The Manifest Destiny

In the Fall that I entered 1^st grade, we moved to our farm, 7 miles west,  to be closer to Dad’s work.  Having spent a great deal of time on our grandmother's farm, we were certainly not alien to farm life, however Jack, Liz and I still had our own set of unrealistic expectations.  Jack had grand plans to raise cows and hunt wild animals.  

 Liz was looking forward to living the life of Velvet from the film National Velvet.  She knew a lot about horses from the fiction she had taken out of the school library. 

The horses in those books were  incredibly well mannered, had nerves of steel and were every girl’s best friend.  Liz assumed the ponies and horses our parents would acquire would have no less character or pedigree. She had plans to ride her horse to school everyday on the seven miles of busy roads to the campus.  Mom and Dad had a different set of plans that entailed catching a ride with a chain smoking math teacher in a homely little Corvair where seat belts were an option not selected. The Chevy Corvair had made Time's list of "The 50 Biggest Automotive Mistakes Ever Made".   The latter plan was understandably, far less desirable when  it came to making friends and influencing people.    Liz was also ill prepared for the many vices inherent with an affordable pony, like spooking at butterflies, and the tendency to bolt after they reared and parted ways with the rider.  She soon found that horses were not much more predictable than cats although they did weigh about 1500 pounds more.  After breaking her arm and cracking her head open during 2 separate mishaps, she let go of her National Velvet dream and focused on lobbying (unsuccessfully) for a move to the city where her friends lived. For me, I was looking forward to  my  tomboy / little kid pursuits, enjoying being outside,  raising lots of calves and foals and doing cattle drives to our cousin’s  farm next door.

Cattle Drive

….a lot like living in a western and like many things, one should be careful what they wish for. 

Overall, life on the farm was fantastic.  It was 100 years old, there were lots of places to explore,  I could go wherever I wanted and  there wasn’t a single street to cross. The first week there, Liz and I  found a cat and five little kittens in a stall in the barn.  It was a bit of an adjustment not having neighbors right next door and the noises were different. Instead of horns and car engines we heard cows and  birds during the day and screech owls, locusts,  and bull frogs at night.  

The sound of a siren was so rare,  we would jump in the car whenever we heard one, and go off to find the excitement.  Within a month of moving to the farm there was a barn fire about a half a mile away.  The whole sky turned red that night and you could see the flames from our attic window.  Mom and Dad meant well but every explanation of a life event like the fire, had a Disney spin complete with a moral at the end.  They told us that the fire had been caused by a boy our age playing with matches in the barn. Jack was kind and trusted me with the truth that Mom and Dad didn’t think I was old enough to hear. In what was probably 3 parts testing his persuasion skills and 1 part believing it himself, Jack swore me to secrecy and then let me know that Indians did it.  

 While I appreciated his candor, this new information was very troublesome.  Unfortunately I had paid attention when I had watched westerns, and Indians for the most part were not portrayed well. Savage Indians were not a part of "living my life in a western" that I had planned.  

The Lone Ranger’s friend Tonto was a nice Indian but he was very serious and never laughed, and he only spoke in 1-3 word phrases. Indians were a big problem in another Saturday morning TV show I watched, RinTinTin.  I had seen enough to know what could happen when angry Indians lived nearby.

After becoming privy to our Indian problem I began carrying a feather and a miniature yoyo in my pocket in case I was ever captured.  I  also took our red setter Pat with me when I went outside.  I had heard that Indians liked to trade stuff and I thought I might be able to trade the feather or the yoyo for my freedom.  

RinTinTin was Rusty’s dog and he didn’t seem to mind taking an arrow to save Rusty, and he had always recovered by the next week’s episode.  I was pretty sure my dad had studied removing Indian arrows from dogs and cats when in veterinary school – it was really important to push the arrow all the way through and break it before you pulled it back.  After going a couple of weeks without an attack or even an Indian sighting, I began to get a small level of comfort that maybe the Indians had moved on to set barns on fire somewhere else.

Early that Winter in the midst of a snow storm, I found myself home sick from school.  Due to the weather, my Mother needed to leave me home alone so she could collect Jack and Liz from school.  It wouldn’t be a big deal because  my Dad was expected home soon. Even though it kept snowing harder and harder, they were both gone much longer than what seemed to be a reasonable amount of time.  While a well adjusted child might have chosen to use this time wisely reading a school assignment, I stared at the school assignment and morosely pondered my new life as an orphan.     When they finally got home I was upset and asked what took so long.  My mom replied that she had gotten “tied up” in traffic. 

