Life Check

By H. David Whalen

  Life is filled with harrowing and outrageous experiences. In mine I survived drowning twice, pulled from under a speeding dump 
truck, and stood face-to-face with a bear all before age of six.

  My teens were equally risk filled and my adult life not much better. Not all stories are tragic, many are humorous and all amazing! I 
spent a summer hitchhiking the West Coast. I am no stranger to juvenile hall, jail, or mental ward.

  I retired after thirty-four years of self employment, ending with numerous inventions and license deals. 
  This is my story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: H. David Whalen
• Release date: Jan 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215310410

Book preview

Forward

Murdered, stabbed repeatedly! He stuffed her body in a laundry cart and left it deep within Caesar’s Lake Tahoe Hotel in an upper stairwell. It has been there for days. She was my cousin, and she was dead! I will never know the entire story.

Returning from a weekend desert camping trip at the Colorado River, my wife and I had just come through our front door on an early Sunday summer evening of nineteen-ninety-one. We had been renting a house in Southern California’s East San Diego County.

As I walked past the flashing answering machine, I carried an armload of dirty, sweat-soaked weekend clothes. The red light continued flashing on and off, on and off. So, I automatically hit the play button. When my mother’s distraught voice came on, I was halfway down the back steps and heading toward the laundry room.

Call me as soon as you get this. It’s important!

Immediately, I dropped the soiled clothes and returned to the kitchen. I snatched the phone and called my mother. Hi. What’s going on?

Someone murdered your cousin. She told me the sketchy details her brother had relayed about his daughter’s death. It was too soon, and he knew little but was on his way south from Vancouver, Canada, heading to Reno, Nevada, where her body waited.

I dropped dazed into my overstuffed, easy chair. I sat there for hours until well after dark, contemplating life. How fragile it is. How’s there no schedule for life or death?

I thought back to the times when I had cheated death. In reality, it wasn’t so dramatic. I hadn’t cheated anything, but only extremely lucky.

Everyone’s existence is scattered with life-ending situations. Mine included near drowning, bear mauling, being crushed by a dump truck, and many more. It’s not that we consciously fail to recognize these circumstances; we just don’t believe death could ever be that close.

After experiencing a near-miss vehicle accident, we cursed the faulty driver and overlooked that it could have been our demise. Ongoing scenarios include vehicle accidents, natural disasters, or running into the wrong person; infinite possibilities exist. Unfortunately, few events get recognized, and our lives continue with only an annoyance if even an acknowledgment.

After replaying my personal near-death experiences in my mind, I continued to contemplate the good and bad times of my life, the mistakes, successes, and all the characters I met along the way.

Years later, I finally put my stories on paper. The following reflects how I progressed through my life.

PART I

EARLY CHILDHOOD

Port Alberni, Canada

1956 thru 1964

Drowning

SPRING 1956

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It was a cold early spring day. I slid into a deep-water-filled pit. My feet could not touch the bottom as the bulky winter clothes dragged me down into the muddy liquid.

Thankfully, my brother Thom reached in and found my toque. He quickly grabbed it and pulled with all the might his tiny hands could muster until my cap released from my head into his grip. Then, incredibly, he dragged me far enough out of the hole to liberate me from certain death.

My brother was lucky not to have slipped beside me during the rescue. The ordeal could have quickly ended at a double funeral.

I was a year younger than four-year-old Thom was, and he just saved my life.

The sheer-sided menace dug for a septic tank. Unfortunately, winter set in before the installation was complete, and the earthen-walled death trap filled with water during the first winter storm and remained so through later spring.

The temperature was as cold as a thawing freezer with continuous melting drips. Thom and I bundled in our winter coats and galoshes, with itchy woolen toques covering our heads. We played unsupervised outside in the presumed safety of our backyard.

Our family moved into one half- of a duplex, five miles from Port Alberni, Canada, in the heart of Vancouver Island the previous summer. The primitive dwelling without inside plumbing. The kitchen sink had an old chipped cast iron hand pump mounted beside it. This contraption delivered the only water into the home from a board-covered outside well. Unfortunately, they never covered the empty septic basin.

The vertical wood-slatted outhouse in our backyard was beyond a wide ditch. This outbuilding’s only access was a rickety plank bridge with split log handrails spanning the five-foot creek trench. My perilous crater was located just before the bridge crossing, alongside the building’s backside, where our unit adjoined the other.

