When I was a kid I felt that babies (except AND including my own brother and sisters) were more bother than they were worth - they were cute it's true,  but they smelled funny (or just plain bad) - they were always crying and THEY got all of the attention - not that I ALWAYS wanted attention - much of the time I was more than content to be off doing my own things - but when I did want the spot light on me,  I didn't need some attention grabbing baby stealing it away from me - surprisingly, I was usually able to find a positive way of focusing the attention on myself when I wanted this... 
  
Hmmm... I do like babies somewhat more now, but that other personality trait seems to have continued throughout my life ... (after all, isn't that what THIS book is all about...?) 
       - Competition is fierce eh? 
Debbie: Mike was a good "big brother" except when his "little sister", Deb, wanted to tag along. Boys were more fun at my age and I think I had a small crush on Dennis - so I asked mom if I could go with him, in spite of his lack of enthusiasm. So once he was so mad at me that he turned me upside down and shook me like a rag doll. But to his surprise, I still tagged along. I only remember we were in grade school. Age? 

Over the summer of the year that I was to start in 7th grade (Lapeer jr. High school) I was fitted with a back brace to correct a curvature of the spine from "Schoermann's" disease...(too much calcium deposited between the vertebrae and supposedly I could have developed a hunchback)  this brace was an awkward thing that I didn't have to wear to bed or in the bath but I was supposed to wear it all of the rest of the time. I could wear it under a shirt so it wasn't always noticeable - it fastened at the side with a screw fastening clamp that stuck out a bit... 

Going home on the bus after school one day, I was approached by our bus bully (Stanley Paling) who hauled off and punched me in the side with his fist as hard as he could. His fist struck the metal fastener and it mangled his hand pretty good - he never bothered me again - I wasn't about to tell him that if he had punched me in the stomach ,I would have doubled over in pain and that the brace (because of it's design) would have caused me serious injury to the groin area. I never did tell him what he had hit... 

I was very glad to be permitted to remove this brace permanently the next spring..  Although - it did provide me with an excuse not to have to take gym class in school that year... 

One summer while we living in Elba, mom and dad bought us a portable swimming pool for the backyard - it was about 10 or 12 feet across and about 2 and a half feet high - made of corrugated steel sheets with a plastic insert, this provided us with many hours of enjoyment - of course we really should have changed the water more often - sometimes it was brown from all the crud that we put in it - but hey! This was a lot of fun... it certainly wasn't big enough to swim in, but summers in Michigan can get pretty damn hot and this was a great way to cool off... 

We would also squirt each other  from the garden hose or run through the sprinklers to cool off - sometimes we would use the perforated hose that was used in the garden - this had hundreds of tiny holes that would shoot the water up into the air... 

Debbie: We also loved to go outside in the rainstorms in our swimsuits and dance around in the warm summer rain. Especially, after a tornado and there would always be a  really beautiful rainbow. 

My Aunt Barbara is only a few years older than I am - when I was a kid she would sometimes babysit for my parents and this wasn't particularly bad, but she did think that I watched too many " War" programs on the TV - I didn't appreciate it when she wouldn't let me watch Combat, Rat Patrol or even comedies like McHale's Navy or Hogan's Heros - besides which, I really think that she just wanted to watch other programs - I still kid her about this on the rare occasions when I see her... 

I really did like Barb quite a bit, but I wouldn't ever tell her that of course. 

Barb probably introduced me to a lot of different games. Too bad she didn't have better taste in TV programs - I know you're going to read this Barb, so I just had to get a dig or two in... Gotcha! 

Debbie: Remember the time we had tomato soup, Jerry hated it, so he doctored it up with butter, ketchup, salt, pepper, mustard, mayo and who knows what else, but that was his way of getting out of eating it. It seems to me that Barb made him sit there and eat it. (Although I don't think  it was ever finished.) 

  Barbara was the 1st one to help me shave my legs! I was barely 11 and you could hardly see the little blonde hairs on my legs, but she had an electric shaver and I went for it. She also fried about 5 or 6 potatoes worth of french fries and we had fun painting nails and watching soap operas. 

My sisters had the usual assortment of dolls - I remember Betsy Wetsy and Chatty Cathy - they also had Barbie dolls - I was watching Jeopardy recently and one of the categories was Barbie - I figured that this was a category that I wouldn't do well in - instead, I found that I knew the question to all 5 answers because Deb and Pattie had these dolls - scary....! 