I was stunned. The Indians were still here and they had captured my mom but she escaped and she was so calm and brave.  I wanted to know how she got away but I was sworn to secrecy about the whole Indian problem.  When my dad walked in I ran and shouted “Mom got tied up in traffic, but she escaped and she’s here now.”   Dad replied that he had gotten “tied up” at the office too.  I gasped.  The Indians - they were everywhere….. but Jack was the best brother ever for trusting me with the truth.

The Perfect Pet (excerpt from "War and Peas")

    After school in first grade, I would ride my pony Beauty over the hill to our cousin’s farm. Beauty was a fine babysitter. If I slipped off her bare back, she would stop and wait for me to climb back on. She was 33 years old and the same brown pony on which my Dad learned to ride. Our cousin and my dad were country veterinarians, and the animal hospital was on his farm next to ours. My father would preside over afternoon office hours and perform small animal surgery. With the exception of having to wash my hands for long periods of time preparing for surgery, I liked to watch him operate. It was usually just spaying dogs and cats. During surgery, I would stand on a chair and assist.  My job was to hand my dad instruments like the Kelly clamps, and wipe up the blood.  When he closed, my job was to cut the stitches; short on the inside, long on the outside.

     One day during office hours, a scruffy old farmer in worn overalls who breathed through his mouth, brought in a little 2 day old piglet. He said “Doc, this here pig done got no hole”. What happened next was like Christmas on a sunny Spring day. The farmer looked at me, and then my Dad. He said “Doc, if you can fix this here pig, that pretty little girl can keep him”... and he pointed at me!  My Dad picked up the little pink piglet – when their eyes met I saw a short exchange of mutual respect. I watched carefully as Dad looked in her ears, nose, and mouth. She looked like a fine pig to my little trained eye. Dad then turned her around to inspect her other end. The piglet looked me in the eye and I am sure she smiled. I felt us bond immediately and I could tell she was just as busy as I was imagining our new life together. Her name would be  "Scout".

As Dad examined her posterior, I soon realized what the farmer meant when he said that the pig “done got no hole”….she had been born without a rectum. As luck would have it, not only was I about to get a pig, but it was a perfect little pig. In my mind there was nothing to fix. This piglet without a “hole” was intelligent design at its best. It would get to be a house pig.  The possibilities for a perfect pig were endless. She was virtually maintenance free and I would be able to teach her tricks and she loved me. That farmer who breathed through his mouth, was the nicest man in the world.
      Before Dad had the chance to explain the inherent flaws of a piglet without a “hole”, I had bolted out the door, untied Beauty and headed home. What was Beauty’s value as a 33 year old babysitting pony, was also her shortcoming when one had important news with which to taunt her older siblings …Beauty had but one speed. Unlike newer models in our stable that could walk, trot, canter, and gallop, Beauty only walked. And, it wasn’t a fast walk. I rushed home as fast as one could rush on Beauty. When we got home I flew in the back door and found my older siblings Jack and Liz sitting at the kitchen table eating our cook Myrtle’s fresh chocolate chip cookies. I shouted that I was getting a perfect little pig named Scout, and she was going to get to sleep with me in my bed, and she would never have to be housebroken like our other  pets, so she would only go outside because she wanted to,

not because she had to….and, they could never pet her unless they asked me first. They each helped themselves to another cookie without ever looking up, as if I wasn’t even there and they hadn’t heard me. Jack looked up and said to Liz “did you hear something?”  Liz looked back at him and said “no, I don’t think so.” But they heard me just fine.
     That night at dinner Dad brought the good news with the bad: for reasons I did not completely understand, the piglet had to get a “hole”. Dad explained it in professional medical terms. The gist of it was that if food went in one end there had to be an exit point at the other. It must have been some kind of swine rule. Not to be discouraged I suggested that we get around the problem by not putting anything in her mouth, thus eliminating the need for an exit. Who would have thought I could improve on the intelligent design? I now had a pet that I didn’t need to clean up after or let out, and thanks to my enhancement, Scout no longer even needed feeding. She wasn’t going to cost a thing, less work even than my ant farm or sea monkeys. Everyone would want one. I started planning for Scout to have babies. Before I got too far, Dad came back with more obstacles - the surgery was complicated and a very high risk procedure. The good news was that the surgery would be the next morning. I had no worries, the Doctor was my Dad, and he could fix anything…..as it was, anything but this little pig. It turns out that Scout had a number of other birth defects that prevented a successful outcome. Life with my perfect little pig was never meant to be.☹

Extreme Profiles in Courage - excerpt from War and Peas

On occasions when it was New Papa vs. the grandchildren, the grandchildren always presented in impenetrable front. When New Papa was not conspiring to complicate our lives we were quite accomplished at filling that void.

