What child doesn’t have a story of a tree house while in their youth?
In our back yard was our tree house. Dennis was getting weaker as the MD progressed in his body, so we made sure the tree house was easily accessible. It was low in the tree and the steps leading up to it were wide and well secured to the tree. We had gotten a bb gun for Christmas the previous holiday and we were eager to find a bunker we could shoot it from. The tree house was perfect. It was cumbersome for Dennis to make several trips into the tree house, so we always made sure we had plenty of ammo to last us awhile each time we ventured into our bunker…which was often.
From the cover of our private club house we were safe to send a barrage of bullets upon any unsuspecting animal venturing into our shooting range. If a stray dog wandered close to our property we were quick to send him on his way yelping. The same was true for cats. Although we wouldn’t consider the sound they made to be a yelp. Many a bird met its maker when they would land in the tree that housed our bunker.
Even neighborhood animals have intelligence though and the visits from meandering dogs and cats grew more and more scarce as they learned they would get pelted if they came too close to the certain area that comprised the range of our gun. What is and army to do when they don’t have a foe to shoot at? We started shooting at something new.
Across the street and one lot to the east of our tree house was a business run my Mr. Zender. He had a repair shop where he worked on all manner of small engines and parts. He would work on some of my future lawn mowers from this very shop which now became our newest target. His entire building was made of galvanized sheeting through and through. From the door to the walls, from the floor to the roof, it was all galvanized sheeting. The sound of a bb hitting galvanized steel is quite resounding, so Mr. Zender could easily hear each bb that hit his building and echoed through out his shop. One day in every week was torment Mr. Zender day. From the privacy of our tree house we’d shoot a single shot onto the roof of his shop. The initial landing would make a very audible “ping” upon its landing. As the bb took its long, rolling trip down the inclined, corrugated roof, it made its own definite, tortuous sound. The sound would reverberate throughout his shop until it finally reached the bottom edge of the roof and fell harmlessly to the parking lot surrounding his building.We would shoot several rounds, one right after another to make the annoying sound triple in intensity to get a reaction from Mr. Zender. He would come running out from the inner sanctuary of his shop and peer up and down the road looking for the perpetrators of this hideous noise. We always made our salvos onto his roof when absolutely no one was around to heighten his frustration in not being able to find the guilty party. We would peer out the many knot holes in our tree house and watch as his head would rip from side to side in an attempt to locate us. Usually on the third trip Mr. Zender would yell some threat that if he ever caught us we would be sorry we were ever born. Such a threat would bring giggles out of us and make us stop shooting for a brief period. We made sure we had our sandwiches and drinks for lunch so if he were looking out the window hoping to find any slinking bodies, his resolve to find us wasn’t stronger than our hunger. In such fashion we vexed Mr. Zender many times, never getting caught.

Third Grade Follies

Carolyn was the cutest girl in the class and I was always doing some childhood stunt to get her attention. We didn't have any ink bottles at our desk I could put under her pig tails, nor did I have the dream-come-true opportunity of sitting behind her, so I always had to make my impressions during recess.
One particular day I caught sight of her just as recess was ending and she was hanging up her coat before entering the class room. As she stretched up to put that coat on the rung it caused her dress to hike up some and gave me a view of those mysterious under pants that us boys were never supposed to see. It was such a situation that made me burst out those famous lines I had learned from my perverted friends and brothers...
I see London, I see France
I see Carolyn's under pants
I thought it was a great ice breaker line, but Carolyn had a very different reception to what I had said. She must have been schooled by my younger sister Roberta...Carolyn immediately headed into the class room and told on me to Mrs. Eschelman who made a quick snap of her head in my direction and had a look of fire in her eyes...I didn't know those words could create such passion in women.
Mrs. Eschelman excused herself in front of all the class and grabbed ahold of my collar..."Let's take a visit to Mr. Smith young man" she said as we started in the direction of the principal's office.
I hadn't been to the principal's office before, but I had the feeling Mr. Smith was a pleasant man given the few interactions I had with him from previous school years. Still, I had never been delivered to him as a delinquent so I wasn't sure what to expect.Upon entering the door Mr. Smith stood up tall and gave a stern look our way. I'm sure the body language of Mrs. Eschelman and the fact my collar was still firmly in her grasp let him know I had been up to no good. (Another thing not in my favor was the fact my two older brothers had made themselves known at the principal's door before me as well)
"How can I help you Mrs. Eschelman?" was his queery.
"Ricky has been looking up Carolyn's dress and spouting embarrassing poetry" came her reply. "I've got to get back to my class. Send Ricky back when you are done" she commanded, she then spun and whisked herself back towards my fellow classmates and Carolyn.
Mr. Smith showed me the chair in front of his desk and asked me to be seated. He then shut the door. I knew I was in for then. Nothing good happens behinds closed doors does it?
"You were looking up a dress were you?" He asked intently.
"Yes sir" came my reply. I was hoping the extra bit of respect and politeness of "sir" would help me out a bit.
"Was it an accidental peek? Or were you kneeling down, pretending to tie your shoes kind of peek?"
I must of had an instant look of guilt on my face because I have to admit that I was fully bent at the waist trying to get the best view I could...I couldn't muster a reply but I knew Mr. Smith was now convinced of my answer.
"Are you going to make a habit of this in the future he asked?"
"No sir" was my quick response.
"You'd better get back to class then...and make sure I don't see you in here again"
I ran back to class in quick order. I must admit that I made several more trips back to Mr. Smith's office but never for looking at underwear or for reciting bad poetry.

I have a sudden flash back of the second grade and my student/teacher inter actions with Mrs. Bircher. She was a rotund lady that tried to teach and I was an energetic/curious student who tried not to learn. I always did seem to have an experiment that I wanted to try out and one day I had the grand idea of putting a thumb tack on the teachers chair to see if a rotund lady could actually jump up off her chair instead of slowly getting herself up as Mrs. Bircher always did. On the appointed day I got into class and put said thumbtack in the middle of her chair while she was up and about getting her supplies ready and then I went to my chair to watch how my experiment played out. Mrs. Bircher would almost always do her talking and teaching from her desk once she had sat down so I was anxious to see if that tack would change her style. My anticipation heightened as she neared her desk and began her descent towards that tack....PLOP...nothing. No reaction what so ever.I was disheartened. What happened or didn't happen as the case may be?
I had supposed she had sat down so perfectly that the tack ended up being placed where the crack in her behind was and the tack, being so short, didn't do its entended purpose.My solution was to try two tacks on my next attempt so such a result wouldn't happen again.The next day I followed through on the two tack plan and sat watching for the outcome ...PLOP...nothing. I couldn't believe it. Was this lady oblivious to pain? Had she endured this before and knew to just sit through it all to dumbfound curious students? Not to be deterred I decided to use 4 tacks to make certain the experiment was fool proof.I must confess in retrospect I was an idiot to start this experiment in the first place, so a whole lot of me is relieved to report that even with 4 tacks on the chair I didn't get to see if Mrs. Bircher was able to jump up. Still, I wonder what she was wearing that protected her from my stupid curiosity???

School Daze Confessions....

With school soon starting up again I'm sure all of us can easily draw up memories of those special days in those educational halls and classrooms. Here is the start of a few stories to show you what a special student I was....

With school starting up again soon, I couldn't help but go back in time to relate some of the events that traumatized me while in the rooms of education during my youth. Mrs. Morris was my first grade teacher and I had been warned by my older brothers, Vic and Dennis, that she was strict and sour in temperment. I don't remember that first day of school, but I do remember one isolated moment when I became the main focus for every set of eyes in my class. I had been assigned to sit near the back of the class and in the middle row of seats. This was usually a good area for me to either lean forward, sideways, or backwards so as to blend into the bodies around me so I couldn't be seen by Mrs. Morris. In this near hidden state I could pull the grasshoppers from my pockets or whatever entertainment item I had dragged along for the day. On this particular day I apparently had nothing to occupy my hands and mind, so I was careless in hiding myself from Mrs. Morris while deciding to do the innocent, childhood activity of picking my nose. Mrs. Morris was able to scrunch her face up into several modes of hideousness depending on what was in her field of vision. When she caught sight of my finger embedded up into my notsril and buried to the first knuckle, mining for little green nuggets of nose ore, her face turned into the worst form of disgust I had seen all year. Her eyes went almost shut. Her forehead wrinkled downward, the corner of her mouth tweaked upward, her yellowing teeth clenched. Her nostrils flared and she started slowly shaking her head from side to side as if she were a bull getting ready to charge. She had stopped her instuctions to the class and the new silence caught the attention of every member in the classroom, who in the eon of silence, now looked up to see what had happened to the chatterbox. Upon seeing her contorted face all members of the class had to turn and see what she was looking at.
I had no idea what the proper ettiquette was for such situations. (If you know please enlighten me as I'm still not sure what to do under such situations)
So now here I was trying to decide if I should pull the finger out of my nose and show the audience my newest discovery, or if I should suddenly act as if I were asleep and then admit to the class that instead of sucking my thumb while asleep, I had the habit of putting my finger up my nose. I shrunk down in my desk, kept my finger in place and turned to several assorted shades of red in my embarrassment.
Mrs. Morris suggested I excuse myself and go the bathroom for some tissue. I quickly got up and headed for the door with my finger still firmly in place. Mrs. Morris started a path towards the door as well to intercept me before I could make my get away. Just before letting me get out the door she leaned down and whispered in my ear...
"Am I ever going to see that finger there again?"
I shook my head no, walked out the door, and quickly pulled my finger out to see if I had harvested anything of value...

