle.

But this time, the toaster began sizzling, smoking, and smelling. And it wasn't a good smell--kind of like burning hair. I popped up the toast and removed it to have a look inside. What I saw made me violently ill. Stuck inside the wires of the toaster was a little mouse. His nose was right where one slice of bread would've touched it!

I brushed my teeth for a good half-hour, constantly gagging whenever I thought of that mouse's nose touching my toast! Then I sat outside and gagged some more. As soon as I started feeling better, I went inside, unplugged the toaster, and pitched it outside. I never, ever wanted another piece of "mouse nose toast" again.

Mark Started It!

I don't remember having to take naps when I was a very young girl, but probably because nothing notable ever happens during a nap to make you remember taking one--except once. Mike, Mark, and I were in our shared bedroom. The boys shared one twin bed, and I had the other one all to myself. You could make bunk beds out of these beds, but at this time they were split into regular beds and were just three or four feet apart.

We just weren't sleepy that day. Looking for something to do, my youngest brother Mark, peeled back a corner of his sheet. There was a small hole in the mattress. Mark dug around in the hole and came out with a tiny bunch of white stuffing; then he threw it at me. I picked it up and threw it back. Mike then picked out another piece of stuffing and threw it at me; and again, I threw it back. This went on for a few minutes, with more and more stuffing being launched from bed to bed. I felt like I wasn't getting enough ammunition, so I tore a hole in my mattress and began throwing the stuffing at the boys.

It wasn't long before our bedroom looked like it was in the middle of a blizzard. Stuffing was flying everywhere! The hole in my mattress was about the size of my fist, but the hole in the boys' mattress was about 18" in diameters and was so deep that it went clear to the ticking on the bottom! Right when the blizzard was getting close to being a "white-out", Mom walked in.

Needless to say, Mom was NOT happy. I don't remember the punishment, but I do remember laying in bed for quite a while after that. And I remember hearing (and doing) a lot of sniffling. I guess Mom felt bad for getting so angry; although I can't imagine NOT getting angry when your three kids destroy two mattresses. Anyway, about an hour or two later, she walked in our room with a plate of homemade cookies.

Why do kids do things like this? It's just when you're having fun, nothing else matters. All that you're thinking about is what a good time you're having. You don't think about getting caught, or having to live with the consequences of your ten minutes of fun for a very long time.

...sort of like having three kids in 27 months, huh Mom?

Blind in One Eye...Can't See Out of the Other

I remember it beginning in fourth grade. That's the year I started school at Our Lady. I sat in the middle of the classroom. Sister would always write the math problems on the board using very large numbers. It didn't matter--I couldn't see them. Somehow I realized if I pulled on my eyelids to make my eyes squint REAL HARD I could barely make out the numbers and could then write them in my notebook. It had to have taken my twice as long as the other students to get my classwork done.

I never saw anyone else having trouble reading the chalkboard, but I never thought about me having bad eyesight either. I guess little kids don't even think about such things. I got away with this trick for over three years. No one ever noticed--or if they did, they probably just thought I was being a stupid little kid.

Then when I was in sixth grade, one of the neighborhood girls got glasses. She let me try them on and I was shocked. I could see leaves on faraway trees. I could read things from a distance. It was like magic. I ran in the house and told Mom about it. She dismissed it with, "Oh, you just want glasses!" Well, I didn't want glasses, but I did want to SEE. (No doubt she heard stuff like that from us every day.)

One day while waiting for the school bus, I ran back to the house and told Mom a plane had landed in the field. She ran outside to see, but the plane turned out to be the white roof of a house. Sure looked like a plane to me. The next winter, we were sledding down at the creek. It had frozen over and there were several inches of snow on the ground. As I was bringing my sled up the hill, I didn't see that I was walking right into the branches of a tree. I punctured my right lower eyelid completely through. The boys thought it was pretty cool that I was crying blood. I went into the house, looked into the mirror, pulled down my eyelid, and picked out the bark that was left behind. I was lucky I didn't get an infection, but it healed up quite nicely. Then there was the time I was pitching a softball to one of my brothers, who hit a line drive right into my eye. I didn't see that one coming either. I sure didn't have any problem seeing that big ol' black eye in the mirror.