            The youngest 10 of us fell into 2 categories: “Character” donors and “Character” recipients. The older 5 were donors and the youngest 5 were recipients, however to some extent all of the girls were recipients at least some of the time.  The recipients were home schooled by the donors in a number of subjects including:

·      Knot tying

·      Tennis

·      Gymnastics

·      Brain teasers

·      Marksmanship and conductivity

Jack: “As you can see, Chip and Stain, using a half hitch followed by a square knot makes escape virtually impossible.” 

Penn: “However when working from branches above, nothing quite beats the hangman’s noose.  Any questions Margaux?  Don't forget to be at the car in 10 minutes for miniature golf”.

            

Preparing for kindergarten in the Fall, Little Sinner liked to play school. Older siblings and cousins were all to eager to oblige:  

Looper: “Little Sinner, we believe you will learn much more if we use true stories to challenge you: The police made us take you when you were 1.  They said they would come back to get you in  2000 days.  If it takes one week to pack, when should you get started?”

                                                            Marksmanship

“To get a steady shot at the blackbird, rest the bb gun barrel on something firm, like that 1000 volt cattle wire”.

           As one might surmise, the lure of hanging out with older cousins and our absence of cause and effect reasoning, contributed to endless opportunities for acquiring character.  Of course we were always eager to learn when Nick and Toad rode into town.

 

The Dungeon - In the Belly of the Beast

      Having been exposed to my veterinarian father’s patients at a young age,  I,  more than most children,  had developed some theories on what creatures made up the genus that liked to prey on children (pediavore).  As was the case with most of my early theories,  it was based on age-appropriate methods of research:  deep thought,  wild imagination,  and inquiries to my older cousins.  My theory of pediavores hypothesized that there were three primary classes:

GENUS PEDIAVORE

1) Larger than me,  foams at mouth,  growls and or stalks - Han’s VanderTease’s Dog
2) Smaller than me but sucks blood or sets trap - Mosquitos and Spiders
3) Hides in water and chases me with an open mouth full of teeth - Snapping Turtles

      When it came to domesticated animals,  I assigned the pediavore classification on a per-animal basis according to my proprietary assessment based on size,  speed,  and growl decibels.  As it pertained to my grandmother’s farm,  there was a pediavore around every corner.  Bom Bom’s  basement was no exception,  but it was also  a wonderful place,  full of amazing things that dated back to the late 1800s.  There were old Red Cross stretchers, wooden picnic plates,  Victrolas,  vaults,  and giant trunks.  My cousins and I suspected that the giant trunks and vaults,  that were too heavy to budge,  were filled with gold that other generations had forgotten about.  Either gold or lost copies of the Declaration of Independence,  or King George’s marriage certificate….important collectables. On a regrettable day in 1960,  however,  the magical nature of the basement changed forever.  That was the day when New Papa  procured hundreds of two-watt light bulbs from  a Port William Boy Scout named “Little Billy May.”  

       Little Billy’s gift in door-to-door  sales has never been the subject of debate. After his visit with New Papa,  Billy enjoyed a sales award trip to Disneyland,  and went on to successfully sell lightning rods and encyclopedias door to door. 
       Little Billy’s gain was our loss,  for from that unfortunate day in 1960 when Billy “asked for the order” from New Papa,  the basement became a dungeon.  A two-watt bulb radiates no more light  then a birthday candle,  but it doesn’t use much electricity either,  and that was all that mattered to  New Papa.
      Along with the kitchen, the basement and swimming pool came under New Papa’s jurisdiction.  A quick visit to the basement and pool was all it took to realize that New Papa had no interest in either.  The pool was built in 1939 with the use of horses,  who would drag a large industrial shovel across the ground to dig the hole.  The pool had straight sides,  so telephone-pole-sized logs were floated in the pool in the winter to prevent ice from cracking the sides.  The water was always zero-visibility because New Papa did not enjoy swimming and felt that chlorine was an unnecessary amenity.  Without the burden of a scheduled chlorine regimen,  New Papa’s pool maintenance schedule consisted of having Uncle Owl remove the logs from the pool in May and replace them in  October.    
 