A Mission Passed On

Here are the directions: 1. Ad a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember. This can be about me, or any related memory of my family.... 2. Next, repost these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is actually pretty funny to see the responses.

Life changing event

During this time of Dennis's deterioration and the diagnosis from the doctor, Mom came to the realization there were going to be troubling times ahead for the Dean household. She was adamant that Dad should give up his drinking because his alcoholism had already caused too much damage to all, and turn his attentions to his family. Dad agreed and for the most part had given up drinking altogether when he received a phone call saying President Hamblin wanted to have an interview with him.
Although he had mostly given up alcohol Dad was still smoking and our church attendance was very sporadic at best. When President Hamblin visited with Dad, Dad was told he was being called to be the next bishop of the Mancos Ward. Dad was in total disbelief and said he could not be bishop because he did not obey "The Word of Wisdom", hadn't paid tithing for 2o years and was a poor example as a father and a husband.
{resident Hamblin's reply to this was..."Brother Dean, you can either accept this call from the Lord and receive the blessings or you can turn it down and suffer the condemnation..."
To this Dad responded, "President, when you put it that way I don't suppose I have any other choice but to accept...."
It took much courage and committment, but this decision changed all of our lives drastically for the better and for the next many years we were all on a different path of thought and actions in our lives.
Looking back in retrospect most of us are sure this change in attitude would not have happened to Mom and Dad if Dennis had been of normal health, truly we can see that God works in mysterious ways.

Doctor visit

As a follow up to the last post, an appointment was made to have a general checkup with Dr Donesky, the family doctor, to have him give a report on Dennis. It was his opinion that Dennis might have had a slight bout with polio and that was the reason his body was looking different than normal. The symptoms did not mirror the usual effects of polio though, so Dr Donesky suggested that Mom and Dad take Dennis to see a specialist in childhood diseases. This was something that did not happen until many months later. As the specialist looked at Dennis he was able to make a fast diagnosis and told Dad that polio would have been preferable to the disease Dennis actually did have. He named the disease and the prognosis to Mom and Dad for the rest of Dennis's short life. He said that Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy would continue to make Dennis more and more weak and that he would probably die before the age of 18. Mom and Dad shared the news of what disease Dennis had but did not pass on the prognosis to us and we went on with our lives.

Never alone again....

I've come some what to the time frame in the stories of my youth to this one that impacted our family quite dramatically.
Dennis had succumbed gradually to the effects of Muscular Dystrophy to the point where he fell on a regular basis simply due to the fact his muscles were not strong enough to carry his body. It was a slow struggle for him to get back up to his own two feet again to continue walking, but was something he was determined to do to keep on with what he hoped would be a regular life.
One day while at school there was a brief storm that left the ground cold, wet and slippery. When school was out Dennis headed straight for home, cutting through a back ally to shorten the trip from the school building to the house. While in the ally he fell down and started his customary method of getting himself up to a standing position again. This entailed finding a stationary object such as a tree, a door, or a building wall. Under normal conditions he would kind of pull himself up against the stationary object and his body would lean at a slant, he would then walk his feet back under his slanted body. The problem he encountered this stormy day was the slippery surface, which would not allow him to get the traction needed to finish his standing procedure. Each time he needed traction, his feet would slip out and away from him causing him to fall back to the ground. It was as if he were trapped in a cage. It was a situation he could not get himself out of himself.
As the day light was ebbing away, Mom and Dad became concerned enough that Dad left the house in an effort to find Dennis. The fact that Dennis had not come home right after school was not a concern as we would often play or stay with friends for a brief time on our own before coming home. Some phone calls had been made and when there was no accounting for Dennis's where abouts Dad started the little search party. His first obvious look was to do a reverse trip from the house to the school.
Dennis had started to crawl on his hands, belly and knees through the muddy surface towards the house as that was the only forward progress he could make. As Dad got over the foot bridge and to the start of the ally he saw Dennis and was then able to get Dennis home to warmth and safety, but also with the knowledge that things could easily have turned out very badly for Dennis.
As Dennis recounted his inability to get to a standing position he also was truly sobered by the knowledge that his inability to get up could have cost him his life if he would have not been found and was stranded in that ally after the cold had set in after sundown.
I remember Mom and Dad telling him that from that point on he was never to be alone again. It became a personal commandment to him that he could go nowhere without Vic or me with him again.
It was a proclamation that he hated to have to adhere to but also knew it was one he would have to follow for his own good.
From this experience it became obvious to Mom and Dad that they had better start getting some medical attention for Dennis's condition so appointments were made to get Dennis into the doctors office for some evalutations of some sort.
Dennis was very healthy in most every area. He did not have seizures, coughs, fevers, or any illness related symptoms in this regard but it was obvious his body was becoming arched and his strength was far below average.
This particular experience slapped us all into a changing of our daily routine and attitudes.

My Prayer

Dear Father I thank Thee for all I've given
I don't feel that I deserve all I have here
The love of my parents who taught me the gospel
oh please bless them Father and always stay near.
My wife and my children the happiness they bring
for all of these blessings I sing

Dear Father for Jesus I thank Thee completely
My only hope is in all that He's done
His teachings, His longings for me to come home
oh please help me Father like Jesus become
increase my faith in your true eternal plan
Dear Father I know that you can.........

Death??

Death?? Oh yes!! I'm familiar with him
He has taken my brother, my sister, my friend
He has taken my father, my granddaughter too
He has taken the old, he has taken the new.

And each time he came he tore me a part
and left me with such a large hole in my heart
but all you who loved me knew of my pain
and helped me until I felt normal again

So each day I pray and thank God above
For each one of you and all of your love
and I thank Him for each of those dear ones who've died
for they each added joy and brought strength to my life

And I know that some day death will visit again
I don't know the who or the how or the when
and when he comes I'll be broken anew
but thanks to you all I know I'll make it through

and someday death will come calling for me
and when he does, what a friend he will be
for love is eternal and death cannot end
this love that I feel for my family and friends

Jayden is waiting, Roberta is there
When we finally meet a reunion we'll share
and I know that my joy will be more than my pain
when I finally see all my loved ones again

Poems for silliness

This one earned me extra credit in high school and is the earliest poem in my memory
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Once I told a little lie I didn't even stop to try
and think that it might hurt someone
that they'd get blamed for what I'd done
that they'd get spanked and yelled at too
for something that they did not do
and this is why a person should not lie
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If you recite this with a cowboy twang you'll get the sarcastic feel of it all
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I picked up the paper and turned to the section
of people who died yesterday
and I got to wonderin' if they had one more chance
what are the things that they'd say?
Then I got thinkin' , Hey! that could have been me
instead of them on this page
so if I should kick off tomorrow please know
How much I love you today.

In all of the hustle and all of the bustle
of life that we face everyday
Those who are near to us, those that are dear to us
are those that should hear us say
you are my every thing, please hear these words I sing
tomorrow will bring what it may
so if I should kick off tomorrow please know
how much I love you today

Tiny fingers

Amy made a request for this. This was inspired by watching the girls as growing babies and wanting to teach them about life
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Tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb
Baby's laughter, your face is full of crumbs
Lie beside the one who gave you birth
She and I will tell you the wonders of the earth

The beauty as the sunshine greets another day
The wonder of a smile that chases tears away
Flowers in the springtime, the colored leaves of fall
The joy of having friends with whom to share it all

Tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb
Baby's laughter your face is full of crumbs
Lie beside the one who gave you birth
She and I will tell you the heart aches of the earth

The pain that burns within you when a loved one dies
Perplexed because there are no answers to your whys
War and its destruction, a million tears will fall
Each day that your alive you'll have to face it all

Tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb
Baby's laughter your face is full of crumbs
Lie beside the one who gave you birth
She and I will tell you the purpose of the earth

Each day will bring a lot of good and bad for you
So always help the needy, try your best to do
Both of us can truly tell you that this life's worth while
Oh yes we know it is every time you smile...................

My lullaby

Here is a song I use to get the little ones to go to sleep while they are under my care...
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My little child the day is through
I hope that it was nice to you
your precious face has made me smile
Now let me sing to you awhile

There was a time I felt alone
your mother came, we made our home
and now you're here and you're so sweet
I need no more, my life's complete.

So close your eyes and go to sleep
your mom and I will try to keep
you safe from harm your whole life through
Please always know that we love you

There was a time I felt alone
your mother came, we made our home
and now you're here and you're so sweet
I need no more, my life's complete.

Your mother whispered in my ear
and now my eyes are filled with tears
I feel so blessed! What can I say?
Your baby sister's due next May.........

Day 3

Here is a poem inspired by the raunchy portraying in some rap and other songs of what I feel is something intimate and personal.
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It was 7 til 2:00 it was heaven with you
It was pure delight.
You were with me at 1:53
It was a magical night

You made me smile for such a long while
We were as one as two people can be
It was heaven with you at 7 til 2:00
yes it was 1:53

We had so much to say that all the next day
We walked hand in hand
Together we walked, together we talked
Together we made our plans

That night we danced and we romanced
and then it happened all over again

It was 7 til 2:00 it was heaven with you
It was pure delight
You were with me at 1:53
It was a magical night

I made you smile for such a long
We were as one as two people can be
It was heaven with you at 7 til 2:00
Yes it was 1:53

Dot related because of her birthday...