Debbie: I was always afraid to leave my Barbies alone for fear they'd be paired up with Frankenstein or the likes of one of Mike's other monsters. 

Baseball 

Uncle Ralph played on a local team at a ball park in Flint - sometimes, when it was a home game, we would go to watch him play - by this time some of my interest in baseball was waning, but it was still fun to go to the ball park - the part that I enjoyed the most was watching the audience - uncle Ralph played first base and pitched - I was given one of his first basemen's gloves which I used for many years - Ralph and Janice didn't have any kids while I was growing up but they had a dog named Windy - I can remember riding home late one night in their car and waking up finding that my head had fallen onto Janice's shoulder - I was very embarrassed by this and somewhat annoyed that they seemed to find it so funny... 

I was never very good at our  baseball games - I couldn't catch worth a damn (this was the actual phrase that was used to describe my ability or lack thereof...) - I struck out far too often - when I did manage to connect with the ball, I did put a lot of power behind the swing and sometimes it would go a LONG ways - however I was rarely ever able to control it or put the ball where I wanted it to go... I preferred to play hardball rather than softball because the bats had a heftier feel and the ball would fly a lot farther when it was hit - besides... softball wasn't " real." baseball - one of the strangest games of baseball that I ever witnessed was played while riding mules - this was a night game... 

My parents and relatives added a living room addition to the house in Elba after a few years - this portion of the house had a basement under it -  the addition was completed (except for pouring cement for the floor in the basement) - we were sitting in the living room when we heard a loud noise and wondered what in the Hell had happened - when we went outside, we could see that the entire, longest wall of the basement had caved in - when this wall was rebuilt , I believe that it may have had more than the standard number of reinforcing rods between the cement blocks... I still never felt that safe whenever we would be down in this basement - I didn't think that I really wanted to be there if it ever collapsed again... 

When we lived in the house in Metamora, I got tired of sharing a room with Jerry and wanted my own - the house had an old stone basement that resembled a dungeon, but I wanted some privacy pretty badly - soon I had what I wanted and it suited me quite well - I had a collection of monster models and they looked right at home there - the cobwebs lent a great element to the decor... the floor often flooded, so there was a sump pump in the corner next to the big, old furnace - both made a lot of noise, but they didn't keep me awake at night - the floor was very uneven, so I learned where the water would usually flow to and I would position my furniture so that it avoided these areas - I really liked that bedroom and I have some nostalgia for that type of decor ... 

Debbie tells me that she never liked to go down to my bedroom because of the cobwebs, the shadows and the musty smell... oh well, to each their own... maybe I was just ahead of my time - after all, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live underground in the city sewer system. And they are pretty cool dudes.. 
 

Mom: "You did have that basement room fixed up nice, but I also, was afraid to go down there. It was what is called a "Michigan basement" and the spiders, etc, scared the bejesus out of me." 

Debbie: It did smell funny. 

Sisters Debbie and Patti were in this, so I joined too - I started in the drum section, but my drumming just wasn't up to snuff, so I was  put in the color guard carrying  a toy rifle - we started out in the Beverly Beatty Topettes and later joined the Golden Warriors -we  marched in parades all over the place  - I always kept my face straight ahead when some local wit in the crowd would yell out " Hey kid! Is that a REAL gun that you're carrying?"  - (And NO, it wasn't) - Golden Warriors took 1st place (state champions) for Marching Baton Drill Team at the Michigan State Fair the year that I was in it. This was definitely a strange experience,  but it was fun... 

Debbie:  And Mike was so straight and proud with his suit and gun. 

I can remember one night, being at my great aunt's and uncle's farm (Cleo and Cecil)  - dad and others were taking turns shooting a .22 at the bats that would come flying out of  the barn in the dark - I only remember them hitting and wounding one of them - (what do you expect using a .22 in the dark?) - this was my first exposure to seeing a bat up real close  -ugly! -  a lot of joking around about not letting them get into your hair - especially the  women  who all seemed to wear a bee hive hair style about this time... 

I learned a new  word today (October 30, ‘96): PATAGIUM - the wing membrane of a bat... 

Debbie: Once I stayed overnight at Karen's house. Her bedroom was upstairs and a bat flew in the room and landed on her feet. We were in bed, not asleep yet. It scared the Hell out of us both. We jumped around and screamed while Grandpa Running came in and caught the bat with a blanket! That was really weird. I've never liked bats. They've been around almost every state I've been in though. They're just kind of creepy. 