A family lived in the unit next door in the shared building. The parents had a girl, around age six, and a slightly younger brother.

On this near-fatal day, the older girl joined Thom and me in our backyard. The three of us frolicked as free as escaped puppies next to the ever-present septic hole. A thin sheet of ice occasionally appeared and disappeared, day to day, across its surface.

Throughout the winter, Thom and I previously broke any at-hand ice with rocks or sticks. But, admittedly, neither understood the danger.

This morning I lay on my stomach, stretched out one of my mitten-covered hands to reach down, and break the thin ice covering the orifice. Then, without warning, I quickly slid on the water-soaked muddy banks into the thick, dark milk chocolate-colored liquid.

The girl ran, abandoning Thom and me. It was up to my brother whether I lived or died in the next seconds.

As I lay free on a small rain-soaked grass patch, my mother came galloping up with the young neighbor girl on her heels. During the rescue, the childish next-door girl at least had the mind to find my mother and tell her I was in danger.

In reality, I don’t believe the young girl understood the deadly situation Thom and I were in and only ran to tattle on us for playing around the water-filled pit.

This episode was my second life-terminating drowning experience in as many years.

Fourteenth Street

SUMMER 1957

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After a short stint living in First Avenue’s business district slums, my family moved to Fourteen Avenue.

Our mainly forested five-acre property lies adjacent to the city limits. It featured a small field beyond a year-round creek beside our house. Flanking our neighborhood, continuous dense bush, with all but impassible underbrush, stretched for countless square miles. It was a man’s childhood playground.

Thom and I quickly indoctrinated into the ragtag gang of eighteen neighborhood boys living in proximity on Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets. We called Anderson Avenue Thirteenth Street, despite the city’s name. Activities included dawning baseball gloves for rock fights, forest expeditions, and playing sports on graveled streets, regularly covering each body with bruises, scrapes, and bleeding cuts. Our gang was a tough bunch of kids.

One time, I missed snagging a rock in my glove, and Wayne hit me in the mouth with a piece of shale. I still have a lumpy souvenir buried in my upper lip.

Constant neighborhood fights sprung up. My proudest moment was when my brother beat up my best friend, Anton. Brothers always trumped friends.

Thom and I shared fisticuffs often, mostly instigated by my mistaken prowess. Being a slow learner, I always ended up the loser. Hurt and crying, I would run to my mother for salvation. Mother would stop my beating, but I always knew I deserved it. She never offered me sympathy, no matter how hard I falsely tried to convince her it wasn’t my fault.

I was one of the smallest neighborhood boys. It was my self-imposed requirement to prove I could be larger than life. One afternoon, Larry was looking for me. He was my age and in my fourth-grade class, though immensely larger than I was. We encountered on common ground in a wooded lot next to Donnie’s back-side-yard swing set. I never knew what Larry’s problem was or what initiated the altercation.

He approached and immediately pushed me backward. I didn’t fall but stepped forward and shoved him back while sliding my right foot behind him. He went down but came up charging hard. I side-stepped and tripped him once more. Again, he was instantly on his feet. This time unchecked anger oozed over his dirt-streaked crying face as he charged again. It terrified me. I tried my side-step trick again. Unbelievably, it worked. To my relief, Larry, with tears flowing like a bucketing rainstorm, jumped to his feet and ran home. Unfortunately, he was a later comer to our gang and was now on the outs.

Larry moved to our neighborhood a couple of months before and moved out shortly after our fight. So, thankfully, I never had to re-encounter him.

One afternoon we assembled at the ever-popular spot next to Donnie’s swings. Jungle Jim was present and wanted to exhibit his strength. This event featured him performing sit-ups. He was barely shy of three hundred, with no signs of letting up when one of our mob made the grave mistake of stopping him by grabbing Donnie’s nearby garden hose and squirting water into his face. Jim immediately flew to his feet and took off, chasing the terrified kid. Besides his proven strength, Jim was also a speedy runner. In short order, the poor kid got caught and pummeled. Jim didn’t think the stupid water trick was as funny as the rest of us had, though not one of us uttered a word or dared laugh, scared of being the next turn on the receiving end of Jungle Jim’s punishing fists. We were eternally grateful when Jim’s mother called him home for lunch.

