Years ago, when my brother and I were in early grade school, we were easily bored. Nothing to do. Zilch. Nada. There were three (on clear days, maybe four) TV channels. Not that it mattered. In our house, friggin' Lawrence Welk ruled the TV. Trying to force a kid to sit through that mind-numbing series of dance numbers, old people music, accordions, and toothpaste smiles would drive any kid out of the house, even me, a notorious reader and homebody.
So outdoors my brother and I ventured, searching for something--anything--to do. As it was during the aftermath of a rain storm, we thought it'd be mighty keen to catch falling raindrops from the tall trees in our mouths. Desperate measures for bored kids.
To this day, I still remember spinning around the driveway, eyes closed, mouths open to catch drops from neighbor Walter's hulking tree between our houses.
Now, Walter was a curious sort. My dad didn't particularly cotton to him as he considered him somewhat of a "sissy."
"Why is Walter a sissy, Dad?" I asked one day, because again I was super bored.
"Because he's a bachelor and has three cats," said my dad with a self-satisfied, prim set to his lips which he thought explained it all, but it didn't, not one bit.
Anyway, shortly after our innovative game of catching raindrops orally, we soon grew weary of that challenge and trundled back inside to be tortured by some sisters warbling like rabid birds on "The Lawrence Welk Show."
All was fine until the next day when the doorbell rang. I gave it no heed as I was upstairs busy setting up my menagerie of stuffed animals in an elaborate court martial trial because that's the kinda kid I was (my brother's teddy bear, Tweaky, was the accused and I had already made up my mind that he was guilty, guilty, GUILTY!).
"Boys! Get down here! Now!"
My brother and I knew Dad's tone quite well, usually the precursor to the dreaded belt. But, honestly, for once I couldn't even imagine what I'd done. I'd been on decent behavior for at least 18 hours. I mean, c'mon!
Down the stairs we trundled, heads down in a walk of shame, tails between our legs.
"Boys, what do you have to say for yourselves?" Dad grimaced, his mad face pinched tighter than a vice.
"Um, nothing...I guess..." I said.
"You know who that was?" Dad hitched a thumb behind him. "That was Walter! He said you were outside yesterday making horrible, just horrible, faces at his cat!"
"Don't you lie to me! Walter said you were making horrible faces! Screwing up your mouths and rolling your eyes back into your head and trying to scare his cat!"
"Dad! We didn't even see the dumb cat! And I swear we weren't scaring any dumb ol' cat because--"
"Save it! Now you're really in trouble for lying, too!"
No matter how much we protested--and granted, we were no angels, but this time we were completely innocent (which made me change my mind about sending Tweaky to the firing squad once I resumed my mock trial upstairs)--Dad wouldn't believe us, his mind made up by Walter and his poor, mistreated cats. J'accuse!
And, really...even if we had been making faces at a cat (which we weren't!), so what? My brother and I still can't get over it.
While on the topic of questionable parenting, have you met the father in my "farm noir" horror thriller, Godland? He's not gonna get father of the year, that's for dang sure! (Every time I think of the great traumatic "Cat Incident of 1968," I think how worse things could be such as in this novel.)
No comments:
Post a Comment