Let's Scare Mom

By Rob Wood

What makes a truly great story? A great story begins and ends with a narrator that is trustworthy. I don't mean trustworthy as in you can trust him with your wallet or wife, I mean trustworthy in a manner that makes you feel and believe every word he shares. That is Rob Wood and I truly value him for his mastery of storytelling!

LET'S SCARE MOM, Rob's follow up to THE FIVE GREATEST SPANKINGS OF ALL TIME (the classic memoir of three ornery boys giving their parents fits on "Rancho Roberto" in the 1950's) is a magnetic extension of those funny and endearing escapades. Rob's voice alone is worth the ride. His delivery and eye for detail transport us to a place and time long forgotten and deftly reveal a landscape of body and soul that reminds us why America and her characters are so profoundly unique. LSM follows Rob (the narrator) as he transitions into young adulthood and get ready 'cause this new adventure takes us places unsuspecting, hysterical and even heart wrenching.
I'm certain you will enjoy these continuing exploits as much as I did! LET'S SCARE MOM is a book that will ignite a smile, warm your heart and sooth the subliminal yearning for your own childhood.
- Robert Knott, New York Times Bestselling Author/ producer of the feature film APPALOOSA

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Wood
• Release date: Mar 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311653444

Rob Wood

After completing college and a two year tour of duty in the Army, award winning author Rob Wood followed in the footsteps of his forefathers and spent several decades cowboying in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Pursuing a calling to dude ranching, producing rodeos and ranch real estate allowed him to fulfill many of his childhood dreams. Rob honed his storytelling skills around campfires of the Rocky Mountain west. Rob's first book of short stories, "The 5 Greatest Spankings of All Time" was published in 2012 to critical acclaim. The Texas Association of Authors awarded it First Place in the Short Story Fiction category of their 2012 Literary Awards. Rob's new book "Let's Scare Mom" unfolds around those original tales and continues to pack the tastes and smells of the 1950's into his humorous and very personal stories. Aside from writing, Rob enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, cooking indoors as well as over an open fire and riding a good horse along the Continental Divide. Rob, his wife Ellen and their dogs Babe and Casey currently live outside of Dallas, Texas.

Book preview

Let’s Scare Mom

By Rob Wood

Published by Rob Wood at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Rob Wood

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Circle RW Publishing

Electronic adaptation by www.StunningBooks.com

To my grandchildren

Mackenzie, Gavin, Tori, Bishop, Maddi, Cole, Rylee, Wyatt, Tanner, Beau, and Colby for what they represent:

the future.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

Reviews

Prologue

Sowing the Seeds

Rancho Roberto

The Formative Years

Cowboys and Indians

Poets Club

Breakfast in the Sunroom

The Monstrosity

Pocket Money

The High Fandango

My Cousin Larry

The Science Fair

Field Day

The Canadian Affair

My Pal Snorkie

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Disclaimer

This book is best described as a work of Blurry Nonfiction and is loosely based on actual events that took place over fifty years ago. Some names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s hazy memory and imagination and have been used in a fictitious manner in order to maintain anonymity and to protect the guilty.

Reviews

What makes a truly great story? A great story begins and ends with a narrator that is trustworthy. I don't mean trustworthy as in you can trust him with your wallet or wife, I mean trustworthy in a manner that makes you feel and believe every word he shares. That is Rob Wood and I truly value him for his mastery of storytelling!

LET'S SCARE MOM, Rob's follow up to THE FIVE GREATEST SPANKINGS OF ALL TIME (the classic memoir of three ornery boys giving their parents fits on Rancho Roberto in the 1950's) is a magnetic extension of those funny and endearing escapades. Rob's voice alone is worth the ride. His delivery and eye for detail transport us to a place and time long forgotten and deftly reveal a landscape of body and soul that reminds us why America and her characters are so profoundly unique. LSM follows Rob (the narrator) as he transitions into young adulthood and get ready 'cause this new adventure takes us places unsuspecting, hysterical and even heart wrenching.

I'm certain you will enjoy these continuing exploits as much as I did! LET'S SCARE MOM is a book that will ignite a smile, warm your heart and sooth the subliminal yearning for your own childhood.

Robert Knott, New York Times Bestselling Author

producer of the feature film APPALOOSA

What a feel-good read! I am surely amused, greatly amused. Time and time again, I laughed so hard I cried as I flew through the pages. Rob Wood is so funny. I cannot express it enough I loved it! The 5 Greatest Spankings of All Time is a great book, 5 stars!

Jennifer Hass for Reader Views/Blog Critics (6/12)

Prologue

The time-tarnished mirrors of my memory reflect America in the 1950’s as a very different world than we live in today.