The altercations never ceased growing up with that many boys. Any received pain only lasted a few minutes unless administered by Jungle Jim’s iron anvils.

Bear Mauling

AUTUMN 1957

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Upon walking around a giant fir tree at the front of our circular drive, I encountered a black bear standing upright on his hind legs eating apples off one of our trees. The bear looked enormous as he and I stood face-to-face, no more than ten feet apart. I was four years old.

We hadn’t owned a television set, so I missed seeing Disney’s Davy Crockett series. However, a few of my neighborhood friends owned pseudo coonskin caps, rubber Bowie knives, and plastic long-rifle replicas purchased from Woodward’s department store. All had Davy’s name prominently embedded in the toys.

My friends and I frequently re-enacted the scene where barehanded Davy fought a huge, ferocious, teeth-bearing, snarling black monster. We would take turns being Crockett or the bear. Davy eventually ended unscathed on the show, killing the enormous wild beast using only his Bowie knife. Fortunately, his weapon wasn’t the rubber version.

Young Davy Whalen did not own a knife or have a coonskin cap but was just as invincible. Upon facing my massive bulk of black fur, I reached to the gravel driveway and picked up a rock. I was not under the illusion I would kill the bear, but I expected to scare the intruder scampering back into the forest.

I threw the rock as hard as I possibly could. But, not even remotely close to a major league baseball pitcher, my rock inconceivably flew high and wide to the right, missing the mark.

Port Alberni, a logging and paper mill town, seemed safe during a more trusting era. Tall trees and thick-forested mountains surrounded the area. Yet, the valley air regularly hung with a pungent odor emitting from the oversized pulp mill along the canal on the border between Port Alberni and Alberni.

Alberni Valley was a wet, dreary place, built on foothills in the shadow of nearby mountains and surrounded by wild, animal-infested, thick bush. The landscape was a continuous, broad hill containing various degrees of slopes bisected with numerous creeks and ravines. Except for a few winter snowstorms, it steadily rained from endless gray skies. The heavens dripped non-stop, starting in October, ending in late May, and more than not, the rest of the year.

Most outlying rural neighborhoods had gravel roads, and ours was no different. My parents bought an old two-story house on five acres of land on the southeastern edge of town, set back from the adjacent neighborhood at the dead-end corner of Fourteenth Avenue and Scott Street. Tall Douglas fir hid our property from view. The circular graveled driveway accessed the yard.

The house contained three bedrooms and one bath, plus an unfinished basement. The outer wall’s wooden lapped white-boarding needed a new paint job, and the place appeared more run-down than it was. Nevertheless, it could have easily doubled as a haunted house. All it needed was a secret room.

To enter the home, you climbed a wide wooden staircase hugging the outside front wall. It led to the elevated covered porch and front door. The other entrance was a ground-level back door at the rear left corner leading into the basement.

The house pad and surrounding yard were in the property’s front corner, surrounded by five apple trees and a large cherry tree. In the summer, our field filled with overgrown grass and bracken ferns. Across the pasture laid a decrepit old barn and a worse-conditioned one-room shack.

The rest of the thick-forested land spread out past our property line for a hundred or more unpopulated square miles eastward to the mountains. Cougars, bears, deer, and smaller creatures inhabited the wild bush. Unbeknownst to us children, it was a dangerous playground.

Kindergarten was not part of the required school curriculum but offered privately. It is akin to modern-day preschools. My mother apparently thought I needed as much schooling as possible without a minute to lose, so she signed me up for our church-sponsored program. It disappointed me that none of my neighborhood friends attended.

Our home was more than a mile from the Church’s downtown location. We only owned an old two-ton International pickup truck; my mother didn’t drive but escorted me to class. We walked two-and-a-half blocks downhill to the bus stop kitty-corner across the street from DeVoy’s small corner market. It cost mom a dime each for our fares to ride the public bus downtown. We walked downhill after disembarking the bus, another two blocks ending in the church’s basement class.

At the end of the two-hour morning session, I would meet my waiting mother for a three-block stroll to my father’s store in the heart of Port Alberni’s small retail district. Then, at lunchtime, dad closed his Sherman Williams Paint Store and his backroom sign shop and drove us home.