Like most boys that I knew,  I REALLY wanted a B B gun -  I was  OVERJOYED!  (I wonder if I showed it?) when I got my first bb gun - a Daisy, lever action, multi shot rifle with a good supply of BBs  - (of course I had to promise NOT to point it at anyone - "because you might shoot someone's eye out") - I got so that I was fairly good at hitting tin can targets, but I wanted something more of a challenge - I went out into the field and waited - I spotted a small, black and yellow, goldfinch sitting on some milkweed pods about 20 feet away - this is a fairly respectable distance for a BB gun - I sighted very carefully and squeezed the trigger - the goldfinch jerked and fell to the ground - when I retrieved it, I discovered that it wasn't dead - just injured - I was very Un-happy and guilty about shooting this beautiful creature - I didn't shoot at any more birds after that until I actually went pheasant hunting with dad a few years later... 

Debbie: I objected to the whole bird killing thing - you meanie! 

My brother Jerry had a Beanie doll that would talk when you pulled it's string... this character was from the Beanie and Cecil Show - a cartoon that many kids today have not seen - Cecil is a Sea Serpent and is Beanies friend - Jerry used to take this doll to bed with him - we would NEVER threaten to do anything nasty to Beanie of course... all of us pulled Beanies' string so many times that eventually you couldn't understand a damn thing that the doll said... (Debbie's Chatty Cathy doll was the same way after awhile...) 

Debbie: I was "DJ" - remember! 

Patti and Debbie were REALLY into the Beatlemania thing - the Beatles simply gave me a headache at the time, but I think that it was more of a reaction to my sisters' strange adulation for this weird group from England - they actually, pretty much turned me off  to music for a few years - I didn't really appreciate the Beatles until 1967 when they released the Sgt. Pepper Album - I was in Mexico at the time and it was quite popular there ... I HAVE liked the Beatles albums since that time... (yes... even the earlier ones...) 

Debbie: We collected all the bubble gum cards and all their records. Of course my favorite was Paul. He had those puppy dog eyes! Second I liked George, he was quiet and shy! I liked John because he was rebellious and Ringo - he was just your likeable kind of Dork. I wish I still had all of the things we collected! I might make some money. I still love the Beatles and only once got a chance to see Paul McCartney live in concert. It was around 85' or 86', Linda his wife was with his band, it really was a stat from the past, everyone was singing along with all his songs. We even got a bootleg tape from the concert. 

When I was very young, I remember going to Bud & Betty's house in Davison and discovering what I thought was one of the most disgusting (yet fascinating) objects that I had ever encountered. Someone in the family had shot and skinned a bear. - they had left the head (minus the skin) in the back yard for the dogs to chew on... my cousins were also kicking it around like a football - hey,  we remember strange things sometimes... 

Debbie: Bud always had fish head skulls too! They were definitely a strange bunch. I remember when they were  going to do a magic trick in the basement - sawing one of the younger boys in half in a box. Needless to say, Betty didn't go for it. 

When we lived in Metamora, my dad drove a truck with a camper top over the bed of the truck - one winter he had a metal keg of beer in the back that was supposed to be used at some family function (or maybe it was the Jaycees...) - it was VERY cold out and from inside the house we heard a popping noise and then a loud whooshing sound - the cold had popped the keg and there was beer gushing all over the back of the truck - I don't recall the outcome of this, but I do know that my dad never stored a keg in the back of his truck in the cold again... 

I used to enjoy playing and going to baseball games at my elementary school - on one occasion however, as I was walking past the baseball diamond while a hardball game was in progress, I was hit by a foul ball very hard, right on my belt buckle - this knocked the wind out of me and scared the hell out of me too - if it had only been a little bit lower... - the force of the ball left a temporary red imprint of the belt buckle on my skin... I seem to have begun losing interest in baseball about that same time... 

Like all law abiding, American males when they turn 18, I registered for the draft (Selective Service) - the person in charge of my local draft board was a middle aged woman named Beulla - she had a very visible mustache and the traditional picture of the president (LBJ at the time) on the wall in her office - poor Beulla probably didn't know what to make of it when I applied for Conscientious Objector status as an atheist - several of the guys that I knew had applied for C O status - some of them with letters from their priests or pastors, but for a lark I sent her a letter claiming that I was an atheist, that mankind was my god and that I wouldn't shoot my god. 