In seventh grade, we were getting ready to head to my grandma's house. Dad and I were packing the car in the early morning hours before sunrise. I looked up in the sky and said, "Dad, look at the full moon". Dad looked up and said, "That's a crescent moon". And stars? I could only make out a couple of the brightest planets as very blurry round pieces of light.

Dad took me inside and held a book at arm's length. "Read it", he said. Read it? I couldn't even begin to make out any words. I had to hold a book within six inches of my eyes to be able to read. That's when he told Mom that I needed to go see an eye doctor.

A few days later, the optometrist at Sears told Mom that I needed a seeing-eye dog! I picked out my glasses and began a long week's wait for them to arrive. Seven days later, I walked out of Sears sporting a very stylish pair of spectacles. I nearly sprained my neck to see everything. I could read signs. I could see people's faces. What an amazing thing it is to not see for several years and then suddenly being able to see everything!

Three of us out of the four ended up very nearsighted. I also have a moderate amount of astigmatism to go along with the myopia. When my kids were little, I knew what signs to watch for, and both of them saw an optometrist by the time they were five. I took my son when he was in kindergarten, and then again a year or two later. On the second visit, Doc told me that his eyes were fine, but he was going to be near-sighted like me.

My daughter was about three when she looked across two back yards at my neighbor. She closed one eye, pointed, and said, "Mom, Carol looks furry". At first I thought it was one of Carrie's "made-up" words when she didn't know the right word to use. But then I realized she might mean blurry instead of furry. I thought her eyesight also might explain why the child couldn't walk UP a flight of stairs without falling UP the stairs. So I took her to see Doc. Doc said that her eyes were fine, but it's easier for a kid to focus one eye rather than two eyes. So out of a DNA mixture of a very far-sighted male with tons of astigmatism and a very myopic female with a moderate amount of astigmatism, we had one myopic kid. Our daughter got off easy.

Some have asked me why I don't have Lasix to correct my eyes. Years ago, I would've had it done. But now my biggest problem is presbyopia. That's when your arms get too short to read the newspaper. I wear progressive lenses, but they don't help much when I sit in front of a PC all day (and all night). So at work, I wear single-vision lenses ground to my "near" prescription. If I had Lasix, I would lose the ability to remove my glasses and practically see down to the cellular level! There are just too many times during the day when I have to remove my glasses to be able to see very tiny print. So I'll just put up with glasses and contacts.

By the way, I ended up going to work for Doc. I took patient accuities and made glasses in our little lab. I didn't grind the lenses, but ordered them, set them up, cut them, hardened the glass lenses, and put the glasses together. I was really good at dyeing plastic lenses too. But the best part of the job was getting all of the family's glasses for lab cost, and Doc's eye care for free.

Doc moved to Terre Haute years ago and I've had lots of other jobs since then. I now go to an eye doctor in a neighboring town. He uses the same Snellen eye chart that Doc used. So whenever I have an eye exam, I really have to think if I can see the letters or if I'm just spouting them off from memorization.

If you've got kids, watch for those signs that tell you something isn't right with their vision. My grades didn't drop due to my poor eyesight, but boy, do I have droopy eyelids from all the pulling!

Mealtime Fun

One of the most irritating things we did as kids happened at mealtimes. When one of us would get bored with the food Mom prepared, he or she would start stirring everything together. We coined this culinary technique and subsequent new dish "giggle soup". Each giggle soup had a different recipe. Some days it could contain Spam (not the email variety) and some days the main ingredient would be hamburger.

The giggle soup creator would take a bite of giggle soup and of course he/she would GIGGLE. That was the whole point of making giggle soup. This would then entice the rest of us to stir our food together and make our own giggle soup. The ratio of foodstuff would be different depending on how much of everything was eaten or not eaten. But the effect was always the same—insane giggling. Eventually, we would realize that all that food mixed together tasted like crap and the giggling (and eating) would stop.

Of course Mom would get upset. Looking back, I sure don't blame her. Money was tight, not to mention the time Mom invested in cooking. So to have the three older kids waste like that had to be maddening. I'm sure the initial creation of giggle soup had to be by my brother Mark. Mike and I were the good kids.

