| The world wide web is really
amazing to me as it allows me to share old memories with friends in a way
that allows all to come back anytime they choose to read it over and to
change errors in memory if we choose to do that.
In the late 1950's I went fishing
with the Sears boys, Doug and Pepper, along with their grandpa or uncle; I
don't recall which. We went to Howell and fished just east of the river
bridge. I enjoyed fishing the same then as I do now, which is very little.
As such, I spent most of my fishing time "messing around" and getting into
as much trouble as I could without getting my butt beat.
We were on a sandbar in the
middle of the river and I looked down, and just in the edge of the water was
a rusty old hand grenade. I could not grab it fast enough. You can imagine
how excited we were.
On our way home we would hold
it out the window to scare oncoming cars. We would act like we were
pulling the pin and playing soldier. Of course no oncoming cars could see what
we had but we really had a ball.
When we got home, Doug and
Pepper's folks were in the kitchen at my house having coffee with my folks.
As we excitedly ran in to show them the hand grenade, I hid it under my shirt
in order to surprise them. When I pulled it out I said, "Look at the
pineapple we found in the river"!
Dad grabbed the hand grenade
from my hand. He explained, rather loudly just how dangerous it was. The
butt beating I had always tried to avoid while fishing finally caught up
with me. I was usually one to never cry when spanked, no matter how hard or
how long and no matter what was used. But this time, I was scared and
hurting and was sent to my room for the rest of the day with no supper and
crying like a baby.
While I was in my room, I
heard a dog get run over and my day worsened when my brother Tom came up and
told me that our dog "Blondie" had been run over and killed. It is strange
what one remembers.
My dad took the hand grenade
and went to the river bridge at Cimarron and threw it back into the river as
far as he could throw it. I suppose it is still there somewhere. Dad and
Milton, Doug and Pepper's dad, figured the hand grenade was lost or thrown in
the river by passing Guardsmen.
You are right Pepper; it is
pretty funny now but man, what a hard way to learn about picking up old hand
grenades.
Pete.
Pete,
Pretty close rendition as I recall. It was with my
Grandpa Russell and I don't recall my folks being at your house. I thought,
by the look on his face, your Dad was going to have a heart attack. I saw
the first boot hit your butt and I hit the front door on the dead run. As I
recall it was a fine end to a marvelous day of fishing with a responsible
grandparent. Ha! P.S. Skip was not in attendance.
I ran around with Doug, Pepper and their cousin Skip
Russell and I had asked Doug if Skip was along that day.
|