After a few days, my mother ensured I got appropriately clad, donning rain gear and warm clothing, before handing me a dime for the bus fare, and it was up to me, unescorted, to get to kindergarten and, subsequently, to my dad’s shop. It was a straightforward route, and I relished my young independence.

My public transportation routine lasted for the few months I attended kindergarten. Being a poor family, we could not afford to continue the almost tuition-free program. As a result, I possess the distinction of being a kindergarten dropout.

A couple of weeks later, on an odd clear fall day, my father dropped me off from kindergarten in front of DeVoy’s, walking the last leg home by myself on his way to a rare lunchtime painting job. This day I walked into my nearly fatal bear encounter.

After immature young Davy missed the bear with his rock, our short, stocky black mongrel dog, appropriately named Stubby, charged to my rescue. My fearlessly barking savior chased the bear into the forest while I scampered across the yard and up the front porch stairs to safety.

Dad came to a dust-covered sliding stop in our driveway only minutes later.

Father sat me down on our chrome-legged and yellow vinyl-covered chairs surrounding our kitchen table. He explained a bear’s forest dexterity, blazing speeds, unstoppable strengths, and unwillingness to share territory with small lunch-sized children.

He ended by explaining that if I, unfortunately, hit the bear with my rock, it would not have scared him off but infuriated him to the point of attack. My bear could have easily charged the short distance and landed on me, ending quickly and badly with me mulled to death beyond recognition from one mighty swoop of his giant paw.

His lecture sent shivers throughout my small body, down to the core of my soul. I experienced years of nightmares where I always ended up eaten by giant black bears. My common dream had me running around an old steam-powered locomotive on display across from the pulp mill. The snarling creature on my heels never failed to catch me. I desperately needed stronger leg muscles.

This was only one of my father’s countless lectures I retained throughout my life. If Dad’s well-intentioned sermon hadn’t scared me to death, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about my bear encounter.

Death by Dump Truck

SUMMER 1959

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My old second-hand bike and I, coupled as one, stared down at the grim reaper as we skimmed across the unforgiving asphalt.

The dump truck driver slammed on his brakes, squealing to a sudden stop. My forty-pound frail body ended its slide across the dirty road wedged against the truck’s broad back dual tires. Apparently, he spotted me and brought the thirty-five-thousand-pound death machine to a standstill at the exact instant before it crushed me. My short five-year-old life should have ended that afternoon as a grease spot on the pavement in the middle of Thirteenth Street.

I was out cold by the time the traumatized driver pulled me from under his massive machine. After coming to, I pushed my bike back up Scott Street towards home, the man on my heels.

As he talked with my mother, my father came barreling into the driveway. Finally, after sorting things out, the distressed driver returned to work, and thankfully, I went back to my life.

Scott Street was a short, one-block, moderately steep gravel road. The T-intersection where Scott Street met Thirteenth was blind in both directions. The top of the short street ended at our drive.

Thirteenth, an extremely dangerous neighborhood thoroughfare, was the main corridor for dump trucks and logging trucks hauling loads into and out of Port Alberni. The hurried vehicles steadily sped up and down the street over the legal limit.

I don’t know whose idea it was, but Anton and I increased our bike thrill by gaining speed on the Scott Street hill before turning onto the busy avenue. It was all but impossible to stop on the loose-rocked hill bottom, thus the need to go around the corner.

We took turns, one standing at the bottom of the block, signaling to the other, straddling my bike for the safe-to-go signal. It was a foolproof plan.

On my second ride, Anton gave me the all-clear sign. I took off, snowballing my speed with every pedal rotation, my hair blew back, and my jacket flapped like a flag in a windstorm. As soon as I made the required turn, I saw the steel death trap. Terrified, I lost control and went down into my slide.

I never knew if Anton got his signals crossed or missed seeing the ominous dump truck. Either way, I was fortunate to be alive.

We never played that nearly fatal game again.

Secret Room

SUMMER 1960

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It was late Saturday night. My parents were out at their square-dancing club. Thom and I sat on the floor in front of our old bulky black and white cabinet television, watching a horror movie.

In the mountain-surrounded Alberni Valley, TV reception sans cable was minimal. Our tall antenna only received one channel, while cable subscribers received three or four. Our broadcasting station started its weekly broadcast at four-thirty in the afternoon, and the Indian test pattern returned to the screen at eleven-thirty at night, ending the day’s viewing. Their weekend transmissions started at nine AM and finished at one AM the following morning.

