Sorry fans of Catherine looking for tribute letters. Just another day or so and I'll have it out of my system. Don't go too far. Some quality "Mother Memories" will be returning soon.
IT'S RAINING BRICKS IN MY BACK YARD.
Just in case you think I cornered the market on "Stupid" genes in our family let me tell you a little stunt my sister, Cathie pulled when I was only 3 years old. Okay, so she would have only been 6 herself, but girls are supposed to be smarter.
It was an overcast winter day that our cousins from Memphis, the Becks, came to visit. I'm not trying to be overly descriptive, because the weather conditions probably saved my life. Since it was cold outside I was wearing a hat of sorts when I went out to the back yard to see what the big kids were doing.
As I mentioned, Cathie was three years my senior and our visiting cousin, Bobby Beck was a year younger than Cathie. I found them outside up in the peach tree in the back corner of the yard near the brick pile, another piece of important information innocently woven into this tale.
Cathie and Bobby Beck had pulled an old door up into the tree and had made a kind of "tree house" floor out of it. Bobby Beck was always called Bobby Beck as if Beck was his middle name, like someone called Billy Bob or Betty Sue. This, unlike the brick pile, is not important information, it just always seemed strange to me to call Bobby Beck, Bobby Beck and not just Bobby. Oh well. In addition to the door, Cathie and Bobby Beck had hauled up several bricks from the brick pile and had placed them around the edges of the "floor".
These were their "bombs" they later told their parents. WWII had not been over very long so I guess that sort of thinking was not too far fetched. They were just waiting for Hitler to come marching by.
Enter Hitler
When they saw me coming out the back door, they lured me over to the tree and when they decided I was standing in just the right spot, they began jumping up and down on the wooden floor screaming something in German I think, causing the "bombs" to "rain" down onto their target; ME. Ish bin Jimmy.
To this day I have a scar just above my hair line where a brick crushed my skull causing my brains to pour out onto the ground. Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little. But if it had not been for the hat I had on, or had this scene played out in the summertime, I probably would have been deaaaaad. The scar is just a reminder that I regularly showed my sister as I was growing up whenever she said "I" was doing something "stupid".
And that's not the only scar that I have that is attributed to her. Another time when we were at our Grandma Patty's house in Memphis (Bobby Beck was not around on this occasion thank goodness) we were playing tag or some sort of running game and as we approached the concrete steps that lead to the back porch, she pushed me down.
I fell forward into the corner of the steps and landed on my face. A huge gash was opened above my eye. My eye ball was hanging out -- blood gushing all around.........Okay, okay. But I did have a large cut over my eye that required emergency treatment and stitches and to this day I have a very visible scar in my left eyebrow (or is it my right eyebrow). Very visible. Ruined my good looks for life.
I'm telling you my Guardian Angels have had their hands full for many years just following me around this earth.
i've always remembered this story as involving a pail and a bunch of stones in said pail. Never knew it was bricks. Remember when I hit Lyndi White next door in the head with the brick in about 2nd grade? Why does brick violence persist in our family? Wonder what henry and kate will do.... glad you're ok all these years later and that I'm finally getting the real story!
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