Picture of the old front porch and fence, showing distance between 
construction workers and my baby-doll pajama'd sister.

a few of my favorite childhood memories are . . .

Janah E., Guest Contributor

Some very sweet and now laughable memories from one of our great writers.

• My sister liked to sleep late when she was a teenager. One summer morning, something awoke her flapping around the ceiling of her room. The first we knew of it was when she came roaring down the stairs, wielding an old broom like a sword. She opened the front door and continued scurrying around the hall. We finally figured out she was chasing a bird that had somehow gotten into the house and awakened her. We couldn't even help her, because she made such a funny sight with her hair all mussed up, running around the huge front hall and screaming like a banshee. All we could do was laugh at her. She finally managed to herd that terrified bird under the transom and out the door. For her, however, that was just not good enough. Once outside, she continued to scream and rage at the bird, chasing it all over the porch, then into the yard. Once this was done, and the bird was cowering high up in a tree, she stopped long enough to see, there at the edge of our yard, not 50 foot from our house, six road workers on their lunch break. They were laughing, whistling and yelling, "You go Girlie!" She was horribly embarrassed as she realized she was still wearing her short baby- doll pajamas. I think it was the reddest and the angriest I ever saw her in my life. To this day she has not forgiven us for not warning her, the bird for waking her, nor the roadside workers who had so evidently enjoyed the free noon show.  

• Another funny incident, involving the same sister, occurred one crisp winter’s morning as we were getting ready for school. Back in those days, all clothes had to be ironed, as nothing was permanent press. Complaining loudly that she had nothing ironed to wear—mom was behind on ironing for her large family—she rifled through the big baskets stacked high with clothes. The pajamas she was wearing that morning had long loose sleeves as well as ankle-length pants with elastic at the waist. She usually kept her top tucked into the waist to help hold in body heat. That morning was no exception. Suddenly, she began to dance and jump wildly around the room waving her arms and screaming at the top of her voice like a lunatic. From this, she began to do a rapid hula dance and pull at her pajama top and waist. Then, before we could react or even figure out what her issue was, she began to stomp her feet, dancing faster all the while, continuing her high-pitched scream. The entire time, we four siblings could only stare at her in amazement. Finally, we saw a little gray field mouse flee out of the bottom leg of her pj’s and across her ankle. I do not know who was more afraid—her or the mouse. After that she would never again wear those pajamas. Nor would she use her hands to look through a basket of ironing.

• When I was a small girl, I was afraid of the dark. This was especially true when getting to my bed at night, because sometimes one of my siblings would hide under there and grab my ankles as I climbed in. My parents never seemed to be willing to do much about the tricks my older sisters played on me—until one dark night when their tricks backfired on them. 
Much to their resentment, I shared a room with them. They shared a double bed. I had a twin bed on the other side of theirs in the far corner of the room. Because I was the youngest, I always had to be the one to shut off the light, which was right beside their bed and next to the open doorway. After clicking the switch, I had to make it to my bed, which was a long way for a little girl in the pitch black dark. I used to start at the foot edge of their bed and start running full blast for a certain number of steps, then leap through the air to land in the center of my own bed. I knew exactly how many running steps it took to make it to where I could land safely. This night they moved my bed four feet closer to the far wall. I did not notice the change before I turned off the light. I made my normal running leap and landed with a clank of bony knees and ankles on the bare wooden floor. Hearing the clatter downstairs, my dad came roaring up, ready to beat whoever was making all the noise. I do not remember if the girls got spanked for that, but I do know that we all got a severe talking to and he told me to quit running for my bed. That was a practice I did not end until I got my own room a very short time later. It seems my mother decided if those girls were going to be so ornery, they deserved to keep sharing a room while I enjoyed my own.

• When I was a little girl and my younger brother was not yet school-age, he and I spent an entire afternoon and evening preparing a booby trap in our living room. We discovered mom had several lovely balls of yarn and crochet thread in her sewing basket, and since no one was immediately available to stop us, we proceeded to see what we could do with them. We began by tying a really good knot on the leg of one of the chairs, and then rolled the ball of yarn to each other winding it around something on each turn. It was a wonderful game—seeing who did the best job of it. We called it the world’s greatest trap. We worked all evening making that yarn booby trap—even raiding my sister’s string supply. Over, under and around chairs, sofas, hinges, window locks and lamps we went. We wove across the floor all the way up to the chandelier and back again from one corner of that large room to the other. We didn't stop until we exhausted our string and yarn supply and the room looked like it was draped in gossamer spider webs in the waning light of late evening. Then, we hid and awaited our first victim. We knew it would be our dad. It was his habit to come home after dark and not turn the light on as he came to the first living room. It was all we could do not to giggle out loud as we waited for the fun to begin. We heard him walk across the back porch, wash his hands in the washroom, take his shoes off, then cross the kitchen floor through the office to the doorway of the living room. Suddenly about two steps in the room he stopped and we heard him erupt with a whole bunch of explosive language. We knew instantly he had discovered our yarn trap. Soon, he began bellowing and the lights were turned on. He was so stunned by what he saw he couldn't even speak for a moment then he began to holler for us to come out. It seemed he knew who the culprits were. Reluctantly, we crawled out from behind a chair on the far side of the room, well away from where he was. By then, my siblings and my mom had shown up on the scene to see what was going on. Everybody stood with jaws gaping, staring at what we had created. To my young eyes it looked pretty impressive indeed. Dad even questioned our sisters to see if we had really done it by ourselves. Before long everybody had a pair of scissors or a knife and we all worked to unwind and unravel all of the yarn and string. I don’t think my little brother and I ever got into serious trouble over it, but I do recall the older kids complaining about all the tight knots the little squirts had tied. I think the older girls were in more trouble than we were because they were supposed to have been watching us while our parents were working in the hay field that evening. If memory serves, they got sent to bed with no supper while my little brother and I suffered no such punishment. 

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