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My father waited until I was old enough to reveal
some of the foolish pranks he survived as a kid.
He waited a very long time until he felt his stories
would not inspire me to try the same stunts. His
childhood was between the World Wars, long before
organized sports and drop-of-the-hat lawsuits made
watching television the only safe activity for a
kid. (I did not reciprocate by revealing my own
brushes with the limits of safety and sense.)
My dad’s older sister called him her “liddle
brubber”. Brub stuck as his nick name, but
outside the immediate family only his pal Bob Kursel
called him by that name. His teenage pals included:
Bud O’Brian, Whackey Hamilton, Bob Kursel,
Don Purdy, Crow Smith, Bill and Jack MacDonald,
the Johnston brothers - George, Bill, Jim, Louie,
and Bob; Pat Kraft, Wilbur Schmidt, and Don Ciglerak.
Everyday after school, a number of these kids gathered
and played. If homework had been invented then,
they certainly never heard of it. During the school
year the day had structure until the bell rang.
Weekends and summer vacations were completely free,
once chores were finished. Living on Lake Huron
meant swimming and boating, weather permitting.
For a change of pace they'd take their B-B guns
into the woods for target practice or to play war
games, shooting anything and everything they saw,
especially each other. By happenstance no one lost
an eye, although there was some explaining to do
about more than one pair of shattered eye glasses.
An arm broken by a sixteen foot fall from a tree
was claimed to be the result of a tumble down the
basement steps. When they were feeling less aggressive,
they'd ride bikes or play games.
For Brub and his pals every game was a contact
sport. Ever heard of contact checkers? Hide and
seek was their favorite. When parents weren't home
the game became more inventive. The limited choice
of refreshments; beer, beer, or more beer, sped
the game to exciting heights. One rainy night kept
them inside and when lightning knocked the electricity
out the game evolved, or rather mutated, to a new
level. With the lights out, matches and candles
were found and the game
became more spirited, gulp by gulp. Only the “seeker”
would have a candle. Those hiding didn’t have
to go far, the darkness hid them well enough. Since
those hiding didn't carry a candle and could only
navigate by groping in the darkness or the light
from an occasional lightning bolt, the most challenging
feat was reaching "home". Each time the
seeker moved too fast the candle would blow out.
The seeker would have to stop and strike a match.
This continued until the matches were used up. The
beer kept flowing. “No more matches in the
cutlery drawer.
Hey, who’s up for butcher knife tag?”
Blood has a magical way of sobering up a drunk?
A group of drunk teenagers? “Do you have a
towel or something to clean this up before Donny’s
folks get back?” “The blood or the puke?”
What happens when one fifteen year old gets his
driver's license and his buddies aren't yet old
enough to drive (or too well behaved to try driving
without a license)? Brub, Wally, and Spud were their
riding bikes. Don Purdy surprised them by crawling
up behind them quietly in his parents' car and blowing
the horn. Don was showing off his new legal status.
The guys leaned the bikes against some trees and
hopped into the back seat.
After driving around for awhile the passengers
wondered how it might feel to be riding a bicycle
at fifty miles an hour down the dirt road. Don said
his parents had already told him he was not to let
anyone else drive the car, besides, if they were
caught there would be trouble. The boys had a better
idea, one that kept Don behind the wheel, and allowed
the others the sensation of speed. So, they drove
back to where they'd parked their bikes. There was
no traffic on the old dirt road, so why not try
it?
Wally pulled a 50' hunk of rope from the trunk
of the car, tied the rope to the rear bumper and
attached the other end to the front of the bicycle
just below the handlebars. The guys played paper-rocks-scissors
to see who would be first to taste the thrill of
speed. Dad lost, so he sat in the back seat watching
out the rear window at the first rider.
The idea was for the car to start off slowly and
gradually build up to fifty. Dad said the car made
so much noise going over the bumps and kicked up
so much dust on the unpaved road that he could barely
make out Spuds frantic screams and gestures.
See Part
2: The Son's Stories
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