Childhood Memories

If you can’t remember what it’s like to be five, let me try to remind you. The Feil’s had a lamp post in their front yard. It was a tall black pole with a light fixture on the top. Matt Feil and I would climb, hand over hand, pulling ourselves up the post until we could touch the lamp and prove our manliness. I have visited the house since becoming an adult and discovered that the lamp post is 4 feet tall. That is how short a five year old is.

As a five year old, I was certainly aware that the world was a big place, but it never bothered me because I had a little brother. My little brother was 4 years old, he was also named Matt, and I could beat him in a fight if I cared to. On the day this story takes place that is exactly what I had done. I don’t remember what it was about - I only remember that Matt was crying, and running off to tell Mom. I was about to get in trouble.

I’m not sure, but as I cast my mind back through the years, I think I have a memory of having previously planned this escape from trouble. Quickly I ran into the back yard, past the back lawn, turned right at the patio, climbed the wood pile, and then the fence. I was already ducked down in the fort in my neighbor’s back yard when Mom called out for me. I knew what I had to do. Lie still, barley breathing, and wait it out. I figured that after an hour my Mom would forget about the need to punish me. Hmmmm. Maybe I’d better give it two hours.

I don’t know how long I actually stayed hidden in that fort, but tracing wood grains in the boards and following the progress of ants kept me busy enough. When my instincts told me it was safe, I came out of hiding. Back down the fence, through the back yard and casually into the house. Amazingly, it had worked. Even Matt didn’t remember to tell on me.

I never fell out of The Favorite tree, but I did fall from a smaller one in our front yard. I must have been 6 or 7 years old. Matt (my brother) and I were playing in the front yard. I remember sitting up in the tree, probably about 8 feet up, when the branch I was sitting on broke. My flailing hands didn't manage to grab onto anything and I fell backward and plummeted head first toward the ground. I would have hit head first but the hem of my jeans snagged the stub of a branch sticking out from the trunk of the tree. I was dangling two feet off the ground, upside down, from one leg of my jeans. I couldn't reach the ground and I started yelling for Matt to go get Mom. Matt ran in the house and I hung there. Before Matt and Mom returned the stub of the branch that was holding me broke and I fell the remaining two feet and landed on my ear. It hurt a lot, but I remember being grateful that an angel had snagged my pants on the tree and saved my life.

*****

Now back to the story of my scar; If you walked across the circle, behind the backstop, down a path, and through a crack in a fence, you popped out onto a street in the neighborhood behind our house. Down the street a ways, on the left side, was a huge eucalyptus tree. The rope swing in this tree was amazing. We used to climb to one of the other branches in the tree and swing from it in huge arcs. It was the best rope swing I have memory of. I was out alone swinging on that rope swing one day when it happened. I was lazily swinging, with my knees around the knot, leaning way back so that my arms were extended and my head was back so that I could see behind me upside-down while swinging. I hadn't realized it, but there was a board on the ground under the swing with a nail sticking up out of it. After swinging for several minutes, I finally came into alignment with the nail, and as I passed over it, the point of the nail raked up my back leaving a huge cut. I stifled a scream, jumping from the rope, and ran up the street. I can still remember clearly running around the back of the backstop chanting through clenched teeth. "I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry." I didn't cry until I got home and Mom sprayed it with antiseptic. It stung sooooo bad and I was left with this big scar on my back.

One time I remember Roland asking me if I thought getting hit by a BB would hurt.
I said, "Yes it would".
"Yes, but what if you were shot from really far away", He wondered, "Can I try shooting you?"
"No way." was, of course, my reply.
"Oh, ok. Hey, Jared! Do you think you can climb that tree?" Roland asked. "I bet you can't".
Indignant, I replied, "That's easy!" and I ran to climb it. I climbed right up to about 9 feet high and looked across the yard for Roland. I heard an air rifle fire and suddenly felt an intense stinging on the front of my left thigh. Roland had shot me! I burst in to screaming tears and climbed raggedly out of the tree. Roland had run to meet me at the base of the tree.
"Jared, did it hurt? Did it hurt?" he asked, looking a little worried.
"IT KILLS!", I shouted. "And look at the red spot it left! I'm telling Mommy that you shot me!"
"Jared, don't tell on me, please."
"I'm telling! And I'm not going to Forgive and Forget either!"
"Jared, Jared, Listen! If you don't tell, I'll let you be in The Club."
"I can be in The Club?", I asked rubbing my thigh.
"Yes, you can. If you don't tell Mommy or Daddy. And The Club is going to be REALLY cool this time."
"I don't want to be in The Club. I want to tell on you."
Roland really started to get scared now. He would be in big trouble if I told. Big trouble from Dad! Time to pull out all the stops.
"Jared, you can be in The Club without a Bravery Test!"
<silence>
My tears started to dry.
"OK. I won't tell on you."