Thom and I watched a movie staged in an old haunted mansion, complete with secret rooms and hallways. The ghost, really the previous owner, tried to reclaim his property by hiding within the walls and peering out the eyeholes from different paintings, rattling chains and scaring the residents. We wished we had a secret room.

Our two-story haunted house’s upper-floor bedroom walls were constructed three feet in from the steeped peaked roof, leaving a triangle-shaped space behind the bulwark. The hallway contained a large, open closet area at the top of the narrow staircase between the two bedrooms. The north wall shielded our soon-to-be realm. It was the perfect setup.

Thom and I scurried to our basement and found my father’s circular electric Skill saw. Immediately we lugged the limb-amputating device upstairs. After cleaning out the overstuffed closet, we plugged in the saw and cut our new door into the plywood partition.

We had never used a power tool before and did not understand what we were doing. Finally, Thom pulled the handle trigger, and the tool’s blade jumped to life with a high-pitched whine. The blurring high-speed blade had more torque than anticipated and almost jerked the power tool from his hands. We were terrified, but unnerved.

Kneeling, Thom pressed the trigger again; gripping the circular saw with both hands, he pushed it into the wooden wall near the bottom edge. When the cutting blade made contact, the saw jumped to the right. Still, under full power, he tried to slide it back into its original position. Instead, with a mind of its own, the saw kept going to the left, past his designated starting point.

My brother let go of the trigger and set the saw down. We looked over his first try. There was a wide area of deep gashes around where we wanted to cut. No one cut was straight. It was time to try again. This time, Thom got the saw blade through the plywood. Success was within our grasp. Thom continued the cut upward, completing the first jagged slot to the top of our door.

It was my turn. I repeated my brother’s maneuver across the top of the door with the same ragged results. We had the first two rough cuts. Thom finished the final downward cut. Together, we pulled the plywood piece from the top down, bending the bottom holding nails until our door fell into the cleared closet. As messy and unsightly as it was, we had our gateway and, amazingly, all our fingers.

We peered through the opening into the pitch-black abyss. A flashlight was in order. Quickly, we ran back to the basement and returned with light in hand. Thom and I entered our new kingdom.

The floor was nothing but exposed studs stuffed with asbestos pads. A few dust-laden planks were still stacked along the interior wall. Soon we spread the leftover boards out, laying a makeshift floor.

Thom and I were sweating profusely. Even with the cold outside winter night air, the heat trapped within our small-enclosed area under the roof was unbearable. After a few torturous minutes, we had to get out.

In too deep, we had no choice but to finish what we had started and headed back to the basement in search of a hammer and some very short nails. Following our plan, we loosely nailed the door into place. Once set, it would be simple to pry open to enter and re-set upon exiting.

After attaching our straightforward door, we filled the closet back up, hiding our hideous carpentry. Neither Thom nor I ever returned to our hidden room.

My parents did not notice the mess we made on our first construction project, even when the closet emptied for our move to California.

Indeed, it was our secret room.

Mine Expedition

WINTER 1961

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It was a horrific, torrential winter storm. The pounding sheets of water escaping from black, low-hung clouds were unrelenting.

As Anton and I emerged from our third-grade class, we saw my father waiting in his car. He honked us over. As we scrambled into the warm, dry vehicle, he immediately announced we were going to the caves.

Dad mysteriously found out that our gang had been frequenting a set of caverns deep in the forest on Port Alberni’s southern outskirts. I suspected my mother overheard us boys exaggerating our experiences and passed off misinformation to my father. He had not learned we only went to the caves during the summer months.

Our caves were human-made, abandoned mines. There were three of them along a barely negotiable canyon and scattered across a dangerous, swift-running river.

We squeezed through a hole cut at the bottom of a chain-linked fence to reach the mines before negotiating an old abandoned train trestle. The bridge spanned the sheer-walled gorge with the raging river one hundred feet below—the ancient overpass rotten and extremely treacherous, with many missing ties. Crossing forced us to crawl slowly along the rusted steel rails. It was more than a miracle that no boy ever fell to death.