Here are a couple of poems that are Dot related. The first will be the short one which I wrote for our 20th anniversay. These are lyrics put to music but for this post will pass for poetry
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It was twenty years ago today
you came into my life to stay
I have never felt more okay
and I know you feel the same

and through out those twenty years
we've wiped away each others tears
you've helped me conquer every fear
that's why I always want you near

so now to heaven I implore
please, won't you give us twenty more
'cause of this one thing I am sure
without her I could not endure

and may our future years be blessed
with grandchildren and happiness
for this I truly will profess
of all men....I'm the luckiest.........
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Today's the day you completely changed my life
Today's the day that you became my wife
and now the world looks so much lovelier to me
and as you stay that's how its always gonna be

For now the sun seems brighter, I hear more laughter
and I feel things I've never felt before
My dear you've helped me open heaven's door

So as we walk together down the road of life
some days we'll laugh and there'll be days that we will cry
and one by one as our children come along
they'll look to us and we will sing to them this song

For now the sun seems brighter, I hear more laughter
and I feel things I've never felt before
My child you've helped me open heaven's door

Then when we're older and we're sitting side by side
We'll watch our grandchildren our hearts will fill with pride
and I'll look back at all the things that we passed through
and I will say I'm glad I spent my life with you

For now the sun seems brighter, I hear more laughter
and I feel things I've never felt before
My dear you've helped me open heaven's door

Some time next century when our lives are finally through
You'll see my spirit and my spirit will know you
We'll have those same old feelings as before
and hand in hand together we'll walk through heaven's door....

Who knew???

There is a national poetry day in October, a national poety week in late August and a national poetry month in March...or so my google search informed me. Each day this week I'll post a poem I have written and I'll start off with this short poem I wrote for Dad and our love for basketball.

You cheered me on in basketball and in everything I've done
you've been proud to be my father, I've been proud to be your son
but when this life is over and our spirit life's begun
on that first day back in heaven I will take you one on one..........

Talk in church with Joel as the main topic

This past week I gave a talk in church. As the new Ward Mission Leader I got my first speaking opportunity as we had the most recently returned missionary report to the ward.
The topic was missionary work of course and I used Joel as a prime example of how he bettered himself and chose to serve the Lord.
A mathematical fact I presented was this, there are around 13 million members world wide and 6billion people on the earth. That means that each member has the charge to introduce nearly 500 people to the gospel. Take into consideration most members let the full time missionaries do all the gospel sharing. Now, if 10% of the church were full time missionaries (which isn't true) then each missionary would have to contact and teach 5,000 people to have the work fill the entire earth. Take into account that missionaries travel in pairs, each pair would have to teach 10,000 people...the message was that everyone needs to be a part time missionary.
We can each do some changing in our lives in the missionary effort so that we can benefit the lives of others as Joel changed and benefitted each of our lives

Many times our minds were piqued by something we had seen and we were curious enough to investigate some certain situation. On one particular cowboy show, Dennis and I were put off at the fact a man had hanged himself simply by kicking a stool out from under himself. Fake…boo. How could that possibly be fatal? I was seven at the time and Dennis was closing in on his ninth birthday. We had seen numerous hangings where the trap door was released and the bad guy’s neck was snapped as the slack ran out of the rope after a 10 foot fall. Now that was how hanging killed someone!!!
Still, we were curious as to how much death a person could inflict on themselves simply by kicking out a stool so we decided to field our own little experiment. For this we needed some rope, which we found in the back yard by the tree house. We didn’t know how to make a hangman’s noose so we just made a simple slip knot and made sure it wouldn’t come loose when we tried to hang ourselves.
With our rope now ready we needed a beam to throw the rope over. We easily realized the branch of our front yard tree would make a suitable beam, so we headed for the front yard.
Now we were ready to validate our hypothesis that just merely dangling from the end of a rope cannot cause death. To enact our plan it was agreed I would climb up the tree and put the noose over my head. I would then slip off the branch and hold onto the rope myself as I dangled in mid air. If indeed, I could tell this was a possible way of causing death I would let go of the rope myself and gravity would pull me to the ground, thus ending the experiment.
I climbed up the tree, got out into the middle of the branch, put the noose over my head and let myself slip off the branch while I kept a hold of it as if I were going to do chin ups. I let go of the branch with one hand and used it to grab a hold of the rope. There I was, possibly suspended between life and death. I had one hand on the branch, the other hand on the rope. The experiment was now only seconds away from its start. I let go of the branch and held on tight to the rope with both hands.The rope immediately tightened around my neck as I slipped down a few inches from the branch and the slack went out of the rope. I was quick to grab the rope with both hands. The grip only lasted for a hundredth of a second as I could instantly tell this was not a recommended activity for the human body. The slip knot held wonderfully as the full weight of my body was hanging there from the tree with only my head keeping me inside the noose. The fire in my throat was a quick reaction to the rope pushing my larynx deeper into my neck. The experiment was over in a second. I knew this was a bad way to die so I let go of the rope…My descent to earth did not happen. I was slowly slipping farther away from the branch. Finding myself in this precarious situation I started to flail my hands and wrench my body as if…as if…well..as if I were choking to death!!
Dennis immediately saw the cause of my slow return to earth. He was standing on the rope. He made a quick side step off the rope and I came hurtling down with a thud. With the slack now back in the rope I was able to breath again. I pulled the rope away from my neck and off my head. I had a rope burn about an inch wide all the way around my neck. I tried to cry, but could only emit a sound made by someone whose mouth is full of marshmallows. The rope had temporarily robbed me of my voice.
What is the moral of this story??? Don’t try hanging yourself. It is painful, dangerous and stupid.

My bare bottom spanking

As Mom would cook dinner in the evenings it would be a common event for us to take our bath as she was doing the cooking. After ten hours of being boys, making mud pies, squishing ants, climbing trees, kicking up dust and all, the first order of business would be for us to take that bath so as not to contaminate any food presented to us.

Just because we were in the bath tub though didn't mean that play time was finished. We got the great idea that we could play "boat launching" at the same time we got ourselves cleaned.

Our tub was slanted on the back end so we got it in our mind we could use that slant like a playground slide. I was the first to be the launching boat. I got up and onto the back part of the tub, curled my legs under me and let go to the tub sides and slid down into the water just as we had seen ships do on television when they were being christened to make their maiden voyage.
I smashed down into the water with big splash and laughed out loud at my new adventure.

Dennis got a good splashing of the water in his face and wanted to return the favor. (We always bathed together, did you have a bath mate?) We traded places with me down by the drain and Dennis now at the back of the tub getting ready for a maiden voyage of his own. He was getting weaker from the slow but steady progress of Muscular Dystrophy but still had enough strength to get himself situated and then off and down the tub slide for an even bigger splash than mine, that sent a goodly amount of water up and over the edge of the bath tub.

Now that we both had had a good turn we changed places and I had the challenge in my head of making my second slide a bigger and better slide than the one Dennis had just pulled. As I teetered on the back edge of the tub I had the sudden realization that there wasn't very much water left for me to slide into..."what had happened to the water?" I thought but didn't do much rationalizing as I sent myself down into the tub for my second splashing.

Just at that moment Mom walked into the bathroom to see what the raucous laughter was all about and witnessed my little cannonball dive into the tub with its accompanying splash of water. Might I remind you she had just arrive from the kithchen where she was trying to do the cooking and she had a pan in her hand she had planned on boiling some food in. At the sight of her bathroom floor having more water on it that what was in the tub, Mom lost her self control. She hurried over to the tub, pulled me up and out with one hand and commenced to paddle me with that pan on my bare, wet bottom...TWANG TWANG TWANG...I heard the sound ring out and felt the accompanying pain zip through my butt as I recieved my punishment for trying to be ship when I should have been a cleaner.

We were given implicit instructions to clean up the water mess we made or a return trip would be made with a bigger pan. Needless to say we mopped up that mess immediately and when we were done I had Dennis look at my bottom to see what kind of mark had been left.

"Whew!!! Your butt is soooo red. She got you good."

If it was spring it was time for baseball

Like many of my youthful activities, we had to make do with what we had at the moment for our recreation. We had a ball and bat that we had made good use of. That poor ball was so well used that the threads broke loose and the leather covering had come completely off, rendering the ball useless to us anymore. Still addicted to the thrill of trying to hit something over the fence, we took the bat out wanting to use it again. We decided small rocks would work just as well for baseballs, so we assembeld a small pile of rocks that would satisfy the need. Stevie was with Dennis and me and was the first one to step into the batter's box while I did the pitching. It took several throws to get the hang of throwing something smaller than a baseball and also for Stevie to zero in on hitting something half the size of a ball, but on one perfect pitch he connected and sent the rock zinging. It was a perfect line drive that came right back to me on the pitchers mound and caught the right, top edge of my head, right at the hair line. The rock made a glancing blow richocheting away and I had an instant ringing in my ears. I found myself teetering to the right and stepped that way trying to catch my balance. I fell to the ground and rolled over on my back as the ringing persisted and the sky had a look of little circles that pulsed in front of me. I could hear Dennis and Stevie talking to me, but I couldn't see them and I had the sensation of a slow, warm, trickling of blood that was flowing down towards my ear. As the image of their two faces came into view above me a feeling of intense pain surged into my skull. I now realized what Goliath might have felt when he had his famous encounter with David from Biblical times. Had that rock been one inch lower and to the center it might have had the same final effect on me as it did for Goliath...I suppose God had a different plan for me...I'm glad he was on my side at that moment.