I was surprised as Hell when a few weeks later a letter arrived telling me that I was accepted as a C O - Hey Beulla, where ever you are now, maybe, your mind was really a bit less rigid than I would have given you credit for... not that this made me any less likely to hassle your office about the war in Viet Nam over the next few years - and hey! Grandma Skellenger had a bit of a mustache too... 

I don't remember what started all of this, but once when we were still living in Metamora, we had a local biker gang that was all parked in our driveway arguing with my mother  - I think this had something to do with Debbie - they kept revving up their motorcycles to try and intimidate her but  Mom stood her ground and argued like a demon from Hell - I went outside and stood close to her and I figured that I would back her up if needed, but I was scared shitless too - they eventually left, not getting whatever it was  they had wanted... 

INSERT: (11, 11 1996... mom says that this had something to do with one of Debbie's girl friends... mom and the girls were having a party and this girl wanted to be invited too - her plan however was to show up at this party so that she could leave and go off with her boyfriend in this motorcycle gang - mom said no and said that she would have to call her parents to get their permission - the girl didn't want this of course and the bikers didn't want this either - they roared up and down the street outside of our house yelling and cursing after the confrontation with mom - apparently no-one bothered to call the police while this incident was happening (or later...)) 

Debbie: Linda?... was a little sassy, loose and wasn't supposed to be seeing Jim Hartwick (Zip). So she came to my party thinking he could just pick her up there. Wrong! Mom called her mom, she picked her up. I later became very good friends with Zip - he was just a big hairy dark man with a heart of gold. He hung with my group of hippie friends and died in a fire. The house belonged to Gypsy Silver and we all used to crash there. She had two kids, Brandy and Magoo, there was no heater so she used kerosene heaters and one leaked. Everyone there that night was all fucked up. He tried to escape through what he thought was a window. It was a closet door and the clothes fell on him. He died of asphyxiation, he couldn't breath. . was on my way to Florida with friends when I found out. It was a very tragic day. 

Debbie and I were taught that when we rode our bikes, that we should always be at the side of the road - so one day in school, I learned that bikes have the same rights to be on the road as a car does - armed with this new knowledge, Deb and I rode home in the middle of the lane (there wasn't much traffic) - when we were almost to our house a neighbor (Dwayne Riegal) drove up behind us and honked his horn for us to get out of the way to let him pass - arrogant little son of a bitch that I was, I told him that we had the same right to be on the road that he did - by this time we were within site of our house and mom and dad saw what was going on - they told us to get the Hell out of the road and never to pull another stunt like that again - I don't recall what punishment we got for that one, but I'm sure that they didn't just let it pass by... 

Debbie: We rode our bikes everywhere. Life was so simple then. 

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I suggested to my parents that I wanted to bike to my grandparent' s house in Davison. This was 5 miles away from our house in Elba... with some reluctance, they agreed to this and I began a major step in what I considered my independence - it was a hot summer day. By the time I was halfway, I was pretty tired, but I was determined to make good time in getting there - I can still remember practically each part of this trip better than I can recall most  things from my childhood - to me, this was a great accomplishment and established a precedent for solo trips around the areas where I lived - this trip also gave me an internal gauge of what 5 miles is like - of course now I live in Canada and we use kilometers here... so my sense of distance measurement is a little bit screwed up... 

I never really got the "sex"  talk from my parents - by the time my MOTHER broached the subject with me, I had already done my own research in the encyclopedia, the public library and of course all of the myths available from schoolmates etc... my mother did give me a pamphlet on it, but it didn't really provide any more information than I already knew - it also DIDN'T dispel any of the myths that I had heard... 

Debbie: My sex talk was about menstruation - very quick and came with a little kit from Kotex. The sex part came mostly from watching the cats and dogs and of course from friends and aunt Karen. 

in Goodrich, Michigan, USA,  first child born to Joy (Tootie) Lucille Skellenger nee: Jolly and Harold Frederick Skellenger - Frankly , I can't really say that I remember much about it... They later tore down the hospital I was born in... Hmmm! Would that qualify as an omen??? 

in Wiarton, Ontario, Canada, 3rd  child born living to Margaret Patricia (Peggy)  Spencer nee: Jones and Ray Spencer. Poor kid had no idea she would grow up to marry a crazy American and raise 3 kids of her own (plus be "mom" to half a dozen others) 

in Flint, Michigan, USA, Debbie was little sister number 1 and my sometimes partner in crime and misadventure - not afraid of much and stubborn as nails - a bit weird, but not as much as most girls were... 

