Some of the other neighborhood adventures:
Go to the “weeds” (a large open field at the end of Logan with lots of high tubular pig weed and sunflowers and high grass to hide in and big piles of dirt and old dumped tree stumps and logs and pallets and wood to play in and make forts.) Many cowboy and Indian, army war, Tarzan of the jungle and other great pretends happened there.
Once, during a particularly heated cowboy and Indian skirmish, Tommy’s best friend, Kent Pederson also called Peyete, from “up the hill” shot me right in the face (upper lip) with an arrow made out of one of the pig weed reeds. It stuck and I hollered. Tommy came to my rescue and pulled it out and when the blood spurted out, he beat up Peyete.
Then came the great trap. When Tommy and Peyete got together, they added up to the sense of about ½ boy their age. (They liked to think up funny words and their favorite was “parte’-tinkle”.) Tommy Geottling and I spent a whole morning making a trap in a deep pit formed by large dumps of dirt and gravel. We put sharp pointed rocks and stakes at the bottom, pointy end up. Then we found a long pallet and put a flimsy piece of wood under it as a brace to make the pallet hang out over the hole with the pointy things. We found a piece of round log about 4 ft long and 18” in diameter, that we put on the back of the pallet to anchor it and, in the event anyone was dumb enough to test our trap, to roll over them and press them into the stakes. Along come Tommy and Peyete. They scoffed at our trap and said it would never work and that no one would ever walk out on the pallet any way. We stuck to our guns that it would work and then, to my horror, Tommy decided to prove us wrong and walked out on the pallet. Fortunately, the support piece broke before he got over the pointy things, but the log rolled right over him. Gasp! But he was only bruised, so, of course we laughed our heads off and then, I was very glad I could run so fast.
The “hornet hunters” was another great moment! One time, Tommy and Peyete swaggered up to Tommy Geottling and I holding BB guns. Tommy S wanted to see if it would hurt if you got shot in Levi panted leg with Peyete’s BB gun pistol, like Peyete claimed. He suggested that he shoot my leg to find out, and I told him, “No, of course it would hurt.” Then, after a few “No it won’t…”Yes it wills”…., I said “Then shoot yourself if you’re so sure.” He did and after he yelped and hollered for a while. Tommy G decided to tell them that we had found a big hornets’ nest over the door inside an abandoned chicken coop nearby. We suggested that it would be great fun for them to attack it with their BB guns.
Off went the fearless, ½ brained fighters. When they got into the coop, they shut the door and opened fire. When the hornets returned fire with a stinging fury, Tommy and Peyete had to take the only other door out, the little chicken door. Peyete got to it first and had fewer stings, but poor Tommy’s hind end was exposed for way too long. He never sat down for days, even at dinner and in the car.
A forest fire!
We would also collect of the neighborhood spent Christmas trees and poke them in the snow in the weeds and play like it was a forest. Soon, however, that got stale, so, we all agreed that we would like to see a forest fire, and lit them up. Wow! We lined them up and the fire flew from one to the other so fast. We were very glad for the limiting snow on the ground and so were the firemen when they came. We all got a good lecture over that one.
Catchin’ pigeons: Tommy S also did some great, smart fun things. There was a Jr High nearby with a hill that we liked to sled on in winter and play on in the summer. There were large elm trees just at the top of the hill in some areas. Tommy figured out a plan to catch some pigeons that roosted in the school roof. We brought bread and put it on the uphill side of the tree and went down the hill. Soon the pigeons flew down and enjoyed the bread. Then, we put out some more bread, lots more, and went down the hill, but, as the pigeons feasted we crept back up the hill behind the tree. 1-2-3 go, we leaped around the tree and each caught a pigeon. We put them in a box and took them home as pets. But, we wanted more, so we executed plan B, the fire escape caper. There was an enclosed metal fire escape slide on the side of the school for the upper story. We used to climb up it and slide down in twos. We put bread at the bottom and took our places half way up the slide, the pigeons landed; we slid down and caught two more. We kept and fed the pigeons in cages Dad helped us build behind our house. They became homing pigeons, always returning when we let them out to fly. They had babies and soon we had over a dozen. Then the neighbors began to rightfully complain about our pigeons pooping all over their houses. We were tired of them anyway so we locked the cages. But some of them would not go away, so Dad stung them a few times with a BB gun and they never came again.
We made a go cart of an old wood crate and other stuff plus wheels and a rope to steer. This time Tommy S was successful in getting me to try it first. Down the paved road by the school I went flying. It went much faster than we thought. It hit a bump ¾ way down and just disintegrated with me tumbling down the hill with crate, wheels and all flying along with me. Got pretty bruised up but it was still fun. Tommy wanted to build another one but I had lost enthusiasm.
Dad built out the basement of the little home with a cool, knotty pine bedroom for Tommy and me. We liked to sneak up the stairs to try to scare mommy. We never could and she often snuck over and, on her hands and knees would scare us just as we poked our heads out. Mom had a wonderful soprano voice. I loved to hear her singing while she worked.
Mom also was in tune with the spirit. One day my friends and I decided to dig a cave in the side of the hill at the back of our home lot. We dug straight down about 12 feet from the pitch of the hill and then out the side of the hill. Then we put a room off the side of our tunnel. To see how dark it could be, I crawled into the room and they put boards and dirt over both entrances. Of course, the air began to thin and I could not get out of the cave. Mom was in the house and suddenly had a feeling that there was danger and she should go out back. The kids had started doing some other stuff and had forgotten about me. Mom ran her fastest and asked where I was. They said in our cave. Just then, Tommy came up and he helped Mom uncover the entrance and there I was, blue in the face and about to die of suffocation. My dear Mother listened to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, immediately acted in faith and I lived to write this history.
We had a big console radio that Tommy and I would lay in front of and listen to radio shows of “Sky King”, “The Shadow”, Green Hornet”, the Lone Ranger, Hop Along Cassidy, Roy Rogers and many more.
Jerry was a little guy during most of our Logan street days. He was quite the daydreamer, however. One day, he was in his room reading a comic book that portrayed a guy hitting another guy on the head with the butt of his pistol to knock him out. Mom asked Tommy to go upstairs to get the sheets and towels on the floor just outside Jerry’s bedroom door. I was following to help. Just as Tommy stooped down to pick up the sheets, Jerry emerged from his bedroom and hit Tommy on the back of the head with the butt of his cap gun. It worked, Tommy fell face first into the sheets, out cold. I hollered for Mom, she came up, saw the situation and asked Jerry why, and he said, “I just wanted to see if it worked.” With Tommy out cold Mom started to laugh until she had tears in her eyes. I loved it when she laughed and giggled.
We loved to make model airplanes out of balsa wood kits. We would glue them together and paint them and then pretend they were buzzing around in dog fights. Some times that was not realistic enough and we would get tired of a plane of two, so we would get up on the roof of the garage, pretend dog fights and then set them on fire and toss them flying in flames off the roof.
This was all done without helmets, knee and elbow pads. We lived but had a few bruises cuts and scrapes.
Tippy, during this time spent his time running around with us or getting in dog fights, mostly with a large black lab the Geottlings owned, named Coalie, if it crossed the street. Lots of fury for about 30 seconds and then, little Tippy would swagger off, sure he had impressed us all by his great courage and skills. Coalie usually just sniffed and mozied back across the street, unhurt and wondering what that was all about.