Another "meal" thing that made Mom blow her top was the day I got caught. I was a picky eater, and even on days when giggle soup was not the soup of the day, I didn't want to eat. So I would poke along, waiting until everyone else had eaten and been excused from the table. Then when Mom wasn't in the kitchen, I'd spoon my leftovers onto all the dirty plates that belonged to the rest of the family. I got away with this for a very long time.

Then one day it happened. Right when I was getting ready to dump a spoonful onto someone else's plate, Mom walked in. It didn't take her more than a fraction of a second to figure out what I was up to. I don't remember my punishment, but I hope it didn't involve telling my dad. We kids really weren't scared of Mom, but we knew right behind Mom was Dad. Dad wasn't afraid of having CPS called on him for whipping his kids' butts. Back then, kids got their butts smacked when they were bad. It didn't take us very long to figure out to just NOT do bad things in the first place.

…Well, except for Mark. Mark was a trouble-magnet and he always says that it's not that he was a bad kid, but that the rest of us were such good kids that it made him look bad. You will see a lot of "Mark" stories in the future, as he has supplied me with a lot of inspiration.

A Fireside Spaghetti Dinner

I know you're not going to believe this one, but I swear it happened. My family will back me up. Back when I was maybe around 12, Mom had made spaghetti and meatballs for supper. Since Dad didn't like spaghetti, he was having hamburger. Dad was at the head of the table; I was to his right, then my brother Mike. Mom was at the other end of the table, then my brother Mark and sister Rita. That's all of us.

We were lovin' the heck out of our spaghetti and meatballs. It was a family favorite; well, except for Dad who was chowing down his burger. As Dad always did, he ate fast and grabbed his cigarettes. (I hated when Dad smoked, but especially when I was trying to eat.) Dad stuck the cigarette in his mouth, grabbed his matches, and lit up.

Suddenly, there was a loud "WHOOSH" and a flame that shot out of Dad's mouth clear across the table! I've seen Dad breathe fire with his words, but never actually shoot a flame out of his mouth! Dad got up and took off to the bathroom. All of us sat there in shock trying to figure out what in the heck just happened. After a few minutes, I started coming back to reality and could hear and see again. I looked to my right, and there was my brother Mike with his face buried in the seat of his chair. He was making this soft crying sound, like a "wooooooooo". Then I looked at his plate. In the shock of the moment, I had taken my hand and smashed it into Mike's plate of spaghetti. I had pushed down so hard that I had actually cut the strands of spaghetti between my fingers. And my hand was still sitting in that plate of spaghetti.

While we were trying to recover, Dad had gone to the bathroom to wash out his mouth. Then he came back and explained why he was "flame-throwing". Before dinner, Dad had been working in the garage. Dad always had a long-neck beer with him. He grabbed the bottle of beer and took a big swig, but it wasn't beer. It was gasoline! Some time earlier, he had put gasoline in an empty beer bottle. Then later he picked up THAT bottle instead of the one that contained beer. Don't ask me why Dad did these things--he just did.

So after Dad lit his cigarette with the match, he blew out the match. He still had gas vapor in his lungs and you know what happens when gas vapor hits a flame or spark. WHOOOOSH!

Again, I swear it happened.

Creepy George

George was in my class at Our Lady when we moved from Indianapolis to Smith Valley. That was fourth grade. He was one of those creepy kind of kids that nobody liked. I just tried to stay away from him for the entire school year. That summer, my brothers and I were kicked out of Our Lady. There were so many "rich" Catholics moving into the area, that they wanted to get rid of the poor kids to make room for the rich kids. One day Father gave my mom a call and asked her if she was going to start tithing. Mom gave what she could, but she couldn't give ten percent, and that's what she told Father.

The next thing Mom heard was Father Mueller telling her, "Then your children will not be going to school here next year". Yeah, like that was a bad thing??? I could breathe again! I didn't like Our Lady. It was run more like a POW camp than a school. It took us two buses to get home, and we were only seven miles away. So in fifth grade, I started going to Center Grove. The best thing was...no more George! That creepy boy was out of my life...or so I thought.

