EXPLOSIVE AND SHOCKING

Dad was a teacher until 1942 and worked summers at Camp Wood – a YMCA camp in the flint Hills located on Highway 50 near Elmdale (west of Strong City). Mom, little brother Gene, and I visited him there once or twice during the summer during the two or three days between camps. We did canoeing, fishing, archery, horseback riding, riflery, and caught lizards and horned toads. We greatly enjoyed these visits.

I recall one of the counselors had put his shirt on without shaking out a scorpion, which left a string of stings across his back. I learned to always shake out your clothes that have been lying around.

While swimming and fishing with all the counselors, everyone was yelling at one guy whose swim suit had become awry unknown to him, exposing his private parts and causing much laughter. This was something quite impressive to an eight- or nine-year-old. Always make sure your private parts are adequately covered.

Dad permitted Gene and me to dig out and reclaim the lead 22 caliber slugs from the bank behind the targets at the rifle range. We thought the end result might be to cast some lead soldiers.

Mom had a two-burner gas stove in the basement for heating wash water, etc. I melted the recovered bullets and skimmed off the dirt dross, and poured the refined molten lead into muffin sized molds. When I had some left over I poured it into a tin one-pound coffee can with water in the bottom.

Big Mistake!

The big boom shot hot water, steam, and lead up into my face. A scream brought mother, whose inspection indicated red marks on the face, no damage to eyes, but one scared kid.

This incident caused a lack of interest in further melting of lead, and a life-long wariness about hot things, especially hot into cold things. The resulting portion of solidified lead was a very interesting, pretty glob with obvious explosion-type structure.

Some say you can’t remember any earlier than three or four, but I remember sitting on the ironing board at about one- or two-years-old watching mother iron; and the results of sticking my finger in an electrical socket. In those days the wall outlets were all sockets into which you had to screw a “male to female” plug to accept the pronged plug on your appliance.

Since then I’ve always had a definite respect (O.K., suspicion or fear) of electrical wiring and appliances.

Only a year later, at three-years-old, when asked to name the new family dog I spoke up quickly with “Judyandjane”. There was an afternoon radio program by that name, “Judy and Jane,” that Mom listened to. I recall that that dog disappeared, i.e., “ran away” within a short time. No one penned or tied their dogs in those days. Or maybe his name was just too much.