Ronnie and diapers Part II

One particular day I was put in charge of Ronnie, who was walking at the time, but still in diapers. Mom and Berta had gone off to the store, Vic and Dennis were several blocks away at our homemade swimming hole at the Mancos River and Ronnie had pooped his pants big time.
Being the wonderful baby sitter I was, I got his diaper off, rinsed it out and put it in that stinky laundry pail for Mom to wash. You remember cloth diapers don't you?
As I was rinsing out the messy diaper Ronnie decided it was time to go out and play so off he went, butt naked into the back yard to enjoy mother nature. I was a little worried when I couldn't find him in the house, but I had his new diaper in my hand and I went looking for him.
It didn't take long to find him and when I did, he threw one of those little brotherly fits because he didn't want me interferring with his life. He was, after all, not much smaller than me and shouldn't be taking orders from someone close to his size.
Try as I could, Ronnie just would not cooperate and get that new diaper on. The law of the house of course demanded that I take Ronnie to a higher authority to put the message into his brain he had to listen to me, so I grabbed his hand and started dragging him up to the swimming hole where Vic and Dennis were so Ronnie could get properly educated in just how much power I had over him at this moment.
Getting to the swimming hole required that I march right down the middle of town and in front of several businesses. I had done this many times before, but not with a naked child in tow. I got several strange looks and Ronnie was howling up a storm. I don't know which was more irritating, the people only cringing in horror and not helping, or the naked ball and chain behind trying to rip my arms out of their sockets. We must have been a vulgar sight to behold.
It was quite the wrestling match, but I finally got Ronnie up to the swimming hole where Vic spoke out loudly in disgust..."Ronnie doesn't have any clothes on!!!"
"I know that...duh!!...He won't let me PUT any clothes on him. Tell him he has to listen to me"
"Ronnie, you listen to Ricky and put your clothes on!!"
Vic said it with so much authority and conviction that Ronnie gave up his fight immediately.
We turned around and off we trudged again through the middle of town. The only thing that was better for me was the fact Ronnie wasn't screaming this time...The looks from all the people we passed by?? Well, I guess they just plain ol' didn't care much for the Main Street Streaker. You all know what a fad Ronnie started as streaking soon became the rage several years after that...a boy ahead of his time and I was proud I had my little part in history as well.

Ronnie and diapers Part I

When we moved into the Bauer House (the era of stories I am now relating to you all) Ronnie was still in diapers. One winter day Dennis and I donned our jackets and went out into the front yard to revel in the newest snowfall. It had to have been a good storm as it left a snow depth deep enough that we kicked through it launching imaginary footballs up into the air.
As we left the house though apparently we left the front door ajar and Ronnie toddled out onto the front porch in an attempt to come out and play with us. We had planned for our little venture outside and were well dressed but Ronnie was in sneak mode and stood on the front porch with nothing more than his diapers on. We saw him immediately and started in with our brotherly duties of watching over him.
"Hey Ronnie, come to me" said Dennis from his spot on the south side of the lawn. Then he signaled to me to do the same thing.
I immediately saw the fun in wondering which of us Ronnie would come to in his near naked state so I echoed the invite, "Ronnie, come this way. Come to me."
I'm sure he was already shivering, but Ronnie got the biggest smile on his face knowing he was being invited to play with his older brothers. He turned around and started off the porch in his backwards, going down the steps mode and stopped immediately in his tracks when his bare feet entered the snow. He found himself up to his little knees in the snow and was quite aware that the diaper was not doing enough to keep him warm. He started crying immediately which was a warning to us that Mom would be appearing any moment so we both started our run in his direction.
Mom's have that radar sense that allows them to hear their children's bleating and made her appearance before we could get to Ronnie and help save him. I don't remember any thing being said to either Dennis nor I about being neglectful, but then again, Mom didn't know that we had made a game out of calling out to the naked one in an attempt to see which of us he would come to.

Mother's Day

This is a short story I recall Dad relating which shows Mom's quiet commitment in knowing what is the right thing to do.
Dad told of the day when he was going to be presented in Stake Conference for a sustaining vote on becoming the new bishop of the Mancos Ward. He related that just the thought of standing up in front of all those people had him nervous to the point that he was thinking he would be better off forgetting the call and leaving to head back to Mancos to slip back into the life he was familiar with.
Mom, not wanting to go back to that life, held him firmly by the arm and walked forward by his side into the building and found the proper place to sit. As Dad related the story he expressed how Mom had a better hope than he did at the time for an improved life situation and refused to be by his side if he chose to go backwards but was fully supportive in getting him into a better future.
I know for my part that Mom has been supportive with me in my positive ventures and not condeming when I've done my stupid acts. I love you Mom and appreciate your quiet commitment in helping to make me a better person

My first kiss

It was summer time and my youth would soon be coming to an end. Fall would bring me to the halls of Mancos Elementary to start the first grade. This summer had to be one where I prepared myself to enter the arena with all other big people. Our neighbor to the south of us had her granddaughter, a girl my age, staying with her for the summer. Nancy wasn't like my sister or any other of the girls I knew. She came right over and wanted to play baseball with us. We were reluctant to let her play, until she knocked me down and took the ball away from me. She said she wouldn't give it back unless we let her play....she became the first baseman. This must have been symbolic because later on in the summer, Nancy would be the first girl I ever got to first base with. Nancy loved to climb trees, throw rocks and dig for worms. She was just like one of the guys...only she wasn't a guy and I knew it, even though I was only six. Our club wasn't very big, but Nancy fit right in and we spent many hours together every day. We talked about frogs and sports, little brothers and marshmellows. We played red rover and kick the can, catch and tag. Nancy had worked her way into my life, but still, I knew she was a girl...a girl I was beginning to like a whole lot. One afternoon as the sun was going down and the light of day was escaping fast from our back yard. Dennis, Nancy and I decided it would be a fun time to put together our make-shift tent. We always had to make do with whatever articles we could find when we embarked on some new experience like this one. We grabbed a big, black plastic tarp that Mom had used to cover vegetables earlier in the year. To make it like a teepee tent we used Dad's step ladder as the center pole and we gathered up quite a few rocks to use as the securing poles at different areas out side on the plastic. By the time we got our little tent all put together the sun was down and darkness had settled in. I was kind of feeling like we were our own little family and we had built our first home. I suppose it might have been only chivalrous and proper if I carried Nancy across the threshold of our new house, but I was just feeling a bit too awkward to ask her..."My beloved Nancy, let me carry you, my love into our new abode..."I did have a plan though and put it into action as soon as we were inside the tent. Just as the last opening of our tent was being closed I made a quick gander to see exactly where my true love was situated. With the closing of that last flap at night time, the inside of our tent was completely black. I moved over to where I remember Nancy being situated with my lips in a complete and full pucker...I made contact. Where, I wasn't sure.I immediately felt the hot flash of pain on the left side of my face and only a second later could hear and see that our tent was being destroyed. She had hit me!! It wasn't a girlie slap either. Remember, she was just like one of us guys. My face started to throb immediately.
"Hey!!! What was that?? Nancy shouted out. "Some one kissed me? Who was it?
Even though it was dark the expression on all of our faces was easy to discern. Dennis had a look of bewilderment. What was Nancy talking about?? Who kissed me?
Nancy had a look of fiery indignation...how dare any body kiss any of the one of the other of us when we were all just one of the guys? I'm not sure what kind of look I had. I just knew my face hurt and I hoped it was dark enough that no one could see the welt shaped knuckle indentation that surely was lodged there in the side of my face.
"Well!!! Which one of you kissed me???" demanded Nancy.
I could see Dennis was afraid to get himself pummeled so he spoke up the truth immediatly..."It wasn't me!!" he said.
Nancy turned her fiery eyes my way and I could see she still had her fist clenched ready to club me when I confessed my big sin."It wasn't me!!" I squawked out.
Nancy stood there looking back and forth at me and then Dennnis. Me and then Dennis, trying to figure out who was lying. All she had to do was check the side of my face to see the perfect mark match of that fisted hand, but she didn't. I was half tempted to ask her if she had kissed herself, seeing how neither Dennis nor I had kissed her, but I could see she was in no mood for any of my jokes. Nancy spun on her heels and stomped back over to her grandmother's house not to play with us again during what short time was left of that particular summer.
Dennis turned his bewildered gaze back my way. "What was that all about," he asked?
"Darned if I know," I replied, "Is that what they mean when they say girls are so unpredictable?
""Must be," said Dennis.
The next day when we got up I had a bit of black eye and that undeniable welt on the left side of my face.Dennis took one look and me and gave me a disappointed look...."Liar"...and that was all he said.