Debbie: I was quite a Tomboy and Mike surely let me be his sidekick when no-one else was there to play "war" with. We've had a good relationship all through our lives, (I think...) I was born in the same hospital as my daughter Wendi - 24 years later. 

in Lapeer, Michigan, USA - Little sister number 2 - Cute! But do I REALLY need 2 sisters? Why is she crying? Hey Deb, let's feed her some more raisins...! 

in Lapeer, Michigan, USA - A little brother - Hey! It's not a girl! - Not another silly sister! Great Mom! 

In grade one, I was initiated into the secret of "Black Magic" by my teacher (Mrs. Green) - this is a telepathy "game" where the initiate leaves the room and someone touches an object that you can not possibly have seen in your absence - on your return, your accomplice then asks you if such and such an object is the one that has been touched - children and even adults have often scratched their heads trying to figure this out - I have had fun passing this on to my own kids who have then puzzled some of their friends with this simple trick... 

Debbie: I also had Mrs. Green and got to be the magic person with the telepathy. I had her for two years as a teacher. She was very good and always made me feel special. 

In eighth grade in Metamora there were two guys who pretty much terrorized the entire school - for whatever reason, they seemed to leave me alone, but there were two other guys that got picked on just about every day (Gordon Conning and another kid who's dad owned the Sunoco Gas station) - predictably, they were those that were the least able to defend themselves - on one memorable day, the two bullies got the two victims to fight each other (bloody noses, black eyes and bruises) - typically, the other students gathered around in a circle to watch this wonderful macho display - the winner of this coerced event (Gordon), was given accolades by both the bullies and the other students - as an observer, I was appalled by this, but I also didn't do anything to intervene in this event - I was pretty much disgusted by the whole situation.... the "winner" gloried in his new found (and very temporary) status... 

I don't remember the name of the more dominant bully, but his partner in crime was named Tim Pridemore - I was always a bit puzzled and disappointed in Tim because he always seemed to me, to be someone with good basic intelligence, who seemed to go to great lengths to hide it - I hope he grew up to the potential I sensed in him, rather than the petty hood that he seemed to be headed for... 

When we were living in Metamora we were also building a house on a lake nearby - 
Once during the summer my brother Jerry and I had spent much of the day in the water dragging out armfuls of lakeweed so that we could have sand put in for a beach - we were both wearing cut off jeans - when we got home (about 30 minutes later) we went to our room to change - our room contained a big trap door that led to the stairs to the basement - this door was open - when Jerry stripped off his shorts we noticed a BIG, dark black, pulsing bloodsucker attached to his groin area - Jerry started screaming, jumping around the room and was coming dangerously close to the open trap door in his panic - I grabbed a coat hanger and quickly scraped the bloodsucker off from him in one stroke - the wound bled a lot because leeches inject an anti-coagulant into the blood to prevent clotting - I didn't have any bloodsuckers on me that day - it definitely made us careful about checking for them BEFORE we left the lake to go home after that... 

NOTE: Knowing that there were leeches in the lake, did NOT stop us from continuing to swim there... 

INSERT: (Jerry says that he is really glad that I got that bloodsucker off from him, but that he was mad at me at the same time - it seems that I just about took off his left nut with the same swipe of that coat hanger...) 

Debbie: I too had a fear of those ugly things that would get between my toes and I wouldn't even know it. But salt always worked and Mike and Jerry always loved to gross me out! 

One of the things that we enjoyed as kids, was to make new paths to different areas in the fields around our house... one way to start these new paths was to take a length of 1 x 10 and lay it over the weeds - we would walk on this and then lay it out again for the next section - we used these paths a lot, so the board was really only needed once... 

Michael Burke was my usual co-worker at the Christmas tree farm - on one occasion, when we were ending the day, I got ahead of him and hid in the trees where I could see him go by - just after he passed where I was hiding, I let out a very loud  growl / snarl - I don't think that I have ever seen anyone run so fast as at that time - I stepped out where he could see me (from quite a distance now) and doubled over with laughter - I didn't stay there for long however as he came back at me, brandishing his machete  - I don't think that he ever really forgave me for this prank - I did refrain from asking him if he needed to change his pants afterward... I didn't think that this would have been very safe... 