The fifties will forever be defined as a decade of emergence and change. A new face of America was taking form as World War II transcended into relevant history. An unparalleled sense of national pride and unity was pervasive, and the fabric of our country was being redefined. Economic growth was unprecedented. Industry transitioned from the production of instruments of war to the large scale manufacture of consumer products. The baby boom ushered in a new and burgeoning segment of our national economy, the youth market. Hula Hoops, Daisy BB guns, baseball cards, and lunch pails bearing the images of television and movie icons created millions in new found revenue. Rock and Roll generated a fiscal tsunami in record sales and related products. Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, James Deane, and Marlon Brando drove record breaking ticket sales at movie theaters. Athletes like Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Wilt Chamberlin, and Wilma Rudolph burst on the scene as national heroes. The notion that one could achieve anything they set their mind to was in the air. As I look over my shoulder, I recognize that it was, in truth, a great time to be alive.

As a child, family was the center of my universe. Every evening, we gathered at the supper table with great anticipation of that night’s home cooked fare. No excuse for being late or absent was acceptable. After saying grace, and while enjoying the meal, we engaged in lengthy and detailed conversations regarding the day’s events. Our father elaborated on the current activities at his business, and we knew the names of his customers by heart. Our mother kept us abreast of her teaching endeavors, and both our parents knew what kind of trouble their sons had been up to that day. Keeping secrets was extremely difficult. Looking back, I now understand that we truly appreciated each other…regardless of our imperfections.

At the age of five, I often traveled to and from my kindergarten class unaccompanied by an adult. Every morning, before I departed for school, my mother tendered me a nickel to provide for my daily stop at Kinder’s Rexall on the return trip for a fountain cherry Coke. I knew all the folks who worked there, and they greeted me by name as I walked in. There simply wasn’t much need for the Amber Alert System back then. There had been rare cases of children being kidnapped for ransom, but that only happened to the very wealthy like the Lindberg’s and the Greenlease’s. No one in possession of their faculties would have tried to put the shake on an average American family. My parents and for that matter, I had no apprehensions about the daily unattended trek. Children happily played outdoors most of the time, once again, without supervision but out of harm’s way. Today, Child Protective Services would likely incarcerate parents who allowed such conduct.

Polio was the medical scourge of the day. Thousands of Americans died from the disease each year and tens of thousands were left with permanent impairments. In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk introduced a successful vaccine and mass inoculations were undertaken in an effort to control and prevent the spread of the disease. While I was not particularly fond of getting shots, the ever present images of children wearing leg braces and people with nothing but their heads protruding from an iron lung provided me with more than enough incentive to quell any resistance to vaccination.

When one of my brothers or I came down with the measles, mumps, chicken pox, or just a sore throat and fever, our family doctor would pay us a visit at home. He would look us over, retrieve the items necessary to administer the appropriate treatment from his small black leather bag, and be on his way. The bill for his services came in the mail sometime later, and there wasn’t a lot of paperwork involved. Apparently, lactose intolerance and lethal peanut allergies hadn’t been invented yet because everyone I knew consumed a lot of both with no ill effects. I vividly recall the odor of the ether used as the anesthesia for the removal of my tonsils on my one and only visit to the local hospital. I liked the fact that ice cream was prescribed as an essential part of the recovery regimen. I don’t believe health insurance was a major political issue in those days.

We, the generation spawned in the baby boom were very familiar with certain important dates and geographic locations associated with World War II. None of our parents had gone untouched by the event. The evil nemesis of Communism was coming into focus as the adversary de jour. The threat of nuclear war was a frequent topic of discussion. Bomb shelters and air raid drills were a part of the elementary school curriculum. I distinctly recall the office of the President of the United States being a position of dignity, esteem, and adulation. The holder of the office was considered the pinnacle of success, and nearly every child of the era, occasionally dreamed that they might someday be worthy. It was a much more innocent time.

My favorite storybook characters were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. I attribute my insatiable quest for fun and adventure to the pen of Mark Twain. By the end of the decade, nearly every American household had acquired a black and white television set. This electronic marvel provided us with a window into, not just national but global proceedings. America had a front row seat to the onset of the cold war with the Soviet Union, the race for space, the world’s first nuclear power plant, the Korean conflict, and the addition of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union. This cutting edge technology also introduced us to such childhood favorites as Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob, Clarabell, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers, Sky King, and my personal favorite, Hopalong Cassidy.