Happy birthday....from Nellie

I have two fold purpose in posting this blog. The first is the fact that Aunt Nellie (Mom's older sister) will be having her birthday shortly and I wanted wish her a happy birthday and remind all you who know her to do the same.
The second is relate the story of the birthday gift she gave to Dennis many years ago that he considered to be the highlight of his youth. We had been told it was a huge surprise and that I was part of the event as well. We were both giddy with excitement and wanted to know what was going on. It was some special activity that we had to drive to Durango in order to recieve. Durango! Anything out side of Mancos was a thrill, but Durango only added to the anticipation of it all.
On the appointed day Nellie came by the house, Mom, Nellie, Dennis and I all jumped into the car and off we went. I always loved the trip to Durango. The road would rise up and into the foothills and I would look out either side hoping to see deer and other sites. The road to the north that would take us to Grandma Matlocks house and small farm passed by. The open area on the south side of the road showed a sloping mountain where there were rope pulleys for skiers. There were never skiers, but it was obvious the mountain side had been cleared for that purpose and we fancied ourselves being skiers and falling down the slopes in the attempt to get to the bottom. There were the camel hump hills to the north as we got closer to Durango, all the while the anticipation was building up in us. We entered Durango and took the turn south that had us going into the direction of Pagosa Springs. It was just a short distance out of Durango that we turned off the road and pulled into an area that had hangars and flying machines all around.
"This is it! You are going to take a helicoptor ride today!" Nellie said.
"Wow" said Dennis "A helicoptor ride!!"
"What?" I exclaimed "A helicoptor ride?"
"Sure" came the reply "Let's go finish off the arrangements" and into the office we went.
There was some brief conversation as Dennis and I looked out the windows wondering which one we would be flying in.
We were told to follow and off we went to meet the pilot and start Dennis's birthday activity.
I'll admit right now that I was nervous at the prospect of having some little bubble with blades take me up into the air but Dennis was just all ga ga over the upcoming experience.
We were told something to the effect that there was a wind blowing and that might affect the duration of our flight.
Wrong thing for me to hear! I immediately had visions of us ending up some where over the rainbow which is nice for Dorothy on tv, but wasn't something I wanted to encounter there in Colorado.
We were buckled in, the adults backed away, the motor was started and the rotors starting whirring. I thought there was going to be more time to get clearance for lift off so I was surprised when the pilot said "Here we go" at the very same time the chopper started rising up off the ground.
I had the feeling I had just lost my stomach and I could hear Dennis say "Whhhheeeeeeeee"
We were up in the air. I could feel the tail tilt up and we were in forward motion.
"That hurts! Let go of my leg? Dennis pleaded. I was holding on for dear life. About this time the pilot looked back to see how we were doing. He must of read the horror from my face because he smiled and said "Relax. Look around. This will be fun"
I got a sudden burst of anxiety knowing he was not watching the road and I almost told him to watch where he was going, but then I realized there was no road to watch. Dennis was already immersed into turning his head in every direction. Out to the left then to the right, up, down, backwards, forwards. He was thrilled with his birthday gift and was amazed at being up in the air. It took me only a few seconds myself to come to the realization that we were indeed having a wonderful experience.
Just as I was starting to calm down and getting used to the whir of the rotors the helicopter bounced and lurched and I again grabbed ahold of Dennis's leg.
"OOOOps, there is the wind I told you about" said the pilot.
He tried his best to make the remainder of our flight a smooth one but he cut the flight a bit short and back to the hangars we went.
Now the downward flight for the the landing was worse than the take off, but I am proud to say I did not loose my breakfast or my lunch and when I was back on solid ground I had to agree with Dennis...that was one of the most memorable activities of my youth. Dennis had a birthday gift he would never forget....Thanks Nelllie

Let's go show Mom!!!

Here at the Bauer House Dennis's physical problems with Muscular Dystrophy grew to be very, very obvious. The disease had made his body start to contort, his physical strength was diminishing and his walking ability was becoming more impaired and falling for no reason was becoming more and more a daily event.
As he and I were returning home from a visit one day by the riverside, he did a little stumble which caused him to do a face plant onto the compacted dirt path that made its way from the river bank. He tried to get his hands out in front of him to break the fall, but the disease again was robbing him of his reflexes so his face landed mostly full force as he hit the ground.
Dennis rolled over and sat up. It was immediately evident he had struck his forehead on a slightly protruding rock and he had an instant, purplish bump that was quickly swelling with a slight bit of blood oozing out of the growing goose egg. His eyes looked slightly dazed and he started to make the attempt to get up. Dennis had fallen before so similar head injuries were something I had already experienced with him. I could tell this fall was a bit worse than the others and I could see if Dennis got to his feet he might easily fall over again from his dizziness, so I gently put my arm on him and kept him down on the ground.
In his irritation he looked up and started giving me a verbal lashing, but must have interpreted the concerned look on my face immediately so he stopped in mid sentence to ask me what was wrong.
I couldn't imagine that such a large knot on the head was not accompanied by a great deal of pain, but it never was Dennis style to give any outward indication he was suffering any.
"You have a growing bump on your head" I replied, to which Dennis immediately put his hand up to. As he pulled back his hand he could see the little patch of blood and knew instantly he was not in a serious blood loosing situation. He put his hand back up a second time and carefully felt the entire area of the bump and used different touching styles to test the pain factor and feel how hard the bump was. It had to be one of those bumps that was easy to determine and as I watched him I could swear it was still getting bigger.
Slowly a smile came across his face as the dazed look in his eyes disappeared and he became fully aware again of his surroundings.
"Let's go show Mom" he said as he could picture the reaction it would elicit from her as she turned into mild shock, but still would put on her best face that it was as normal a thing for us as picking our nose.
I helped Dennis up to his feet and off we excitedly went to present our newest disaster to Mom.

Don't try this at home

The childhood stories I've related up to this point were all at the Elliott House. At some point around the time I started the first grade we moved into the Bauer House. It was here at the Bauer house where I experienced my first episode of “Death by Fire”. It ended up becoming a popular event and we continued this activity often during the summer for several years to come.

The procedures for “Death by Fire” were simple. We’d capture ten or fifteen grasshoppers and put them in one of Mom’s canning jars to await their execution. Some we’d squish, some we’d pull their hoppers and antennae off and turn them back loose to fend for themselves, but most were to suffer a fiery death.

We would take gas meant for the lawnmower and pour it around the glass jail cell filled with grasshoppers. We’d strike a match and set flame around the jar, thus starting death by fire. We’d continue pouring gas around the jar to keep the flame high. As the jar inside grew hotter and hotter the hoppers would try to jump to freedom. Of course, we had the lid securely in place and each hopper trying to escape would make a resounding “pop” when it hit the lid. Soon it would sound like we were making popcorn as the grasshoppers went mad in their attempt for survival. Alas, soon the popping would stop and we had a jar full of well done, dead grasshoppers. Then we’d capture more grasshoppers and start over again.

It was on one such “Death by Fire” excursion that I carelessly spilled gas on my pants. I was oblivious to this fact until we lit the match to start the usual fire and my pants burst into flames. I’d seen a lot of fire during these exercises, but the sight of fire on my own clothes turned me into a hyper jack-in-the–box!

I jumped and screamed. I ran and hopped. I shook my leg. (I didn’t use my hands to try to beat the flames down because I knew that would burn me…duh) Still the flames persisted to leap from the fabric of my pant leg. I was more than a little worried my skin would soon feel the agony we were hoping to inflict on the grasshoppers.

Dennis kept a cooler head than I had at the moment. Which is only understandable, he wasn’t the one on fire. He dropped to the ground and started throwing dirt on my pants. Normally I would have sworn at him for getting my pants dirty, but even in my state of panic I could see that dirty pants were better than charcoal wear and I joined him in the dirt throwing contest we now found ourselves in.

The flames were soon extinguished and we had a good laugh at how energetic I had just been. We relived the event momentarily and then grabbed the gasoline and got back to the grasshoppers. This time we were more careful in dispensing the gas.

Why is it these things happen on a monthly basis????

Dot and I went to the local Hales Center Theater to use our season pass to view the latest production this past week. I arrived just barely in time to be seated so I had no time to run to the men's room. It was a long (but enjoyable) production. When it was time for intermission I had no urge to use the restroom so I did not make a bathroom visit and sat excitedly in my seat to await the final acts which were entertaining and comical. When the lights came up I strongly had the urge to go use the restroom so I did a quick jog hoping there would be only a short line requiring no waiting!!! It was a blessed moment as I found I was the ONLY one in the mens room so I quickly finished the job I had jogged in to do. Whew, relief. I walked over to the sink to wash my hands and found that no matter how far up I pulled on the hot water knob there was no water in that pipe. I turned my attention to the cold water knob and pulled up on it with equal gusto thinking it might need to be full throttle to get any water out...big mistake. It was as if all the water pressure for two knobs were condensed in the cold water pipe. The sudden blast of water sent water spouting down into the sink and then splashing out of the basin, drenching me quite thoroughly.
When I put my coat on it covered up my wet shirt quite nicely but it was very much apparent by looking at my pants that I APPARENTLY hadn't gotten to the toilet in time to take care of my bodily functions.
Oh well, what's a guy to do? Being the end of the show, most everyone was already out in the parking lot trying to leave the area. There were only three ladies who got a look at my wet pants. I can tell you for the most part they didn't raise their eyes up to my face so they'll never recognize me again anyway..............