Even as a kid, I was able to recognize that Boblo was a seedy little attraction, but hey, an amusement park, however run down, is still going to be fun for a kid - besides, to get there and back you had to board a big passenger ferry that cruised the Detroit River and that was a trip in itself ... 

Debbie: I had no idea how cheesy it was! To me it was Fantasia! I especially loved the zoo. 

I remember as a VERY small kid, when eating my own boogers was a gourmet experience - I can remember the taste and texture - they were delicious in a naughty, saucy sort of way - come on... admit it... YOU remember doing this too...don't you??? -  Hmmm... I wonder why I DON'T like oysters? 

Mom: "God! I'm glad I didn't know about the "boogers". You were right Alta, he wasn't a perfect kid. Awfully, awfully close." 

Debbie: I remember you told me to try them, so I did... at Grandma Skellenger's house... under the table while the grownups played cards... I got caught with booger on my finger and was embarrassed to death! I didn't eat that one but i did try later! No big deal! Wouldn't want to make it a habit! Ha! Ha! 

Debbie: I also loved to read. The Nancy Drew series and I even read Mike's Hardy Boys series. I loved the fairy tales in the encyclopedia the best and I still love to read. 

Jerry was a real baby boomer - When he was a baby, we used to sing to him while bouncing him on our knees - "a boom-a-lang,  a boom-a-lang,  a boom boom boom! - so his nickname became boom boom " -  I wonder if he remembers this? 

I don't recall anyone on my dad's side of the family ever declaring that they were tee totalers, but I rarely ever saw any of them take a drink - on the rare occasions when I did, it was apt to be at a wedding or something like that,  where somebody would spike the punch with a small amount of hard liquor - my mother's side of the family was rarely seen WITHOUT a bottle of beer in their hands - rarely, would I ever see anyone actually plastered on the stuff, but it seemed like it was a never ending case of beer - my dad and mom both drank on occasion, but again, I don't recall seeing them roaring drunk... either everybody had a very high tolerance for alcohol or they hid it from us kids fairly well - I didn't really care for the taste of beer and I didn't ever get drunk (only a little) until I went to Mexico, where the enforcement of age restrictions was somewhat more lax than in Michigan... 

Not that you could ever tell by any of THIS writing, but as a child I did have a FEW "faults" - one of these was bragging, especially about my little brother Jerry - (he would probably wonder WHEN did I ever brag about him, but it's true) - at school I was always telling anyone unlucky enough to be within earshot, about what a WONDERFUL baby brother I had - a lot of it was exaggeration and some of it was just plain BULLSHIT - but I really was proud to have a baby brother - unfortunately they grow up to be just as obnoxious as baby sisters do - luv ya anyway little bro! 

Mom: "When Jerry was born, you were at Lou's house and she said that she had never seen a happier kid than when you found out that you had a brother instead of another sister." 

We were living in the house on the lake, when Jerry lost one of his big green bullfrogs inside  the house - we looked everywhere for it, but we couldn't find it anywhere - we finally gave up, figuring that it had probably managed to get outside somehow - a few weeks later, I was in the kitchen fixing a tuna fish sandwich (why do I remember that it was a tuna sandwich? Hmmm...) when I looked over and saw it sitting on top of the garbage pail - we had no way of knowing where it had been hiding in the house - I don't remember what Jerry did with that frog afterwards - he was definitely big enough to have a good set of frog legs for eating, but even a BIG frog all by it's self, doesn't make much of a meal... 

Debbie: I remember being armed with a broomstick handle spear (a big spike nail on the end) and going out "frogging" with Mike, Patti and Jerry in Metamora. We would spear those big croakers and then mom would fry the legs, what a treat. 

My uncle Bumper (George) was my favorite uncle - he was the youngest of the male relatives on my mother's side and he was around quite a bit - he joined the marines and was stationed in Georgia for awhile where he picked up quite a southern accent that I can still hear in his voice today - favorite or not, he once laughingly threatened to cut my peter off with his jack knife - (I think that it may have been visible in the open fly of my pajamas - yes I DID wear pajamas as a kid) - this was a threat that DID make me just a bit wary of him - I felt I was somewhat attached to my peter and didn't want to become un-attached! - I don't think that I ever heard how he got the nickname Bump... 