Speaking of technology, this was a place in time where going green was something you did on St. Patty’s Day. Spam was a weekly staple on the family menu. A mouse was a rodent that would startle Mom as it scurried across the kitchen floor. A blackberry was an ingredient in a pie or jam. A cookie was something your grandmother baked. A tweet was the noise a songbird made. Pin it was what you did when your zipper jumped the track. Going viral meant you were coming down with the Asian flu. A smart phone had a rotary dial and no party line, and an iPad was a sterile cotton patch you taped over an injured eye. The closest thing to Facebook was the annual school yearbook, and a friend was someone you were close to and physically spent time with.

A good friend was well…like your teeth. You had a limited number of them to last you an entire lifetime. You could survive without them, but having them made life much more enjoyable, and if you didn’t take good care of them, you could lose them forever.

My family members were some of the best friends I ever had.

Youth

Youth is a gift that goes largely unappreciated by its recipient. Like a single drop of milk falling on a hot frying pan it evaporates before your eyes and transcends into adulthood. The energy and innocence become merely a file in one’s repository of memories…there its value is priceless.

- RW

Sowing the Seeds

Throughout the season of harvest in the year 1946, Maude Griffith Wood’s prayers were gratefully answered when all four of her sons trickled home from World War II. Leonard, the second youngest of her litter, had been seriously wounded at Normandy Beach on D Day. By the time he found his way home, he was on the mend and rockin’ along. Herb, Jack, and Robert had weathered the most lethal conflict the world had ever seen with no apparent lingering aftereffects. The four brothers had been scattered across the globe for a number of years, and their homecoming was celebrated in a spirit of thanksgiving and festivities were deemed in order.

Robert, the youngest of the four, was a young man who lived by the adage: The surest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. He took great pride in doing just that. With four and a half years of Uncle Sam picking up the tab for his living expenses and his pay as a Captain in the Army Air Corps, he had managed to accumulate a pretty handsome nest-egg by war’s end. As a B-24 Liberator pilot, he had flown the maximum number of combat missions allowed, most of them over Nazi Germany. It is my understanding from others who knew him at the time that he was something of a local hero. He had been little more than a fuzzy cheeked farm boy when he enlisted. He returned a full grown man armed with ambition and bristling with enthusiasm for building a good life.

His decision to part with a portion of his kitty for the purchase of a Waco UPF-7 biplane seemed quite logical. He had made a name for himself behind the stick of a plane, and he was quite accomplished at the craft. He could find no logic in abdicating the talent just because the war had ended.

The move to acquire the rag-wing was the product of considerable forethought. With several thousand hours of flight time under his belt, in a variety of aircraft, his business plan suggested that he was capable of generating revenue from several different means with the plane. His initial source of income was derived from barnstorming. A highly decorated pilot performing aerial stunts was an exciting prospect to folks of the day, and story has it, he drew some pretty good crowds with his weekend performances.

While Saturday and Sunday afternoons were reserved for the big air show, during the week, he would offer what simply amounted to airplane rides to interested parties. Flying lessons were on the menu as well. As agriculture was booming in the post-war era, Robert had foresightedly equipped the Waco with the fixtures necessary to provide crop dusting services to supplement his revenue stream. Being mechanically inclined, he successfully modified the crop dusting accessory to serve as an instrument for aerial smoke writing as well. He was off and running.

The weekend performances were something of a family affair. Robert had also purchased ten acres of flat prairie not far from the edge of town to serve as his airstrip and headquarters. With the assistance of his three brothers, he had constructed some bleachers, a concession stand, and a metal hanger on the property. While the bleachers were quite functional, many of the attendees enjoyed watching the show from the comfort of picnic blankets spread on the ground.

From what I understand, Leonard would attempt to do play-by-play over a loud speaker vividly describing the aerial acrobatics. Jack and Herb manned a large metal stock tank filled with blocks of ice, soft drinks, barley pop, and home grown watermelons. Hamms, Falstaff, and Schlitz were available for two bits a can, and melon was sold by the slice. Maude, and Herb’s wife, Lois, offered a variety of homemade treats from the concession stand. Reportedly, the pimento cheese and egg salad sandwiches were the big sellers.

The actual airshow lasted over an hour and included a combination of acts that would bring the crowd to their feet with ooh’s and ahh’s worthy of a Fourth of July fireworks display. The performance featured a variety of feats including loops, barrel rolls, high altitude spiraling stalls, smoke writing, and an upside down pass before the crowd at no more than thirty feet above the ground. Robert’s signature exploit was to pass over the nearby county water tower so closely that the tires on his landing gear would leave skid marks on the tower, and the sound of screeching rubber could be heard by all.