Creating My Own Bad Karma

The Mancos River almost flowed through our back yard when we lived at the Elliott house. It was a very short walk to the bridge just south of the house and we loved to spend time playing in and around the water. One of our favorite activities was to find an assortment of empty beer cans and beer bottles for our rock throwing contests. After finding a goodly amount of cans and bottles we would stack up probably 10 times as many rocks on both sides of the bridge as we readied ourselves for the the bombing game.
We would take a can or a bottle and heave it as far up stream as we could from our perch on the bridge and then we would start hurling our rocks at the small floating object as if we were trying to sink an enemy ship. As the bottle or can bobbed and floated down the river towards us we had those rocks just a flying as we pretended we were bombers. Sometimes they'd sink fast, far up stream due to a direct hit. Some times they would sink on their own simply because they had taken on too much water to stay afloat. Other times they would survive completely even after having passed by us under the bridge, slipping away from all the flying rocks that were being thrown from the down river side of the bridge as they sailed safely down the Mighty Mancos River away from us.
Still, there were times when we wanted to enjoy the coolness of the water on a hot summer day and venture out into the water with sticks or just to flail our hands and sit in the current. On one such outing while wading across the rocks and feeling the cold water flow past my legs I became a victim of my bombing expertise. I felt the sudden sharp sting of something poking into my foot. As I jerked my foot out of the water I could see the instant dropping of blood falling back into the river and quickly dispersing as it flowed away. I made a quick plunge of my hand back into the water to see what the green colored object was that caused my cut... You guessed it... A broken beer bottle that most likely fell to the bottom of the river after I had broken it with one of my best throws. It was the first time I remember seeing such a goodly flow of blood out of my body. I had just become a victim of my own bad karma.

Early onset of Alzheirmers

I have a quirky tradition that the grandkids seem to love and the adult family members wish I would discontinue. Any time I burp while around the grandkids I make sure I do it with full force so the whole world can hear. After each noisy eruption I immediately try to blame it on someone else, which usually creates a good deal of laughter. Sometimes the others in the group will join in and try to put the blame on whomever I fingered as being the culprit, but most times they all respond in unison letting me know I was the guilty party after which I innocently ask..."That was me?? Oh!! Then excuuuuuuse meeee!!!"
I will do this even when I am with only one of the grand kids, but still blame the burp on someone who isn't anywhere near us.
This was the situation Brynlee (our youngest grand daughter) found herself in recently when I cut loose with one of my patented burps. Immediately I blurted out..."Arianna" (the absent grand daughter) to which Brynlee reacted to in an unusual manner.
Brynlee walked the few feet that separated us and put her hands up to both sides of my cheeks to make sure I could look her squarely in the eyes..."No grandpa, this is me , Brynlee, not Arianna...."
She must have thought I had a sudden onset of Alzheimers to the point that I didn't even know which grand daughter was which. It was a precious moment, but I am still following the same method of blaming someone else for my burping moments

We weren't angels/Wielding an ax

"Bet you can"t"...how many ill advised, youthful activities have started with this challenge? We were at the sandbox just south of the house with Curtis Scott to see if he could successfully accomplish the dare we had issued to him. The sandbox was a square made of 2X10 planks keeping the sand in its rightful place. We had gone into the house to steal the wind up alarm clock that sat on Dad's side of the bed in Mom and Dad's room. The dare went something like this..."Bet you can't chop through that big board in 5 minutes using this ax..." and we were set to go.
Curtis must have been 8 or 9 at the time. He was older than Dennis, but younger than Vic and Dennis at this time would have been 7 or so.
We waited for the big hand to get on an easy to calculate spot for the chop fest to start. Ready, set, go!!! The arms started swinging, the ax was falling and the wood chips were flying. It was an impressive sight to behold. Curtis did not have a lumberjack body though, the sweat started streaming down his face and the heavy breathing soon set in. The blistering pace of the falling ax slowed considerably and the flying wood chips were becoming more the size of sawdust. When we let him know his five minutes were up he wasn't even halfway through the 2X10 and we let out a short hoot of triumph knowing we had given a challenge he couldn't meet... he dropped the ax and walked away without saying anything.
As he walked away I felt the urge to try to finish off the board so I picked up the ax and tried swinging it myself. It was evident after only one swing that this was a feat quite beyond my 5 year old body. The ax hit at a crooked angle and the ax spun out of my grasp.
Dennis tried the same thing, but having the onset of Muscular Dystrophy his body also was not up to the task of ax swinging so there we stood, looking at the ravine now lodged in the middle of that sandbox board. We turned and looked into each others eyes and both had the instant realization that certain adults would not be as thrilled with this activity as we were. Unfortunately for us there was no easy way to glue all those wood chips back together so we put the ax back into the shed and hoped that no one would notice...like that was going to happen! When we were asked if we had chopped the sandbox up we were truthful in saying it wasn't us. When we were asked if we knew who did, the truth came out. We tried to blame it all on Curtis, but all excuses fell on deaf ears when it was found out Dennis and I started the entire fiasco with those convicting words..."Bet you can't"...we reaped the punishment dealt out by the parental justice system of our house...a quick paddling by Dad.

Happy surprise anniversary

It has been awhile since I danced last but Megan was very forgiving when I stepped on her toes

Dot was thrilled when Conner came up and asked if she would like to dance
Amy said we looked like we were enjoying ourselves,,,,you know what??? We were
Hello...let me introduce you to our crew Megan and Conner are the 10 year olds standing in the back. Stockton (standing) will be 8 , he was our favorite waiter. Zander is sitting on Dot's lap and Garrett is sitting on on mine.


Amy, our oldest daughter, invited us over to join them for dinner last night. Little did we know it was a special dinner to help us celebrate our 33rd anniversary. Actually, our anniversary was last month but we spent the special day watching Amy's children while she was having a wonderful time with her husband on a cruise. They felt guilty for having us do this for them so they organized the special dinner for us. It was a complete surprise!! The boys greeted us at the door with their suits on and ushered us to our table which had candle light and roses. It was a hoot but also very cute to see them with cloths placed over their arms as they tried their best to be professional waiters. They were careful to download many of my favorite songs onto their ipod and were very attentive while we ate our dinner. Niel...our compliments to the chef.
After 33 years of married life we both consider our family to be the greatest blessing of our life. Thanks guys for making this belated anniversary celebration our best ever.

Dumb Moves\Mom and Roberta

There was one day when Roberta decided she wanted to join us out side for our daily explorations. I think most times we just headed out the door and whatever we saw first is what we put our efforts into. It must have been spring time when the ground was not frozen from the winter, nor sun baked from the hot summer temperatures, the first thing we saw was a shovel so we decided to find some buried treasure or some similar artifact. The truth is, one hardly ever finds buried treasure unless it was put there by themselves at a previous time so we had to be content with a goodly supply of earthworms we had dug up.
Roberta was a youngster and you know how excited they can get just from the simplest of experiences, so Berta took a close inspection of the worms and a curious probe into the texture of their skin and the reactions they got from her blowing on them, touching them, you can probably imagine the scene.
When she started off away from us with the small collection of worms in her hand we wanted to know where she was going, so we inquired as much after her.
“I'm going to show Mamma” was her reply.
We could never see the need to let Mom in on our escapades, after all, such information usually got us into trouble so we tagged along just in case we had to do some explaining and defend ourselves.
Berta marched right up to Mom and thrust her little hand up and into Mom's face as best she could, displaying the little collection of nature she was holding there in her palm for Mom's consideration.
I know Mom doesn't have any fear of little creatures as harmless as worms, but she had to make some kind of reaction to the offering that was now in front of her. It might seem a common thing for a boy to have in his hands, but for a little girl? Mom pulled back in mock horror, opened her eyes widely and let out a forced “EEEK!!!” while throwing up her arms as if a big, ugly mouse was being forced upon her.... bad move.
Roberta now seeing Mom's repulsion at these poor little critters figured she must be in some danger, so she immediately dropped the whole pile of the little slimies onto the floor and stepped back quite aways to have a safe distance from the squirming monsters.
This wasn't quite the reaction Mom hoped to instill, but couldn't do anything after that to let Roberta know she could do other such things that were natural activities if she were going to be a tomboy. From that day on I don't think Berta ever followed us out again to participate in our world of being boys. As a result she turned out to be much more interested in curls, frills, lace and anything princessy.

Dumb Moves\Dad's Turn

The first job I remember Dad having was that of a delivery driver for Clover Club Potato Chips. I don't know if he took anyone else on the route with him or if he took me out more than this one particular time. I just remember it being very, very memorable.
Delivery trucks really aren't meant to have passengers. If I wanted to sit, it had to be on one of the steps that led down to the out door to the right side of the truck, much like a school bus. If I sat on any of those steps there was nothing to see , but if I stood up to look out the window there was nothing to hold onto so I became a swaying body trying to keep my balance while standing next to Dad there in the front center of his delivery truck. Things were mostly fine on the open road as we were headed to Durango, but the balancing act got very tricky once we were inside the city with all those stop lights, lane changes, turns, etc. It was becoming a fun challenge to change the position of my feet or the leaning of my body as if I were on a surf board trying to navigate a big wave towards the beach. Unfortunately for me a big wipeout occurred! There is just no planning on an inattentive driver who is trying to make a quick lane change and cuts you off...Dad had to instinctively react as the driver to the right of us started to pull over and cut him off the lane he was in. As Dad slammed on the brakes I took a face smash into the front windshield and as he jerked the steering wheel to the left to avoid a collision I did a twisting feet over head tumble down the stairs and landed against the door on the bottom step upside down and almost unable to move as if I were a square peg pounded into a round hole.
The first words out of Dad's mouth were directed at the incompetent driver and not fit to be listed here. Being at the steering wheel in the middle of traffic he couldn't come to my aid and as I was attempting to aright myself he started driving again which caused my misplaced body to take one more fall so I was now lying flat on that bottom step. This allowed me to be able to jump up in a normal standing position there at the bottom of the truck, so I turned and looked up at Dad who was making quick turns of his head from me to the road, from me to the road, in an effort to avoid any more catastrophes.
All this took place in about two seconds. When Dad saw I had survived my in-flight acrobatics the look on his face changed from anger at the driver to instant relief. I must have had a befuddled look on my face because he broke out into laughter at the situation. This brought sudden anger to me that he would find my plight so amusing so I pushed my head in his direction and yelled out..."What did you do that for?" as if it were all his fault (does this remind you of the war with Vic??). This made Dad laugh even louder at my theatrics. All in all it was a combination of dumb moves on everyones part.