I can't remember when he started going to Center Grove, but it wasn't too long after I started there. He claimed he was kicked out of Our Lady because he just happened to be sitting on the school bus with both hands on his books in his lap--and his thumbs were straight up. (Yeah, right.) George claimed that Randy sat on his thumb, but we all know that George goosed Randy. So George got kicked out of Our Lady of Greenwood--not for being poor, but for goosing another boy.

Wouldn't you know. George was in my class again, and developed a crush on me. To top it off, he lived within walking distance of my house! Every Saturday the creep would show up and molest my little sister's Barbie dolls. (I told you he was a creep.) Then he'd start chasing me. Every Saturday, I'd run across the street and get my friend Penny to beat up George. Penny was a year older than me, so she was around 11 at the time. But she had muscles and wasn't afraid to use them.

Ol' George would get the hint after Penny waled on him, and he'd go home. But every Saturday morning, he'd forget the lesson he received the week before. He'd repeat the same drill every Saturday. Show up. Molest Barbie. Chase me. Get beat up by Penny. Run home. You'd think he'd learn. Or maybe he just craved attention so much, that even getting his butt whooped every Saturday was better than nothing.

Another Saturday--true to form, George showed up again. He molested Barbie again, and then started chasing me. And as always, I ran over to Penny's. But this time, Penny didn't come out when I yelled. I ran round and round her house screaming her name, with George right behind me. Where was Penny? How could she not be there when she knew this was our Saturday ritual?

From his labored breathing, I just knew George was frothing at the mouth and getting closer. What I didn't know was what he'd do if he ever caught me. So I ran around that house until I could no longer run. Finally, I stopped, turned, and faced that creepy George. He stopped about three feet in front of me, wearing his insipid grin and breathing like some asthmatic hunchback. Oh God, if that slobbery creep kissed me I was going to puke.

I knew I couldn't beat the snot out of him like Penny did. So I did the only thing I could think of. I winded up and kicked the creep in the shin as hard as I could. I guess the shin was George's "Achilles Heel". He folded like an accordion, and hobbled home. That day I learned that sometimes you have to fight your own battles, and God gives you strength when you need it.

I never had to put up with that creepy George another Saturday.

The Running of the Cows

Our first stop in the Indian state of Rajasthan was the city of Jaisalmer. Saumil was anxious to show us the Jaisalmer Fort, also known as the Golden Fort (or Sonar Quila). The fort was built in 1156 as a city within a fort. It's still a living fort today, although the population has outgrown the fort and spread outside the walls. If I remember correctly, I think our guide told us there were 3,000 people that lived and worked or had businesses inside of the fort.

There are many narrow alley-like streets inside the fort where there are merchants with small shops in front of their living quarters. At one point, the seven of us were following our guide (who also lived in the fort) through one of those narrow streets. By narrow streets, I mean maybe barely larger than a nice sidewalk. And the walls of the inner structures are built right up to the streets. The street we were on was about as wide as the one shown, but much more bare, with a few residences.

If you'll notice to your left of the moped, there's one of the millions of India's sacred cows. The open gate of the fort allows cows, goats, or dogs to just stroll through the fort. I don't know why a cow would care to stay at a place that has no grass, but there were lots of cows. (For the sake of my sanity, by "cows" I mean "cows" and "bulls".)

Anyway, back to the story. We were walking through a street as narrow as the one shown--the seven of us and our guide. The guide was leading the way, and I was second in line. I noticed a cow nursing her calf smack dab in the middle of the street. Oh, and I don't know a lot about the bovines of this world, but Indian cows (and bulls) both have some mighty fierce horns. This ol' girl was no exception. Besides that, she ended up being very protective of her calf.

Back to the guide--he walked to the left of the cow and I was just a few feet behind him. As he walked by, the cow gave him a small "gore" to his rump...and by rump, I mean his arse. I stopped dead in my tracks. The guide turned around and said, "C'mon, it's ok". (Yes, his English was very good.) Not that I didn't trust the guide, but I didn't trust the cow! I was scared to talk, but very emphatically shook my head "NO!". He tried to coerce me once more, and I shook my head even harder.