It was a successful venture and drew many new as well as repeat customers. I suspect, much like the allure of NASCAR today, folks were willing to fork over good money more than once on the off chance they might see a spectacular crash. Many years later, Herb mentioned to me that a considerable amount of wagering took place regarding the outcome of the show.

As he put it: There were a lot of folks willing to speculate on the supposition that the laws of nature dictated that sooner or later either gravity or the water tower would win a hand.

In any case, it provided a popular form of entertainment as well as a source of livelihood for the entire family while the boys were trying to adjust to civilian life.

In April of 1947, Betty Jane James was headed for the home stretch of her first year of teaching at a small rural consolidated schoolhouse not far from Captain Wood’s air strip. She had often seen and heard the flashy red plane zooming overhead and was frequently called upon to quell the outbreaks of hysteria it induced in some of her more boisterous male students. Even when the plane was out of sight, the distinctive drone of its rotary engine could be recognized for miles. That resonance was well matched with the name Screamin Demon painted on both sides of the fuselage. On more than one occasion, she had overheard clusters of her giddy female students whispering about the hot dish that captained the airship.

Given the bumper crop of available young men returning from the war, Betty, with her head turning looks, college education, and paying job found herself to be a high value target. Her father, who possessed the ability to be as subtle as a pulp wood buzz saw, was called upon more than once to explain the definition of the words, No, thank you, to an overzealous suitor. Many of the local chaps her age were cowpokes that had worked on area ranches before the war and intended to continue down that dry, dusty road. Not that she had anything against cowboys; she had grown up on a ranch, could handle a horse, rope, and work cattle with the best of any of them. She had simply set her sights a little higher, and she yearned for a man whose most valued possession in life was not his saddle.

Perhaps out of boredom with the resident bill of fare, or perhaps due to the continued exposure to the back-fence tales of her swooning female students, curiosity got the best of her. So, one sunny spring Saturday afternoon in 1947, Betty Jane and her two best friends Peggy Allgire and Lucille Spinello found themselves standing in line to purchase their two dollar tickets to Rapid Robert’s Flying Rodeo. They were armed with an agenda to meet the flyer.

The girls had determined, in advance, that the top row of the bleachers would provide them the prime vantage point, and they picked their way through the excited crowd to the uppermost perch. The Screamin Demon was already taxiing down the grass runway as Betty Jane, Peggy, and Lucille temporarily took a seat. Without a cloud in the sky, the army of onlookers was ripe with anticipation and bracing for an eye-popping performance. The entire mob rose to their feet with a cheer and remained standing as the aircraft accelerated down the runway with a deafening roar and lifted majestically from the sod.

The three young ladies as well as the remainder of the audience were quite dizzied by the spine-tingling aerial antics on display before them. Just as Rapid Robert was scrolling COME BACK SOON across the wild blue yonder, Lucille spotted something out of the ordinary. A man, on the far side of the airstrip, was dragging two barefoot, shirtless boys in bibbed overalls by the ears. The three crossed the runway and wrestled their way toward the concession stand.

Betty’s eyes were still trained skyward when Lucille elbowed her and asked, Do you see what I see, Betty Jane? Anybody you know?

The young teacher immediately recognized the two captives.

What in the world? That looks like the Van Sickle twins, and judging by the way they’re squirming, they don’t appear to be very happy. Is that man towing them by their ears?

Now, Jack Wood was the kind of man who took himself way too seriously. That character flaw, coupled with the fact that he had missed the train to charm school, frequently produced installments of distressing social discomfort. Jack had appointed himself as the Sergeant at Arms of the Flying Rodeo and the party responsible for enforcing the law. He had spotted the two little urchins peering through the pickets of the perimeter fence and set about apprehending the culprits and collecting the price of entry or having some hide.

Betty Jane, identifying the two as members of her diminutive student body and sensing a rapidly rising tide of hot water, hastily descended from the nose bleed section. She bee lined it straight for the concession stand or in this case, temporary jailhouse. She arrived just as Rapid Robert taxied the Demon to the adjacent hanger. He shut down the powerful turbine and climbed to the ground adorned in his brown leather flight jacket, matching skullcap, goggles, and bright red scarf.

The grandstands emptied like air from a ruptured balloon. Resembling a swarm of ants, the crowd migrated in mass to surround the triumphant pilot cheering and applauding as they flowed. Robert had noticed some form of commotion involving Jack as he had taxied to his shutdown destination. Being well acquainted with the hailstorm that seemed to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, he made it a priority to find his way through the throng. He intended to ascertain the source of the predicament and implement some form of damage control. By the time he reached the concession stand, Betty had arrived on the scene and was demanding that Jack release his death grip on the writhing redheaded twins.