Dumb Moves II

On the east side of the house in which we were living at the time was a tree I loved to climb in. The branches seemed to grow straight out from the trunk, allowing me to climb into the tree as if I were going up a ladder. With my slight build, the branches didn’t bend much even if I got out onto the outer parts of the highest branches. As I got better and faster at climbing the tree, I relished the ability to jump from branch to branch as if I were a monkey or a squirrel. I have seen movie clips where even monkeys can fall from their perches and that is why this particular tree climb sticks in my memory. I was in the upper most part of the tree and I started to fall. Whether it was from me trying to jump from one branch to another I don’t recall. I do remember the fall. As my body flopped downward from branch to branch I tried desperately to grab hold of anything to save myself, but I had no such luck. It was as if I were a pinball and gravity was pulling me to the bottom of the machine. As I hit the lowest of all the branches, I landed on it almost squarely with my face down and I straddled it with my legs and arms. This position only lasted a split second as my body spun there on that last branch and I found myself upside down, still straddling the branch. My arms were the first to let go. Half a moment later my legs parted also and I fell the remaining few feet head first and I landed in the grass squarely on my head. Most all parts of my body had scratches from the fall as I scraped against all the branches I had fallen through. I laid there momentarily, trying to decide if I were alive or not. My neck had such a pain in it from the final landing I knew I was indeed alive. This fall didn't deter me from tree climbing as I had a similar experience several years later while I was trying to showoff my tree climbing abilities for a cute neighborhood girl. They were both truly dumb, painful moments, even for a five year old.

Dumb moves

There was a shed to the south side of the house. As a youngster it looked quite large, though considering the activity we used it for, it couldn’t have been very tall. It had a flat top roof and we accessed the roof by climbing a ladder attached to the building on the north side of the shed. We decided it was a perfect place to play “King of the Mountain” All you had to do to be king of the mountain was to be the last one left standing on the shed. One by one we would throw each other off the roof. That’s right! The losers were physically thrown from the roof top to the ground below. I have always been small for my age so it wasn’t uncommon for me to be the first one thrown overboard. Curtis Scott was a husky kid and as I recall, was always the king. You would think there would be some serious injuries from this activity, but the only wound I ever remember anyone receiving was when Dennis slipped off the ladder, gashing his leg in the fall. Maybe we were catlike and always landed perfectly. At any rate, I remember hating to be the loser so I would immediately ascend the ladder once more only to be thrown overboard time and time again. I think maybe that is why my joints are aching right now just reliving this particular activity.

Chocolate Wars/The Pecking Order

Every time Mom would bake a cake or a batch of brownies all of us, her children would line up like ravenous vultures to finish off what batter did not make it into the oven.
Mom knew the pleasure we got from getting a preview taste of the upcoming treat as it was entering the oven so she was always generous in the amount of batter we shared among ourselves. The big spoon she used to scrape the batter into the pans was reserved for Vic. Dennis and I would each get one of the beaters. Roberta got to dab her finger into the the mixture straight from the pan just before it went into the oven.
The first time Ronnie wanted to join in the tradition of batter eating, it had us all scratching our heads. The routine had been set, the pecking order established, still, there he stood with that pathetic look on his face that made us all feel guilty as we wrapped our tongues around the different utensils that the pecking order dictated was ours. Although Mom was generous with what was left on our individual licking spots, she was very thorough in making sure that almost every molecule of batter was taken from the mixing bowl. We pushed the bowl in Ronnie's direction and told him if he wanted any he would just have to stick his head down into the bowl and lick off what ever he could find.
He was thrilled at the blessing of finding his spot in the pecking chain and stuck his little head down inside the bowl and started lapping at the bottom and sides just as a thirsty dog would go after the last drops of water in its water dish. It was amazing to us Ronnie could get so many stains on his t-shirt from such little batter. I don't suppose I need to mention that his hair was quite matted down as well from the chocolate treat. Mom made a quick gasp at the site of the chocolate mess in front of her, but couldn't resist a smile at seeing how overjoyed he was to know he had a spot in the pecking order in the baking cycle.

Chocolate Wars

I remember one of my first sleep outs. I remember it being only Dennis, me and the stars....and our desire for chocolate milk. We flopped a blanket over the branch of a tree and put rocks on each corner to hold it in place. We now had our own little tent. Dennis excused himself so he could go into the house and use the bathroom. When he came back he had a tall glass of chocolate milk he had whipped together by putting chocolate powder into a glass of milk. I thought it looked very tasty and being a chocolate and sugar addict even at that early age, I asked Dennis if I could have a drink. His reply was something in the manner of, “If you want a drink, get it your self. I made this for me.”
I promptly raced into the house and whipped up a big glass of the yummy liquid for myself and went out to join Dennis in a good, long brotherly drink. By the time I got out to our sleeping area, Dennis had already finished off his drink. He asked that I wait a moment longer to drink my quaff while he went inside to get another glass and then we’d enjoy our drinks together. Upon his arrival he boasted he had used up the last of the milk which meant he was going to be able to drink twice as much as I did. Booo!!! No fair!!! What a blow to my sense of justice and equality! I was not one to believe such bad news, so after drinking our drinks I went back inside to see for myself. Sadly, it was true. All the milk was gone. I felt it a travesty I had been cheated of an equal share of a wonderful, chocolate treat, so I did what any creative child would do. I filled up my glass with cold water, added a goodly amount of Nestle's Quick chocolate powder and went out to show Dennis he had nothing to crow about. It tasted terrible (this is probably why I remember this particular sleep out), but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had more than I did.

We weren't angels/Getting buzzed

There was one particular day I remember before I was old enough to be in school. I remember getting hold of the hair clippers Mom used to trim us up with and turning them on myself. As many children do, I thought I’d try my hand at being a hair stylist…I failed miserably! I started at my forehead and cut a swath from the top, left side of my head, taking out a goodly amount of hair. I looked as if I had started chemo treatments.
What is a parent to do with such a hair style? You have the choice of leaving it as it is, gathering giggles and the pointing of fingers, or you shave it all off, gathering stares. Mom opted for the giggles and left the wide, bald spot to grow back in as time passed. I looked like such an oddity that Vic decided it was a great time to take me to school as his “show and tell” object. I remember several of the girls giggling and saying I looked soooo cute. They rubbed their fingers on my new bald spot and laughed out loud at the feeling of the stubble. I wasn’t quite sure if I should feel humiliated or honored by all the attention I was receiving. I will tell you this, it did cause such a commotion that the memory of it all is still vivid in my mind after all these years. Just the mention of show and tell makes me quiver. I’ve never tried cutting my own hair since.

We weren't angels/Movie Day

Going to watch a matinee movie was always a special treat. I suppose like many of you, there was a special day in the month when Vic, Dennis and I were allowed to spend an afternoon in the movie house watching an assortment of monster movies, westerns and an occasional mystery movie.
There were a few preliminaries that we always indulged in as we made our preparations for such expeditions. I always have considered myself a normal person so please let me know if you did the same thing I did.
First, I always made sure I had my slingshot in my back pocket.
Secondly, before entering the show house I would stop at the neighborhood store and buy all the chewing gum I could with what little extra money I had.
Third, I'd try to get up into one of the chairs at the front of the theater.
Now we are ready for the fun so let the show begin.
As the lights darkened and the movie came up on the screen I would pop one of the pieces of chewing gum into my mouth. I always loved the first bites of chewing gum. All that sugar separating itself from the gum and making its delicious trip down into my stomach. You know how fast that sugar leaves though and then you are left with this tasteless bullet of gum in your mouth.
Did I say bullet? Of course I did, that is why I would always bring my slingshot along. After much of the sugar was gone from the gum it left a perfect little projectile that fit nicely into the leather tongue of my slingshot. The theater was always dark enough that I could aim the slingshot from my hip and launch my gum wad up at the theater screen and no one was any the wiser that some dastardly deed had just been committed.
Most times I couldn't tell if my gum wad even made it up to the screen. If it arrived, did it stick? If it did stick, was it on a brown tree or the black monster? I usually couldn't tell.
During one western starring, John Wayne I hit right on target. It was one of those close-up scenes where John Wayne's face covered the entire screen. I pulled back the rubber strings on my slingshot and let go with a very fine blob of gooey gum. Suddenly out of no where, John Wayne had a new mole on the left side of his forehead above his eye.
If you had been there that day it wouldn't have been a noticeable addition to his features but, I saw it immediately. That was the day I got the better of John Wayne.