Mom: Bumper got his nickname from me when we lived in Flint, Michigan. I can remember the number of that little house better than any other. 1418 Vermilion Rd. I went to Cody School. Lill and I have gone there many times to see the different changes. Where there used to be woods where we always played, is now a school and fenced in playground. The houses are so very tiny and run down. The school is still there. 

Without any formal study of botany, I could probably name more of the plants growing around me than most of my friends - it only seemed natural to know their names - while I enjoyed a lot of the cultivated plants I also really liked a lot of the weeds (except when we had to pull them out of the garden of course) - weeds could be a lot of fun - you could throw the burrs from the burdock at other kids (especially sisters and young aunts), chase them with thistles and try to make them run into the poison ivy... tall weeds were great fun to play and hide in - they were full of interesting bugs, like iridescent Japanese Beetles or Ladybugs - great places to catch and observe grasshoppers, butterflies and spiders - my prize live "bug" was a walking stick about 4 inches long - Aunt Lou said that down south they were called a Devil's Hobby Horse - I only ever saw 2 of them near our house, but there could have been many as their camouflage is so good... 

Thistles were growing everywhere - the little ones in the yard, we just called "pickers" - the big Scottish thistles were a lot more impressive and I really liked the beautiful purple flower that they produced... 

Debbie: There was a lot of Queens Lace too and milkweed pods  we used to make birds and other animals out of. We also had to pick clover and other grasses to feed the rabbits. The mustard grasses always grew in the fields next to the house too. Pretty, but bad for Dad's hay fever. We always had many kinds of trees too. We would collect the leaves in the fall and make place mats in school, with wax paper and iron the pieces together. 

One of my chores was to take the trash out to burn in the barrel - given that I was a bit of a pyromaniac, this wasn't a task that I objected to, at least not  too much - I especially liked to watch plastic bottles melt and burn - I would use a stick and let the sizzling , burning plastic drip onto different things like rocks or leaves - the sound was fascinating and we had no real concept of ecological damage then - I also liked to watch the hair spray cans explode - mom and the girls used a lot of hair spray (OK, I'll admit that they used it on me a few times too...)  and those cans could sure fly a long ways when they exploded in the fire - I knew this was dangerous and I WAS supposed to sort them out, so that they didn't go into the fire, but hey! -  It was too much fun waiting for them to blow up and I only came close to getting hit once - it flew right past my head like a piece of shrapnel... usually they would fly in any direction but where I was standing... 

I have a birthmark about the size of my palm on my left buttock - not something that is apparent to most people - I had to tell Beulla when I registered for the draft and I thought at first that she was going to ask me to confirm this "identifying birthmark or tattoo?" but she didn't push it - just asked for a description and the location - interesting (for me) to note that a few hundred years ago this could have been interpreted as a "Devil's" mark and could have been sufficient to have me burned at the stake - this has colored my attitude toward organized religion ever since I found this out - interestingly, none of the other guys in the locker room for gym class in high school  ever mentioned this mark to me - I guess that would have meant an admission that they had looked at my butt... such is our culture... 

This was one of the first games that I learned to play - it consisted of nothing more than a page with a track on it , a couple of buttons for players and a die - first one to land right on the finish square wins the game - Grandma Skellenger would play this with me often until I graduated to harder, more complex games like Candyland and War - Grandma always had a big, round tin of buttons to be able to choose your playing piece from, if you didn't want one of the buttons she kept with the game... 

Mom says that grandma Skellenger was a telephone switchboard operator before she retired... 

Vultures were an occasional sight in the skies in the areas where we lived - I never saw any sitting in the trees waiting for anything to die like you see in the cartoons and I never saw any up close, but sometimes you would see two or three circling in the air - once when dad and I were out in state land, heading to a fishing hole, we saw about a dozen of them circling over something - this was quite a sight, as they just slowly glided in big lazy circles in the air currents - we didn't see what animal  they were waiting for the end of... 

On that same day, I saw the biggest damn bullfrog that I had ever seen and what was a new flower for me - a single plant with a beautiful blossom called a Lady Slipper... quite the juxtaposition of memories... most of the bigger birds that I saw as a kid were hawks - once I saw a dead great horned owl that seemed huge to me - I would really have liked to see one of these alive... 

Debbie: Buzzards! - They were UGLY! SCARY! (We have big turkey buzzards out here in California. They're huge and circle the foothills for small prey all the time.)