 
       Preparing to swim in the zero-visibility pool under New Papa’s rules presented its own challenges.   All children and adults were required to change into their swimwear in “dressing” cubicles in the dungeon. There were  three entrances.  One was from the porch,  another from the pool,  and the third from the kitchen.  It was an unpleasant trip for all ages,  but a journey fraught with danger for a small child.  Entering the basement from the porch required us to go down three steps and pass a huge vault on the left.  I am not sure what was stored in that vault,  but it could have been 60-watt light bulbs.
       Fully lit with the two-watt bulbs,  the dungeon was still frightfully dark,  with a strong hint of mildew in the air. If it had rained recently,  the changing cubes became registered wetlands.  One didn’t dare remove their flip flops.  It was impossible to  get to a changing room without walking through a thick network of cobwebs.  The  cobwebs against the two-watt light produced very eerie,  spooky effects. The dungeon was also an ideal natural environment for the super race of spiders that were a testament to  Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.”  I would never go into the dungeon alone,  because I knew there was safety in numbers.  Jen and Liz warned us that these spiders were more fit than us and  had very real expectations of trapping and eating a grandchild.  

 Because  the darkness assured complete and total privacy, the changing cubicles were really nothing more than a formality.  
      One of New Papa’s many rules was that all swimmers had to take a shower before entering the pool. His premise that we were dirtier than the pool water was simply not true,  most of the time. 
      Swimming in the pool was equal parts fun and fear.  The fear element sprang from warnings from our older cousins that  snapping turtles frequented the pool.  While these pediavores had little interest in the “adult” swim,  we were tipped off  that they had great enthusiasm for the “kid” swim.  The water was so murky I had no way of knowing if they were there stalking me,  but it weighed

heavily on my swimming experience.  It was no help that Toad and Penn liked to yell out in pain and disappear below the surface as though pulled by an attacking snapper.  I had seen a few snapping turtles on our farm and they were a pediavore to be reckoned with.
      While we were preoccupied in the pool,  the spiders were busy repairing and fortifying their entire network of webs...making them bigger and more sophisticated than before,  ever hopeful of capturing the big prize,  an Upham grandchild.  These super spiders were  results driven and thrived under tight deadlines. When we returned to the basement to change, our one and only goal was to get out of there as quickly as possible.  In the darkness and haste, our clothing often took an unexpected turn. 
 

      As was my lot, the pediavores reserved their optimism and patience  for another day, and I was resigned to my vulnerable place in the food chain.


Clean-up Editor: Toni Gardner, Author of  "My Fathers" and "Walking Where the Dog Walks"

The Cattle Prod

     My brother Jack and I frequently assisted my father on his veterinary farm calls.  We were well trained - Jack would hold the cow or horse, and I would hand Dad instruments or be a gofer and run to his wagon to get medical supplies.  My first experience with the magic stick was when Jack and I accompanied Dad on a farm call to examine a gravely ill cow.  The cow was easy to find.  She was in the field next to the red barn, beneath the impatient, circling vultures.  Sadly, when we arrived to the Holstein cow in the field,  the only signs of life were the little barn kittens bouncing around and exploring the near-lifeless Gulliver of a cow. 

I  was always amazed at what a sight it was to see a  cow lying on its side.  I knew that a cow had four stomachs.  I didn’t know much about them except that one was for  fruits, and one was for vegetables, and one was for barbed wire.   It seemed as though each stomach was pushing out the side that wasn’t on the ground. The side of the cow was a mountain for the little kittens, and they were enjoying roughhousing  on the slope.  

     I was no stranger to large animals lying lifeless on the ground, and I felt the farmer’s pain.  I had a small garden in a tiny plot of land I had previously used in an attempt to dig to China.  That is where my father matter-of-factly said I would end up when he saw me digging the hole.  

