To Know Me Is To Know My Family: Siblings adventures on the farm (23)

Here are a few little snippets about my sibling’s childhood adventures on the farm

Alanna and Henry

It was a spring day, birds were singing, there was a gentle breeze and it was just after lunch. It was naptime on the farm. Grandpa loved to take his naps behind the garage, sitting on a chair in the shade from the building, with his rifle by his side. It seems Alanna and Henry had another idea. They decided that it would be fun to play a trick on Grandpa. In order to orchestrate this prank, Alanna stood on one side of the garage and Henry was on the other side. They took turns throwing rocks out in the garden in front of Grandpa just as he would start to doze off. After the rocks being thrown for about 10 minutes, Grandpa at age of 64 did not see the humor in that at all. Angry as all get out, he jumped to his feet, (being very spry for his age), with rifle in his hand, took off running after Alanna and Henry. Janice, joined in on the escape even though she had not taken part in it. Grandma ran after Grandpa, yelling now George they are just children. Don’t you hurt them. First Alanna, then Henry, bringing up the tail end Janice ran into the kitchen where Mom was at the sink, she spun around in shock when she saw Grandpa chasing after the kids, now by-passing Janice as he knew she was innocent. Grandma was in close pursuit. Alanna and Henry found their way to the closet where they each put their little feet in Dad’s work boots and rainboots and stood very, very still. Grandpa never found them.  No children were hurt on this day, Grandpa never did get his nap, but he sure got an ear full from Grandma and Mom.

Henry

Henry was always adventurous, curious and wanted to find out about the world. One day, while by the kitchen table, he thoug.ht it would be funny to stick his head between the slots in the kitchen table chair. It was amusing until it was time for my brother to slip his head out. He turned his head sideways, that didn’t work, he turned it to the complete other side and tugged all his might and that didn’t work. After several attempts, he started to panic. His sister ran to get our parents, telling them that Henry had his head stuck in the chair and couldn’t get it back out. Rushing to Henry’s aid, our Mom tried to calm him down, while our Dad tired slipping out his head facing straight forward. But to no avail. Lard was applied to try to grease Henry up in hopes that his head would slide right on back through the slots, again no success. Henry was beside himself and our parents were trying to think of another solution that might do the trick. Finally, they came to the conclusion that they would have to get the saw. When Henry heard the word “saw,” his beautiful blue eyes filled with tears. Did he hear right? Dad and Mom had come to the decision that they would have to saw it off!!!! Henry cried out through the tears saying, please don’t saw my head off, PLEASE. Dad and Mom looked at each other, first amused, then with concern in their hearts and told Henry that it was the chair that they would have to saw off to get an opening to get his head out. Feeling nervous and with Mom comforting him while holding his head still, Dad carefully sawed the bars off so that once again Henry could be a normal little boy. Henry’s head was attached to his body but the chair took the brunt of consequences that day. But then again Henry is much more precious than any old chair.

Janice

It was a cold and wintery night. It was raining hard, the wind was blowing briskly. The lights went out and the so the candles came out.  The family did not have many candles so they all huddled around the kitchen table to be around the light. The adults that were present decided tonight they would play Monopoly. Farm life was simple. Mom and Dad  did not have a television as of yet. Oh, they would listen to radio programs such as, The Shadow, The Burns and Allen Show, and the Lone Ranger but television was a luxury that was not affordable at the time. They had just recently made their way into some homes in America.

As the game started, Mom, Dad, and Teddy were present. Monopoly was going smoothly. All property had been sold and now they were taking turns buying houses —- until, Mom notice that one of her houses were missing. Janice had been around the game and now she was choking on something. Everyone, went into action. They were hanging her upside down, patting her on her back, looking down her throat. Alanna and Henry were looking on with concern for their sister, but were wondering if this was going to be happening to them next? Poor little Janice was caught up in a whirl wind and wasn’t sure what was happening. This was unusual behavior for adults. Teddy was looking around to see if he could find the missing piece.  Low and behold, he did just that, he found it on the floor. There was a sigh of relief from everyone, but especially from Alanna and Henry because the craziness had stopped. Hopefully that meant that they were safe and would not have to go through the same ordeal that their sister had been experiencing.  Janice had stopped choking, and was being comforted now by our Mom and Dad. All was well on the little farm once again. But, somehow the only winner of the Monopoly game that night was Janice and she wasn’t even playing.