Being a Kid

Tom: [laughter] And one of them I can’t understand today. We were raising, had a watermelon patch, and one of the boys in my class, that had a farm just down the street from us, he said he had a bigger watermelon patch than we did. So I said “well I’ll tell you, I’m going to come down there and look at it.” So two or three of the other fellows that heard what the conversation was decided they’d go with me and make a decision which was the bigger watermelon patch.

So I went down, was standing on — wasn’t on his land at all, just standing on the edge just kind of looking at the size of it. And whatever the fellow’s name that owned the property, he spotted us and one of the boys said “let’s don’t stay here, let’s just get out of here,” so we turned around and ran. He recognized me and told my daddy, and I said “well, we wasn’t on his land.” He said “well, what’d you run for?” I said “I don’t know.” He said “well, we’re going to stop that business right now. I want you to stay home for one month and be in hollerin’ distance of your mother any time she hollers at you.” So I had to stay home that summer for a month, and never got out of hollerin’ range of that house. And I’ve always wondered why I ran when I wasn’t even on it.

There was a friend of mine named Henry Beemer. Henry — well, let me think. I had a friend named Henry.

Yea, we were different classes, but his daddy was a pro at the little ol’ nine holes that were adjacent to our property. And he was over visiting one day, and we were out playing in the yard, and there was a pump — a deep well, and a pump that pumped the water out to the cattle. It had little caps on it that were grease caps, and I screwed off one of them, just standing there and talking, and turned it over and dropped it in the well. Why I did that, I don’t know. My daddy, he was going to give me a whippin’ for it, and I admitted what I did, but he didn’t whip me for that one. But he said “what I can’t understand is why you did it,” and as I speak of it now, I can’t understand why I did it either.

But one of the funniest things I guess — my nephew, he was about five or six years old, he was the son of my oldest brother, we called him “Little Bit,” because he was a little bitty fellow. Turned out later, very successful business in electrical work. But he was out at the barn, and we came out there one day and the chicken feed was just scattered all over the place, and my dad said “Little Bit, you been feedin’ my chickens?” He said “well, I give them a little bit.” [laughter] But I kid him about that to this day, and he’s down there in Alabama now and doing — has a good business.