At the time I was digging a hole because I had found a shovel lying on the ground.  When one is quite young and has homework to do, sometimes that is all the motivation that is needed.  For me, it was also an attempt to exploit something that I was strong enough to exploit.  For a 40-pound weakling like myself, life proved to be quite frustrating, as I had the desire to do a great many things but had the physical strength to do just a  few.  Nothing was more frustrating than not being strong enough to cock Jack’s BB gun, or tall enough to drive the bumper cars at the amusement park.  Digging a hole because “it wasn’t there” was all the motivation I needed. While digging the hole to China was not my original intention, the suggestion that it could take me somewhere renewed my drive.  Having just studied gravity in the third grade, I had some curiosity about what might happen if I jumped down a hole that exited in China....

I wasn’t sure if I would have enough momentum to make it to China, or if I would fall back and get stuck in the middle. Ending up in China presented a number of new challenges - I did not know anyone  there, and I was well aware of the language barrier. That was a bridge I would cross when I got the hole done.  

      Like most of my projects, this one turned out a bit grander than I had anticipated and was abandoned after about two weeks.  Still, with some help from Jack, our hole had become about four feet deep.  We were not sure what to do with a four-foot hole, but none of our friends had one, so it seemed like a cool thing to keep.  Jack and I decided that we would try to catch something big, like a bear, so we carefully covered it with hay and checked it every day.  

After several days, having no luck catching anything but a toad, we concluded that all of the bears must be busy.  

     Our plans to maintain a large hole in the ground, and a couple of feet from the tractor path, were admittedly ill-conceived.....and doomed as soon as Dad realized that our hole was now four feet deep.  He felt that the disappointment of losing our four-foot hole would be  offset by being given the newly filled hole to grow a garden.  Mom and Dad bought me lima beans, peas, and cucumber seeds.  I liked the cucumber plants because they were easy to pick, but the peas and lima beans were tedious and boring to pick. On top of that, Dad was the only one who even liked lima beans. 

     After picking a bag of lima beans for him, I stopped by the barnyard to see our horse Spring.  He was a tall chestnut, and while he was too strong for me to ride, he was my favorite because he was so friendly.  If I ducked under his head and put my arms around his neck, he would lean over my shoulder and grab the waistband of my jeans, pick me up, and walk around.  

It provided endless amusement for both of us.  He seemed interested in the lima beans, so I gave him a couple of pods for his trouble.  What I was unprepared for was his decision to lie down immediately after eating the beans.  Then he topped it off by putting his head down and shutting his eyes.  

In the two years we had owned him, I had never ever seen him lie down.  I immediately considered that lima beans might be poisonous to horses.  I was near panic.  Was there time for Dad to save him?  Maybe it was one of those horse facts everyone knew but me.  Had I not been listening when Dad had said “Margaux, you must never give a horse a lima bean; he will have a long painful death"?    I ran to the house and told Dad that Spring had eaten too many lima beans and was near death.  Dad gave me a strange look and asked how many lima beans he had eaten.  I said two.  He asked “Two plants?”  I replied, “No, two pods.” Dad then got a bemused look on his face and said he would come out and have a look.  When Dad arrived in the barn yard, it appeared as though Spring was still near death.  Dad leaned over and felt Spring’s chest and then rubbed his temple for a few seconds.  The healing hands must have worked because Spring stood up and began sniffing me for more lima beans.

     As for the cow with the four stomachs,  its chips were clearly down.  All signs of life, including a detectable pulse, had vanished.  Dad shook his head and said that things did not look very promising.  We all watched as he knelt beside the cow and took a long stick out of a cardboard tube from his medical bag. It reminded me of a policeman’s billy club, except it was white.  He applied it to the cow’s rear and pushed the button on the end.  

What followed was astounding.  In a split second, the cow’s tail fluttered and became still. When Dad pushed the button again, the tail fluttered and became still again - the bovine equivalent to a car engine turning over. The third time Dad pressed the button, the cow’s eyes blinked, she made a long bellow, exploded to her feet, and bolted off like a bat out of hell.  That was the last we saw of her. 

I glanced over to Jack, hoping he had not noticed, but his jaw was dropped, and he clearly had. The farmer shrugged and said, “Well, I guess you fixed her.” Dad suggested that the farmer call him when she returned to the barn.

     I asked Dad what that magic stick was and he said a “cattle prod.”  I asked him what was in the stick and he said “electricity,” but I think he meant lightning.  I suspect that the lightning stick was made possible by the research Ben Franklin conducted flying kites in electrical storms, and some other scientist had figured out a way to bottle it into a stick.  As an adult, I can reflect on Ben Franklin’s stunt and can’t help but wonder what role it played in inspiring the stars of Jack Ass.   Had he been born one hundred years later, Franklin would have gotten a Darwin award “honorable mention.”  