I don't know why, but The Club always seemed to work. Matt and I always wanted to be in The Club so bad. Roland and Melissa each had their own club and they would try to get Matt, Ben, and I to abandon the other person's club to join theirs. It was always so fun to play with Roland, so we always wanted to be in his club. The only problem is that in order to get into this prestigious fraternity, you usually had to pass a Bravery Test.

Roland created many Bravery Tests for us to pass through. Walking on "the carpet of knives" (an upside-down plastic carpet cover), smelling the hamster cage, and sneaking a spoon from the kitchen after bedtime were some that I remember. The bravery tests were never designed to hurt us, just make us face a difficult task without flinching. Roland would always perform the tasks with us. It just made us feel ... well, brave. The one I remember best was the broom test. We always had a straw broom in the pantry. If Mom and Dad were gone and Roland was in charge, Matt and I would soon want to be in The Club so Roland would set up a Bravery Test for us. For the broom test, we had to stand against the wall and pull our shirts up so that our stomachs would be exposed. We would then take turns being poked in the stomach with the bristles of the broom, starting out soft and then harder and harder to see how much we could take.

I look back on those times as "the good old days" now and wonder what my daughters will do and how they will play when Mom and Dad are not around. I dare say that it is thanks to all those bravery tests administered by my older brother that I am so brave today. :)

The Invisibility Towel
At age 10, my best friend was Matt Feil. Looking back, we had great times together. Living outside the city limits, surrounded by orchards, provided us a huge playground. In the summer, we would swing over the river, pick cotton from the neighboring fields, or squelch through knee deep mud in the walnut orchards. The best place to play, however, was The Favorite Tree. That giant king of walnut trees was a club house, a space ship, and a castle. It even had built in ammunition for repelling annoying little brothers. In short, The Favorite Tree was worth hours and hours of fun for two 10 year old boys. The only problem was parents seem to love to interrupt their children's playing with chores. The Favorite Tree was out in the orchard behind our house and it was so big that my mother could step onto the balcony outside her bedroom and see us above the other trees. In the middle of a day of fun, she would call to me to come in and clean my room. Matt and I got so tired of these types of interruptions that we came up with a brilliant plan to avoid my mother's eyes. We procured a towel, green like the leaves of The Favorite Tree, and large enough to cover both of us at once, and stashed it up in the tree. Keeping a watchful eye on the house, we would quickly throw the towel over us when we spotted my Mom stepping out onto the balcony. Once the towel was over us, it was just a matter of time before Mom would give up calling my name, and go back inside the house. It worked like a charm, and we used it several times over the summer. It should be remembered that we came up with this idea 13 years before Harry Potter first hid under his father's invisibility cloak, and unlike Harry, we never got caught.

Exploding Egg
This is a fun memory. I was 16 or 17 years old when Geoff Sanders, David Kausen, and I went over to David's house for lunch between classes. While we were there we thought that we should perform some experiments to see what would really happen to an egg in the microwave. Legend had it that the egg would explode, and we were intent on discovering how big the explosion would be.

Our first attempt was successful. The egg was placed in the microwave with a blast shield over it (a clear plastic food container), and the microwave was set for 3 minutes. At some point between the 2nd and 3rd minute mark, the egg blew. Bits of shell and mostly cooked egg were all over the inside of the microwave. The explosion had been entertaining enough to inspire a second attempt.

Another egg was chosen. The microwave was set for 3 minutes, started, and began counting down. With 30 seconds left, we watched intently, waiting. 20 seconds left -- 10 seconds remaining -- 3, 2, 1, beeeeeeeep. -No explosion- Timidly, gently, we opened the microwave door and peered inside. There sat the egg, looking innocent. Adding another 2 minutes to the timer, we waited on pins and needles, but the microwave beeped again with no explosion. We reasoned that with 5 minutes of cooking in the microwave, it must have cooked all the way through. Geoff was the bravest among us, so he took the egg and brought it down on the counter top. -No explosion- All three of us let out the breath that we'd been holding, and turned our faces back toward the egg. Geoff rolled the egg on the counter and peeled it. "It's hard boiled!", he exclaimed. We passed the egg around, marveling at it. "I didn't know you could hard boil them in the microwave." I said, passing the egg back to Geoff. "Well, I guess you can." said Geoff and he bit into it.

We all laughed about it for a long time afterward, and I will never forget the image of that egg exploding as Geoff bit into it. It has been enough to satisfy any curiosity I've had since about microwaves and eggs.