Then the guide said, "Saumil, come and show her it's ok". Saumil bravely ventured in front of me, and walked to the left of the cow. He got an even harder gore to his arse. Then she turned her head, looked right into my eyes, and I could swear she said, "You're next, bitch!". Not caring that her calf was still locked onto her udder, she charged me. The six of us (minus Saumil and the guide, who were safely on the other side of the cow) took off running as fast as we could on those slick stone pavers.

I have this little problem when I get scared. My eyesight just doesn't function very well when I need it the most. I don't know if I get tunnel vision, or if things just don't register. And again, my vision failed me due to fear. I jumped onto the first landing I saw in hopes of escaping the charging cow. Then I noticed I had only jumped onto a very small six-inch step! The thing that saved me was that the cow followed the remaining five of our troupe after I veered off to the other side. Right across the narrow street from me were all five, including my son. They had jumped onto a porch which was about three feet high. I was so scared, I didn't see them or the porch. I only saw that measly little step. And it was my savior, or so I thought.

I'm sure the cow could've jumped onto the porch with them, but the lovely old Indian woman that lived there saw what was happening. She had gone inside her little residence and gotten a large bowl of something--I assumed it to be grain. The cow stopped dead in her tracks and ate out of the bowl, forgetting about the goring she was wanting to do to us. I must've looked pretty funny to the group, standing on that stupid little step. We all had a good laugh, although it was a very nervous laugh coming from all of us.

That's a lesson to always pay attention to your instincts. If that little warning goes off inside of your head, listen and react to it. My little warning voice told me I was going to get an even harder gore to my arse if I'd walked by her. And another thing...when something like this happens to a group of people--you know, like a charging cow, lion, tiger--you don't have to be the fastest. You just have to NOT be the slowest! Since I was old enough to be the mother of everyone in my group and way too much overweight, I'm sure I was the slowest. Why she didn't end up following me is something I'll never understand.

The next day we were in the fort again, in a narrow alleyway--but this time it was on a slope. We were heading up the slope. And there was another one of those durned cows ahead of us. I didn't see a nursing calf, but by then I trusted no cow. One of my fellow travelers was right in front of me, but when that little voice went off, I moved to the left closer to the wall.

Just then the cow decided to turn around and go down the slope. She lost her footing on the slick stone pavers and all I could see was cow moving down that street very fast, with hooves and legs flying all over the place. As she went by my traveling companion, she scraped against Vaidehi's arm and left quite a mark on it. Now, if that had happened to me, I would've imagined picking up rabies or mad cow disease. Vai didn't flinch--just rubbed her arm and kept going.

You would think the cow goring was the most exciting thing I saw in India. Not quite. On the way to the main wedding ceremony, we were riding in the back seat of someone's car. Behind us, in a city the size of Indianapolis with five times the population, was a huge elephant with his driver (mahout) perched on top--right behind our car! All of that traffic, and here's this elephant transportation!

Just thank God that elephant wasn't nursing her calf!

Are they Filed under "C"?

I can remember when these things started--1967. The reason I can remember the year is because that's the year the Buckinghams had the hit "Kind of a Drag". I had so many during that year, that it got to the point where just hearing this song would trigger multiples. I'd have them over and over again until I got sick to my stomach.

Stress or excitement would also trigger them. In high school, if our basketball team game was playing a really intense game, I'd have them until I had to leave the gym. (Today I can't imagine ever being that excited about any sporting event!)

How could I even begin to tell someone about these things? This time was at the height of LSD popularity, and if I told someone I was having "visions", I know they would've sent me away somewhere--especially if I told them what the visions were about. Heck, my dad thought I was on drugs when he found Midol in my bedroom...what would he think if I had told him I was spacing out and these hallucinations were playing in my head? I would've been in rehab for sure. I would've at least been stuck in my room for the duration of my teenage years.

Even as a really young kid, I never liked cartoons. Some of them I even hated. Evidently there is a special place in my brain where I file "cartoons I especially hate"...and that's where these electric currents would hit every time. When one of these spells would get ready to hit, I knew it was coming. I'd first have a sense of deja vu--like I've been here before--done this before. Then it would start rolling over me like a wave.