     I am not sure who coined the name “cattle prod,” but it certainly seemed to sell itself short.  It was a name that more likely came out of the Texas Cattle Barons than Madison Avenue, and it definitely gave new meaning to my previous understanding of the word “prod.” 

     As the three of us drove off to the next farm call, Dad explained that this farmer didn’t appreciate the value Jack and I brought to the farm examination, so we would need to stay in the car.  The good news was that he was only going to be doing a "few TB tests," so it shouldn’t take long.  As he gathered up his syringes, I noticed that he was not taking the bag with the lightning stick in it. I subtly glanced at Jack to see if he noticed this oversight, and judging by the elated look on his face, he most definitely had.  I shouted, “Dad, the cattle prod, you forgot it.”  He said “No, Margaux, I didn’t.  You don’t need it for TB tests.”  I shouted, “You never know, you should take it just in case....”  Dad replied in a stern voice that it would not be necessary and turned and walked toward the barn.  

     As soon as he rounded the corner out of sight, Jack and I dove for the cattle prod, but the result was a foregone conclusion.  Even if I had gotten to it first, which I did, I wouldn’t have the time to activate it before being over powered by my older brother.  As one might guess, we spent the next 15 minutes  playing  "veterinarian and ailing cow."   I did not land the much coveted role of the veterinarian.

I did develop a lifelong respect for the cattle prod that afternoon, and became far more selective about the farm calls I agreed to attend.

Clean-up Editor: Toni Gardner, Author of  "My Fathers" and "Walking Where the Dog Walks"

The Road Trip

When it came to my grandmother’s family, New Papa had a gift for creating situations that had very little chance of playing out, or ending well. One summer day he decided to take the youngest 10 fake grandchildren to the Lowertown Acme for his weekly trip. This expedition would arguably be a formidable challenge for someone who enjoyed the company of children. It was inconceivable for someone like New Papa who did not. Still, we all piled into the station wagon in an era unencumbered by seatbelts. When we traveled with New Papa, he was there and we were there, but there was very little conversation between us and everyone was quite content with the arrangement. When New Papa drove, his head bounced like a bobble head doll. None of us sat upfront because it was more fun sitting in the backseat and tailgate where all 10 of us would bobble our heads in unison for the duration of the trip.

We were all aware at a very early age, that driving was not one of New Papa’s strong suits. Shortly into our journey, New Papa swerved to avoid hitting a paper cup in the road and ran over a large rock on the edge, resulting in a flat tire.

To gain access to the spare, it was necessary for all of the grandchildren, to disembark. We all waited patiently on the side of the road for a good 1 to 2 minutes. When it became apparent that this was becoming a day trip as opposed to a short outing to the store, we all started running around like loose cats. Penn and Jack used the time to go small game hunting with their sling shots. Chip and Stain went along somewhat less enthusiastically.

The rest of us stayed out of the way by trying to get lost in the cornfield. Getting lost in the cornfield was a right of passage in which Uncle Herman would blindfold and take each grandchild who had turned 10. Those of us under 10 took advantage of opportunities like these, to practice our homing skills.

It wasn’t always obvious who would win the epic battle of New Papa vs. the tire, but he did ultimately prevail. When we arrived at the Acme, New Papa made a bee-line to the produce manager who knew our fake grandfather by name. New Papa immediately zeroed in on the black bananas that were about to be pitched, and offered to pay half price for them. The grocer was pleased to accommodate him, while we watched incredulously as he procured what would soon be served to us. New Papa continued the bargaining with the perished apples in the discard bin. At this point it was becoming painful for us to watch. We all stood around awkwardly, when Stain and Chip shouted “Supermarket Sweep”. They raced to get 4 more carts. Supermarket Sweep was a popular a.m. TV game show where contestants raced down the aisles in teams of two and three trying to load the most expensive items in their cart. Our home version was a bit more “extreme”. For the youngest of us Little Sinner, it was more about “value” then expense. Little Sinner’s diet consisted of bread and jelly, nothing more, nothing less. When she found herself in a nice restaurant that did not have jelly sandwiches on the menu, she would reluctantly settle for a hot roll and mint jelly. When it came to Super Market Sweep, Jen and I soon learned that our (little Sinner's) cart would have nothing but bread and jelly in it. I knew we had no shot at winning but it was worth it watching Little Sinner selecting jelly like our parents selected wine.