Just exactly what in the hell is going on here, Jack? Have you lost your ever-loving mind? the pilot bellowed as he stepped in wearing a flinty scowl.

Then his eyes turned to Betty Jane for the first time, and a warm smile remodeled his face as well as his disposition.

He remained fixed on the silent young teacher as Jack rattled, I caught these two little peckerheads cutting into your profits. They were stealing a peek at the show and chiseling you out of the ticket money. Then, the school marm here tried to step in.

Jack suddenly struck a nerve he’d sooner not have touched. The pilot abruptly swiveled his head and flashed a second cold glare at his brother. Jack went silent mid-sentence hanging his head like a whipped pup. Seizing control of the situation, the Captain turned his back on the now buttoned up brother.

With his left hand, he removed his flight cap as he extended his right hand to Betty Jane and calmly spoke, I’m Bob Wood, ma’am. I want to apologize for my brother’s behavior. If he, in any way, has harmed you or your sons, he’ll answer to me in spades.

The young lady folded her hand into his and responded, Oh my, no. My name is Betty Jane James. I’m the new teacher at the Boger-Mickelson county school. These are the Van Sickle boys, Eddie and Freddie. They are my students.

Oblivious to their sizable audience, the pilot and the teacher were now center stage, and many in the crowd chuckled aloud when Robert mistook the twins for Betty’s children.

I thought you were far too young to have children that age. Please accept my apologies, ma’am, he said as a rather pleased blush painted his mug.

Peggy and Lucille exchanged eye-rolling titters with each and every ma’am.

The pilot turned his attention to the boys and asked, Are you Harold Van Sickle’s sons?

Yes, sir, he’s our daddy, the carrot topped youngster on the left replied.

An awkward silence fell over the crowd as nothing more needed to be said. Most everyone in the area knew the circumstances of the Van Sickle family.

Harold Van Sickle had been drafted in 1942 and had left behind a wife and four children two of whom were twins. He had been trying to scratch out a living on a little dry-land cotton patch when he was called. They were good hard working folks, but with her husband away, Mrs. Van Sickle and the children had found themselves between a rock and a very hard place. Harold had reportedly been taken prisoner by the Japanese in the South Pacific in 1944. The war had come and gone, and there had been no word from the Army or Harold as to his disposition. He was presumed dead, but no one could provide any answers. Due to red tape and no proof of his demise, any and all of the much needed benefits due Mrs. Van Sickle including back pay and life insurance were lost in a black hole. She took in laundry as well as ironing and did housekeeping for several well to do families, but it was a sad state of affairs. Most in the community knew of their plight and everyone felt their pain. Robert fought back the urge to strangle his brother.

As he knelt down to give his full attention to Eddie and Freddie, the pilot hollered over his shoulder to his sister-in-law in the concession stand, Lois, would you please bring us a couple of those pimento cheese sandwiches of yours, and throw in two of those big dill pickles and a couple of root beers.

Are you fellas hungry? he asked the boys. I hope so, because I have a proposal for the two of you. When you two sprouts finish eating, how would you like to go for a real ride in the Screamin Demon with me?

Jack evaporated into the mob, and the terrified boys, who had only moments earlier been fighting for their very lives, were suddenly beaming from ear to unwashed ear. A big round of applause rose up from the crowd.

The pilot stood to face the teacher. She was smiling through mist in an unforeseen spell of emotion.

Miss James, would you consider hanging around while I take the tadpoles here for a ride in my plane? I would be very pleased if you would consent to accompany me to see them safely home. If you’re willing to make the introduction, I would like to speak with their mother. Assuming she is receptive and the boys are interested in picking up a little pocket money, I could use some help around here on weekends and after school. I would also look forward to learning more about the life of a school teacher.

The whispers of the girls at school had proven accurate. He was handsome, and being in possession of a kind and generous nature was irresistible icing on the cake. Peggy and Lucille were completely lightheaded over the outcome of the opera.

Yes, Betty Jane was quite taken with the pilot and him with her. Yes, the two did fall in love; they married and were together for nearly sixty years. And yes, that is how I came to be.

Rancho Roberto

My father’s entrepreneurial spirit and drive had caught the eye of many in the community not the least of whom was the president of the local Stockman’s and Merchant’s Bank. Joe Cline had been one of the pioneer pilots in the fledgling Army Air Corps in the first big war siring a natural sense of kinship with the young business man. Joe, whose roots ran deep in common soil, had married Sadie Turnbull. She was the only child of the bank’s founder, Reginald W. Turnbull, a man with a Midas touch. As such things go, the son-in-law had in time become the head honcho of the