To arrive at the first mine, after crossing the threatening wooden monolith, we clambered and slid down the steep canyon wall to the riverbank far below. From there, we hiked up the river’s edge before traversing the fast-running barrier by jumping from slippery rock to slippery rock, jutting through the cold, violent current. Once on the other side, we continued upriver before re-crossing to reach the first mine. The other two mines were located further upriver and respectively on opposite sides—every crossing dangerous.

The water was frequently too high and fast to attempt a crossing and prematurely forced us to ditch our expeditions. Apparently, my mother selectively overheard us bragging only about our successful missions.

The first and third deeper mines were narrow, unevenly dug tubes into the mountainside. The cavities, supported by a few rotten timbers, required the taller kids to bend over or suffer cracked heads. In addition, there were many missing supports, and the earthen ceilings could have caved in at any moment, burying our group of young explorers.

The mines were cold and wet. The walls continuously seeped water, leaving large deep puddles spread beneath the mine tracks. We balanced along a single rail, occasionally slipping and filling our rubber galoshes with muddy, freezing water.

We could not venture into either more than a few yards. It was blacker than the inside of a sealed tomb. We often talked of bringing flashlights, though we never had. Probably too afraid of what might lurk in the darkness. Not one of us was ever as brave as we portrayed. It was a wonderful play area.

When Anton and I emerged from school that drenching afternoon and spotted my father, I became immediately ecstatic for a waterless cozy ride home. I fruitlessly hoped this trend would continue and this day would be the first of many. But, unfortunately, it was not to be—this was the only ride from school I had ever experienced.

I wondered why he picked such a horrific day for a field trip. It was apparent to me we weren’t going to the mines. The lower canyon would be inaccessible. Besides, if we could miraculously reach the canyon bottom, the winter river would be too high and rough to cross. Plus, there was no way I would crawl across the soaked, slippery trestle. I visualized the wind and rain thrusting me to death.

Following my instructions, the three of us drove to the barrier fence. First, my dad pointed out the large yellow and black bullet-holed NO TRESPASSING sign wired to the chain links and asked if we knew what it meant. We feigned stupidity. It wasn’t hard.

Anton and I crawled in the mud through the small opening while, without choice, my dad climbed over. The rain saturated us, and the cold penetrated the bone. After making our way to the trestle, we stared at the frightening bridge. In the downpour, the thrashing currents far below were almost invisible.

Well, where are the caves? my father bluntly asked.

I pointed to an unseeable spot upriver and explained, All we have to do is cross the trestle, climb down the bank, cross the river several times, and we’re there.

My Father immediately joined my team. There was utterly no way he was attempting this unfeasible crossing either. He never saw the mines, let alone stood on the opposite side of the canyon.

Banned from ever returning to the mines, I thought my playground wasn’t shrinking but expanding into uncharted territory, which was abundant.

Ultimately, I dropped off at home, cold, muddy, and wet to the bone from head to toe. My superficial warm, and dry rides were left to fantasy.

Hanging Jungle Jim

SUMMER 1961

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Jungle Jim, once again, determined to demonstrate strength, this time by hanging. Though not very bright, he was powerful.

None of the six neighborhood gang members realized our crime’s severity or the irreversible damage we could have caused him in less than a minute by cutting off the blood flow in his carotid artery, notwithstanding his quick demise.

A group of neighborhood boys congregated in the sparse tree-filled vacant lot adjoining Donnie’s house and kiddy corner across Fourteenth Street from ours. The oldest boy in our group was around nine years of age, with the rest younger.

Our old guy, manhandling a rope, practiced tying hangman nooses. Western movies dominated our fantasies.

Jim came along and suggested we hang him. At first, we refused, but after Jim’s persistence, we stupidly obliged. One of us grabbed the rope with a hangman’s noose adorning one end and placed the large knotted loop around Jungle Jim’s neck. After throwing the loose end of the rope over a thick lower tree branch, we all took position along the line and struggled mightily to achieve lift. Finally, after many tries, the jungle boy’s feet swung freely.

Only seconds later, the boy’s face turned scarlet. His eyes bulged from their sockets. His throat made muffled coughs.

My brother, Thom, immediately yelled to release him.

Jim barely whispered out a protest, No. I’m good.

Thankfully, we ignored his objection and followed Thom’s advice—dropping him back to earth. Our lives would have certainly been different if we had murdered Jungle Jim that day.