The boys hung out in the beef corridor and Liz, Marigold, and Looper won easily by filling their cart with cosmetics. When New Papa finished at the checkout we all parked our loaded carts neatly in the closest aisle and were on our way.

I don’t recall New Papa ever making any effort to supervise us or even acknowledge that we were with him. I suspect he was just happy to have us preoccupied. There is no question that 10 spirited children enhanced his bargaining leverage, as the store was quite relieved when we left. New Papa subscribed to Darwin's principle of "survival of the Fittest, and thus saw little value to counting heads.  He felt that those of us who were unable to find our way back to the car at the unappointed hour, should be left to fend for themselves even if it resulted in the weakest ones being lost.  In the broader scheme of things, he was not going to miss one or two of us and his life around the farm might be more peaceful.  We, on the other hand were aware of his style of grand-parenting and self-governed.  Foiled, he begrudgingly found  that a station wagon filled with 10 children did not leave much room for 2 carts of groceries. Like water, groceries in an over loaded car "seek their own level".  Consequently, what did not fit upfront with him, spilled over the  grandchildren for the journey back to the farm, and the ten of us survived to annoy another day.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

      We grew up largely without the joys of candy and sodas - they were only for special occasions.  Our parents were health-conscious and saw little redeeming value in those things.  I believed this misconception was probably fostered by a human interest story they read in Reader’s Digest magazine. My dad got Reader’s Digest for his waiting room, but there was also some lure in their million-dollar sweepstakes.  While you didn’t have to buy to enter, no one really believed that claim.  My parents once noticed me reading it and cutting out an article. I suppose that if you have a child that hates to read, and you catch her reading something, you go out and buy a  lifetime subscription to it.  Little did they know that I was merely in my adolescent coupon-clipping phase and had spotted a coupon for Milky Way candy bars. 

 I was planning to make a modest withdrawal from one of my three bandaid boxes full of quarters to accompany the coupon on my next trip to a store.  I had accumulated this savings by asking my dad for a quarter every night after dinner, when he was dozing through the NBC - Texaco Huntley Brinkley Report.  Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were among television’s early news anchors. In my quest to optimize my payoff, I had learned that asking for a  dollar would wake him up, as he would need  to inquire why I needed a dollar, but if I just asked for a quarter, he would reach into his pocket and deliver.  

After doing this most nights for a year, I had accumulated close to $100 - $90 and 25 cents to be precise. While we had allowances, it was a  poorly run system, and I frequently forgot to collect my monthly $2; then it just seemed unprincipled to collect the $2 when I was getting 25 cents a day.

      Our unheeded pleas for candy were not helped by the fact that our country well water had no fluoride, and cavities were relatively common.  To our dismay, when having his cavities filled, our father preferred drilling pain over the lingering fat-lip sensation that accompanied a novocaine injection. That fact, on top of having a professional exchange with our dentist, meant that novocaine was not a part of our cavity remediation experience. Still, our dentist was a very kind man, who always assured us that the drilling “might not hurt.”  

I learned early on that those assurances should not be given much stock. I knew the dentist’s basset hound, Bubbles, from his visits to my father, and Bubbles was most definitely not awake during his “procedure” to prevent him from lusting after the female dogs in his neighborhood.  

I also know he had received novocaine when he got his ear stitched following a dispute with the dog next door.  

For whatever reason, when we went to the little shop of horrors, what we received for our trouble was a lot of character and a little roll of floss in a molar-shaped plastic box. 

      Growing up on a farm was good for a great many things. Halloween was just not one of them. The day after, at school, was torture. Kids would come in with wonderful stories and huge grocery bags full of candy from their haul the previous night.  So much that they would gladly give away large quantities. 

I, on the other hand, felt like a little Amish kid.  The dream of walking house to house with my friends in the city, hauling a bag so full of candy it was dragging on the ground, and passing all of the other scary beggars,  just couldn’t be matched on the farm.   And if you stayed out late enough, the older, bad kids would be there to set paper bags of dog scat on fire on people’s doorsteps so that the father would come out and have to step on the mini-inferno to extinguish it, resulting in predictable collateral scat on his shoe. To young developing minds, that prank just never got old.