My vision would dim, and so would the environment around me. I could no longer respond to the world around me. The electricity would hit in that same place in my brain, but the "cartoon I especially hate" would vary. The selected cartoon would play in my head, just like I was watching it on TV. They even had sound. Then the cartoon would fade. My vision would return to normal and I could respond to people again. I don't know how long these things would last, but sometimes they'd come one right after another.

I had no idea of what transpired around me during these spells, and I couldn't even remember what cartoon was playing in my head. I kept this secret for many years, and no one ever suspected I had a problem--that is, until my senior English class. We loved our teacher, Mr. Bridges. But he had a rule. If you got caught daydreaming in class, your grade would get knocked down.

We were in the top English class. We always made straight A's in English. But coming out of that cartoon spell one day, I saw Mr. Bridges looking at me. Then he bent down and wrote something in his log book. I knew I'd been caught, but I wasn't daydreaming and I couldn't help it. Sure enough, I got an A- on that grading period. I couldn't tell Mr. Bridges either. I kept my secret for ten years.

When I turned about 20 or so, I quit having these spells. I had my first baby, and things were going fine. Then when my son was about 18 months old, they came back. But this time I was pretty sure doctors wouldn't accuse me of tripping on LSD. My dad no longer suspected me of using Midol as a recreational drug. I was referred to a neurologist and had an EEG. The diagnosis came back in a week or so. I had psychomotor epilepsy.

I was prescribed Dilantin and sent home. The Dilantin made me sleepy and lazy, but the worst side effect was that my gums grew down to the bottom of my teeth! I quit the Dilantin cold turkey, which put me into more seizures just from coming off the medicine. I didn't care. The side effects of the medicine were worse than the seizures. Once I adjusted to going off of the Dilantin, the seizures never returned. That's been over 32 years ago. In fact, it's been so long that I had forgotten all about my former epilepsy until I was watching "Mystery Diagnosis" tonight. (By the way, if you have epilepsy, DO NOT attempt taking yourself off of your medication.)

A woman on tonight's episode had many of the same symptoms that I had...well, minus the cartoons. I "told" the doctors on her case that she has epilepsy. Nobody took this woman seriously--until after 42 years when she was sent to a second neurologist. She ended up having one of her temporal lobes removed and that fixed the problem.

That seems a bit extreme, but it had gotten to the point where she was having wrecks during her seizures. Luckily, I never had any seizures while driving. Oh, come to find out, the deja vu is actually an "aura", much like someone getting a migraine has.

By the way, the cartoons depicted in that last graphic really are the "cartoons I especially hate"!

Running Bear

On the bank of the river
Stood Running Bear
Young Indian brave
On the other side of the river
Stood his lovely Indian maid
Little White Dove was her name
Such a lovely sight to see
But their tribes fought with each other
So their love could never be

Running Bear loved Little White Dove
With a love big as the sky
Running Bear loved Little White Dove
With a love that couldn't die

Every time I run across this photo, I'm transported to North Rural Street in Indianapolis around 1960. That's when Johnny Preston had the hit song "Running Bear". When that song was playing, not only us kids acted like "Indians"...so did our neighbor Ginny and my mom. The photo shows Ginny sporting her son's Indian headdress and some warpaint--which was probably makeup. I think she's shooting a make-believe bow. My mom's on the left.

We played that song all afternoon, with kids and moms whooping and dancing like we were possessed by Geronimo. Based on the beer bottle in the photo, I think Ginny and Mom had a little "persuasion" for their warrior bravery. The last photo confirms my feeling that we had a record with this song on it. I don't know how the record kept from skipping with five kids and two adults stomping around the room.

Of course, this happened before Pong, Nintendo, Atari, and now Wii were invented. My favorite toy was my Etch-a-Sketch. That's about as advanced as civilization was in the late 50s/early 60s, but maybe we were better off. We used our imaginations and didn't rely on the imaginations of computer game programmers and analysts. We didn't spend hours staring at a screen, only exercising our thumbs.

Isn't it funny how something as simple as our little war dance made a memory that has lasted almost 50 years? You have no way of knowing what will make a memory for your children. Try to make them all good memories.