We weren't angels/rubber bands

At an early age I learned the wonder of the rubber band. With a handful of rubber bands you can wage a surprisingly intricate battle with your brothers and friends. If you put a rubber band on the tip of your index finger and pull it back as if you were shooting an arrow, it becomes a formidable projectile that can create an immediate sting. We would wage wars of hide and seek using the rubber bands to take each other out from our hiding places while in seek mode.
A discovery Dennis made was that a rubber band is deadly to a fly. While it might cause a sting for human beings it is right down disaster for a fly. A fly hit dead on by a rubber band becomes quite a squish mark on any window. I can see now as an adult why Mom didn't want us shooting flies off the kitchen counter but you know we would do all the shooting we could while her back was turned. We would roam the house looking for flies in every window and corner. There were times when the windows looked utterly ghastly after a successful hunt. When the flies were all gone for the day we'd simply go back to shooting each other. Yucchhhh. Now I”m having flashbacks of all those contaminated rubber bands hitting me in the face close to my mouth.
I continue the tradition of rubber band shooting still, trying to shoot the grandchildren as they scream and run away from the soft weapon aimed at them. They try to shoot me back, but are still trying to get the proper positioning of a rubber band to the finger.

A blessed man

Birthday time is coming up for Brooke on the third. As I look back on my life I will admit that my daughters have given me great joy and satisfaction. Brooke is our second daughter and has been a bundle of energy from day one. Well, maybe after she learned to start talking and walking. Brooke has such a love for people and for animals. For those of you who know my feelings about animals, you should know I am envious for the empathy and concern Brooke has for all creatures. Brooke has such a bubbly personality and uplifting character that I can't help but be proud to be her father when all who know her say they consider her to be an example to them of how to all types of people should be treated. Brooke, I love you and hope your birthday is wonderful.
All you others can add a post for her now..........

We weren't angels/Roadblock

One day we decided to build a roadblock Dean-boy style. It seems every place we lived there was a wood pile of discarded boards, many of which had nails in them. We got the great idea we could drag those pieces of wood out into the road and lay them end to end, all the way across the road with the nails poking up. After doing this we had planned to sit and wait until someone drove over the nails and flattened a tire or two. In our minds we could see this being a very funny event and had decided we’d laugh out loud at anyone dumb enough to drive onto our spiked road block. Victor, the oldest brother at age 9, Dennis and I strategically placed the nail infested boards end to end across both lanes of traffic and then went to our spot to wait for all the action to begin. We waited and waited and waited.....Unfortunately for us, or maybe I should say FORTUNATELY for us, Mancos isn’t a bustling town so no one gave us a chance to see if our clever plan would actually work. Not a single car or truck drove by. I remember getting bored of the wait and we moved on to some other imbecilic activity. It only occurred to me now that those boards might still be there…I don’t remember moving them off the road.

Early memories

One of the earliest memories I have is from the time we were living in the theater in Mancos after having moved there from Denver. To get to our living area we would have to walk a tall flight of stairs that led from the street level up to the wide open audience area of the theater which we called our home. The particular area we were living in was the dressing area behind the stage. As children are prone to do, I’d consider it a personal challenge to race Dennis to see who could get to the top of those stairs first. I was closing in on my fifth birthday. Dennis was 21 months older than I was and being such, he should have won every race. Still, no matter how many times we did it the race would go something like this: Dennis would take an early lead befitting his age and body size compared to me, but at less than halfway up the stairs he would have most of his strength spent and I would start gaining ground. At the ¾ mark we would be even and Dennis would put forth an extra human effort to hold off my charge, but it wouldn’t be enough. In the last several steps I would pass him every time, leaving him disgusted and exasperated that no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t beat his little brother in a race up the stairs. This was just one of the early signs his body didn’t have the normal strength and development of a child his age and would soon lead to Mom and Dad taking him to a doctor to get an answer to questions they were already asking themselves.... Is there something physically wrong with our son?

Excitement I Don't Remember/2

(If you missed the story of my finger and the chiropractor you'll want to go back and read that to appreciate this follow up post today)
After my hand had sufficiently healed, I decided I wanted to be a helper with Mom once again and do everything I could to help her make a batch of cookies. I was standing on a stool that had been placed next to the counter where all the baking ingredients awaited my helpful hands. I have always had a small body and short arms so I had to lean forward to get to a knife I was hoping to use. As I leaned forward, the laws of physics once again kicked into motion. My legs pushed the stool backwards away from my body which kicked in the law of gravity. This pulled my body downward causing me to hit my forehead on the counter with a big thud. My legs, now being freed from the stool, made a forward flight to the drawers and stopped there. Naturally, the top part of my body wanted to follow the stool, causing me to throw back my arms in an effort to catch my balance. This caused me to fall over backwards off the counter towards the tile floor. A body in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by another source. My body stopped falling as soon as it hit the tile floor, with the back of my head taking the brunt of the landing.
Mom reacted as quickly as she could, but was not near fast enough to save me from all these laws of physics that had acted upon me. The medical result from all this was that I had rendered myself unconscious. Mom thought I was dead when I didn’t move at all and yelled for her mother, Grandma Matlock, to come save us both. When the two of them checked me out they thought I was not breathing so Grandma Matlock came to the same conclusion as Mom, that I must be dying and action had to be taken.
Well, I was a child before CPR had been discovered, so rather than blow air into my lungs, the thought came into Grandma’s head that if she grabbed me by my heels and spun me around in a circle the blood would flow to my brain and I would regain consciousness. Before she could even think through the usefulness of this maneuver I was up in the air being spun around by my feet. After two circles she put me down to see if I was back to normal……..I wasn’t. I was still out cold, so it was decided it was time to go see Doctor Chiropractor again.
I was quickly bundled up and hauled to the doctor’s office and he commenced to decide if he had the proper talents to rectify the present medical problem I found myself in. After a very short look at me he said I was beyond his help and I needed to be taken to the hospital with all the speed Mom and Grandma could muster.
The closest hospital at the time was in Durango, so off we started for the 40 mile drive over the curves and hills. All the while it appeared I wasn’t breathing, but my color was still mostly natural so no one knew how close I was to death.
As might be expected, the drive seemed to last forever to Mom and Grandma, but being a child and in a coma it was not a worry for me. Of course, the fact that I’m sharing this story with you tells you I survived the drama of the day. Mom says I finally fluttered my eyes and regained some consciousness as she was carrying me through the parking lot and a few raindrops hit my face to help bring me back from my hour long, self induced nap.

I have never felt so humbled....

Being at the side of my wonderful wife at the birth of all three of our daughters was a most wonderful experience. As I was able to take each of them into my hands and look into their newborn faces I must admit that at no other time in my life have I felt more humble. To know that each of them would look to me the rest of their lives for guidance and that I had the immense responsibility of watching over them for decades humbled me as well.
Amy, our oldest has her birthday on the 19th. Might I say of Amy that I have gained much strength from her as she has withstood some of the hardest challenges life can throw at any of us and has come through with a positive attitude and the willingness to still give back to people in her life. Amy is excited about life and the future. Amy I love you and hope to be around for many more of your birthdays...Dad
You others can give her what ever wish you want as a comment

Excitement I don't remember.....

While Dad was on military assignment in Korea, Mom, Vic, Dennis and I stayed with my Grandma Matlock in her house Mancos, Colorado. This is a story Mom has related to me when I was two years old or so.
It seems in Mancos the only doctor was a chiropractor. A man of some medical training, but not fully prepared for the visits I made to him.
One day Mom was doing the laundry and I wanted to be a good helper. I was my usual curious self and I was looking up under the washing machine trying to figure out what made all the noise and why the crazy thing vibrated the way it did. The actual engine that makes a washing machine a washing machine has fan belts and pulleys of course. Having the mind set that I did, I decided to see if I could stop the machine by stopping the fan belt, so I grabbed a hold of the belt in an attempt to stop it. Not being fully schooled in the laws of physics I immediately learned the pull of the fan belt was stronger than the resistance of my fingers and the belt pulled my hand up and through the pulley severing off the top of the ring finger on my right hand.
Mom immediately halted her washing duties, put the top of my finger back into place as best she could and hurried me over to the chiropractor to see if his talents were good enough to sew the top of my finger into its natural place.
Although he was not a true medical doctor he got many calls like this for his services. If the situation was one he thought he could handle he made use of his talents and rectified the problem. If it was beyond his talents he would tell the patient (or my case--Mom) they needed to go see a more qualified medical person. Now I ask you, how hard can it be to sew the top of a toddler’s finger back into place anyway?
Mom had washing to get back to and didn’t need any further delays, so Dr. Chiropractor got his sewing materials together and spliced the tip of my finger back into its proper place. After all these years there is still the scar of the stitches to go along with the scar of my severed finger. I think he did a mighty fine job because I have full feeling in every part of that finger and it grew back together nice and straight. Thanks Doc.

We weren't angels/Roberta part2

When Berta had been newly potty trained and was aware of the fact when any of us, her brothers, went potty we did so standing up, she asked why she had to sit down when she went potty. We informed her she could stand up as well if she wanted and the next time she had to go potty she should let us watch. (It wasn’t because we were perverts) The next time she felt the urge, she invited us to watch. We howled with laughter when she puddled down her legs and onto the floor. She was sooooo proud, she had to grab Mom and show her what a big girl she was now. Our howls turned to whimpers when we saw Mom coming. She was more amused than angry so we all had a good laugh at Roberta’s expense.