Economics

SPRING 1962

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Wayne, Greg, Anton, Thom, and I turned our dilapidated shed across the small pasture from our house into a pigeon coup. While nailing patches to the floor, we found a handful of old blasting caps.

That evening, my dad lit a massive bonfire, and we threw in the blasting caps, one at a time, resulting in ear-splitting explosions. After every cap exploded, the boys chased each other around the field with flaming sticks. My Father let us have some harmless fun under the star-filled summer evening.

My mother looked out the window to check on us. From her field of vision, she concluded the boys were getting dangerously out of hand. Her solution, rather than breaking up our party, was to call me into the house. Unfortunately, I hadn’t understood her reasoning. I was the smallest kid in the bedlam and couldn’t run fast enough to catch anyone.

It was late evening and past my usual bedtime. But to my astonishment, Mom didn’t send me upstairs and told me it was my piano practice time.

I played dull scales for a half hour and counted my punishment minute by minute as time slowly dragged on. I had seen a prison movie on TV, and it occurred to me I should scratch a vertical mark into the living room wall for every passing minute.

When my half-hour finally ended, I ran outside. The party had broken up, and everyone had gone home.

My warden’s plan was brilliant; by removing the natural mark and leaving no one to pick on, it hadn’t taken long for the others to get bored and go home. But, to my misfortune, my impetuous mother continued using this ruse on me more than once to curtail my enjoyment.

As pigeon curators, we installed chicken wire over the window opening, and we made a small one-way steel-rod pigeon door in the shed’s wall beside the entrance. The rickety front door needed a few dozen nails added to shore it up.

We all bought an assortment of dollar birds and filled our coup.

I heard about a guy selling tumblers for a couple of dollars apiece. My parents gave us five dollars, and Thom and I walked to his house in the lower part of town.

The guy’s first question was, How much money do you have?

I proudly blurted out, Five dollars. Thom kicked me hard in the shins. I never could figure out how he always hit the same spot, stacking bruises on top of bruises.

The seller told us the birds were two-fifty each.

We ended up cash-poor, though two pigeons richer. On the way home, Thom explained that we could have gotten three birds for five dollars if I had kept my big mouth shut and left the negotiations to him. My brother had just taught me my first lesson in economics, quantity discounts. It was a painful lesson.

We realized pigeons were tedious work in the post weeks, and I did not prepare us to dedicate ourselves. The other three boys living a block away left Thom and me with all the feeding and cleaning. I do not know if planned, but someone inadvertently left the pigeon door open, and eventually, all our birds flew off.

My first paying job was a paper route. Being too young to get a route of my own, Dan, a neighbor boy a couple of years older than me, acquired an extensive route and generously offered me a section.

I tried to talk Thom into helping me, to no avail. Finally, mom came to my rescue and forced my brother to join me in the paper route business.

The Twin City Times, a weekly free paper, needed delivery to every house. Thom and I usually worked together. Every Wednesday afternoon, we walked and sometimes rode our bikes for miles in the pouring rain. Mother took pity on us a few times and drove us along our route.

Each newspaper required walking up steps to a covered porch and placing the paper under the doormat to keep it dry. There was minimal benefit from riding bikes or getting a car ride as neither cut down across the yard nor up-and-down porch labor.

Thom and I got paid a penny per paper. Dan assigned us the outskirts of his route, so our thirty-five houses were scattered over more than a mile from beginning to end, and then we had the get home.

During winter, the sunset was well before five o’clock in the afternoon. So, after school let out, Thom and I started our route by three-thirty—with little more than an hour of daylight, we usually arrived home well after dark and doused to the bone.

We each made seventy cents a month. So on payday, we stopped at the closest corner market and gorged on as much candy as we could afford.

Dan was considerably more self-serving than bighearted.

After a couple of months, we quit the paper route when Thom gave me my second economy lesson; labor versus reward.

We each received a new three-speed bicycle for Christmas—his British racing green and mine, Italian racing red. As a result, Thom and I took up bottle collecting. We would ride our bikes dangerously along the treacherous highway and busy country roads, collecting discarded soda bottles. Only in our troubled minds were we faster than the cars whizzing by within inches of our fast-pedaling bikes.

The two cents-a-bottle redemptions should have been far more lucrative than newspaper delivery. The problem was our collecting fields were miles from where we lived. So it took much