      Being driven around by your parents to far-flung neighboring farms just sucked the life out of the whole Halloween experience, and everyone tired of it after a couple of houses.  There was no illusion on either side; Halloween in the country was lame.  You could tell that the few houses we stopped at knew exactly how many goblins to expect because, instead of huge bowls of candy, they would have a small saucer with three or four pieces  of candy....or popcorn balls.  Who the heck wanted a popcorn ball?  Halloween was a time to get name brand candy into the house.

      My most memorable Halloween occurred when I  was ten.  Actually it was my only memorable Halloween.  I had reason to believe that that year’s Halloween might be different - my parents believed I was old enough to navigate the pastures with my older brother, Jack, and his friends, if they would allow me to tag along.  After days of negotiations, Jack relented, and I learned that he meant  “following” in the strictest sense of the word, i.e., never closer than ten yards. Quite honestly, it didn’t really matter; anything was better than suffering the humiliation of being driven from house to house by a parent. It was a different story for Liz.  All of her stars lined up, and she was able to land a much-coveted invitation to a friend’s house in the city that year.   

I was excited to follow Jack - we traveled over hill and dale and had our best haul ever - we visited seven houses, and five of them had candy!  

Early on, Jack and his friends tried their darndest to lose me, but I wasn’t going to let anything spoil this night, and I was proud of my ability to keep up. After a while they forgot about me, and by the third house, I was actually walking with them.  When we began our journey home, I fell behind, largely because of the need to count my five pieces of candy over and over.  I took great care planning how I was going to stretch out the moment by consuming only one piece a week.  That would take me past Thanksgiving, when I could restock with solid chocolate pilgrims from the kids table.

      After a while I realized that the boys were no longer in sight.  In a moment of weakness, I  hollered out Jack’s name, but they were so far ahead that I could not be heard. Fortunately, we were in our own pasture, and I had no bulls to fear, only our friendly horses and cows.    

Unfortunately, I had never been deep in the pasture by myself at night.  The full moon reflected off the stream and ponds, creating some very spooky special effects.  It looked nothing like the pasture during the day.   Suddenly, over the noise of my pounding heart, I heard a bell tolling in our pasture, and it wasn’t far away.  There was no church nearby, and the only things missing to complete the horror scene were zombies and  Vincent Price’s ghoulish laugh.  Feeling very  uneasy, I began to pick up the pace. 

The bell was closing in on me quickly, as though it was tolling for me......and it was, but my fear gave way to relief as I realized it was Jack’s cow, Molly, and her Swiss cowbell.  

      Molly was a Brown Swiss with a wonderful disposition, so she got to wear the bell.  I am not sure how much of an honor it was for Molly to listen to a loud bell around her neck, but she didn’t seem to mind.  Under normal circumstances I would not have been concerned about Molly running over to me - I knew she  wouldn’t hurt me - but this night I was dressed as a headless horseman.  Along with being inherently slow, I was wearing a heavy papier-mache pumpkin head with blood dripping out of the mouth and tiny eyeholes, and a cape that got snagged on every bush.  This was a hand-me-down costume, and every aspect of it was too big.  

      I quickly assessed the situation and dismissed the notion of standing firm and greeting Molly, as I just wasn’t confident she would recognize me.  Consequently, I felt my only chance to cheat death was to head for the bushes…oblivious briefly, to their thorny stock.  I started to run, and as I picked up speed, the pumpkin head slipped down over my shoulders and chest so I could no longer see out of the eye holes or move my arms. 

The celestial odd makers were betting heavily on Molly.  The bushes, consisting mainly of briars, welcomed me.   

      When I eventually emerged, I was scratched and torn, but alive.  With my cape in shreds  I prepared to finish the journey home.  There on the other side of the thicket, waiting to greet me, was Molly. 

And at that moment I realized, to my horror, that somewhere in the struggle for my life, my candy was lost....all five pieces.  I stood there stunned while Molly exchanged bovine pleasantries, licking me and nudging me with her head.  We walked for a while along the fence  toward the barn and then, torn and

defeated, I climbed up the fence rails and slipped onto her back, where she kindly delivered me home, announcing our arrival with the clanging of her bell. 

Clean-up Editor: Toni Gardner, Author of  "My Fathers" and "Walking Where the Dog Walks"