Life on Mason Mountain

 
 

Mom And Dads House

 

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These stories as a whole or in part is Copyright © 1967-2005 by George T Mason of East Stroudsburg PA.. These stories may not be sold or used for commercial profit in any form or fashion. These stories may not be modified in any way. These stories may not be posted on a mirror site or any other Internet site without the written permission of the author. These stories may not be distributed on print, magnetic, electrical or optical mediums. These stories will not be lettered, written, printed, Xeroxed, laser printed, cut, carved, laid, inlayed, graved, or engraved, upon anything movable or immovable under the whole canopy of heaven whereby or whereon the least letter, character, symbol, or semblance of the same might become legible, or intelligible, to yourself or any other person, Without the written permission of the author or his next of kin upon his death.  That should cover that.

Story

I grew up in a world most people have not experienced.  Let me explain this a moment.  The house Mom and Dad had was purchased in 1952 in what was then rural NJ.  A small town by the name of Denville.  It was on a sleepy dead end street, where kids could play until the streetlights came on.  The house was a chicken coup with a garage when they purchased it and 1.75 of an acre for the sum of $5,000.00  Dad converted it into a livable home soon enough, dug a septic and ran water from a hand dug well.  Soon my brothers came along and they needed more space so a new house was built attached to the existing chicken coup.

Here I lived in a house that when it rained pots of all sizes lined the floor where the leaky roof would drip water in them.  Dad had a philosophy in this: I can't fix the roof while it is raining, and when it is not raining the roof is not leaking.  This worked for him somehow. We had this dining room table that was piled a foot high with all the various letters and other mail they had received over the last year.   Generally their would be piles of stuff everywhere.  Stuff not trash or debris, To call my home dirty or unclean would be an injustice.  I did not grow up in a filthy home, just a real cluttered one. stuff  would be stacked everywhere about waist high until a path was all that was left to navigate your way through the various rooms and even these paths were eventually filled in until all you could do was get the door open.  This is the alternate reality I grew up in.  I was shocked as I made friends and would visit their homes to find them missing this stuff, and began to feel sorry for them that they were not blessed enough to have this "stuff" everywhere.

We grew up in a time that parents was the supreme authority and you were scared of them.  If you did something bad and some other parent caught you you well yelled at of spanked by them.  This was understood by the neighborhood and to the child was preferable to them calling your parents.  If I got a spanking from Mrs. Crawn, and I went home and told Mom about it I would get it worse from her.  So you tended to keep your mouth shut.  You might look at this with some sort of pity, but you need to realize that that was the way things worked back then, and having grown up in that time, I am not so sure it was bad.  Parents were sure their kids were good ones and behaved well when out of their sight.  Now I am not so sure.

Dads word was final law in our house, somehow this did not apply to my sister though and I can't really explain it.  Doug and the baseball was a fine example.  Dad planned and drew out this new house to be attached to the old one, and the crowning glory of it was these two picture windows huge windows that faced the front of the house.  Doug loved to play baseball with the other kids in the neighborhood kids and the field just laid out better with the batter facing the house.  Dad did not want anything to happen to his precious picture windows so He told us kids over end over "Don't bat facing the house"  Doug agreed and home plate was faced toward the road. So here comes dad home from work and he gets out of the car.  The pitch is made and it is high so it sails right through the picture window right in front of Dad.  Doug freezes momentarily and then drops the bat and each of the players scatters like rats from a sinking ship.  Dad picks up the bat and chases Doug.  Doug thinking he can't outrun Dad, but could out handle him and buy some time until he calmed down runs around the house.  Doug begins to tire around the fourth lap but knows his life depends on it so he keeps on running, sooner or later Mom comes out and breaks it up And Doug has to go find his own switch.

Ever been sent to find your own switch?  I think that is the worst punishment in the world.  Never mind that Doug is technically innocent here, not that anyone would defend him for fear of bringing dads wrath upon themselves. But to be sent out into the yard and have to select a stick to have used to smack your behind was far worse than the beating itself.  You have to look at it clinically  you come upon an apple tree and you know from experience that that was a very fibrous limb and that it would sting like a whip, Likewise you avoided a willow tree. We had a lot of locust trees on the property but they tended to break easily. and you did not want that to happen either. Size did matter here as well for if it was too small it would break and they would have to move to the wooden spoon or the cutting board.  God forbid your hard butt broke one of them. Too big of a limb and you would fear for your life!  It was a tough decision, but it taught us a lot about wood.

There was a farm across the street from my Mom and Dads house that had the sweetest watermelons in the world.  We loved so sneak into the watermelon patch and pick those young watermelons and eat them until we were sick.  The farmer would catch us in there and yell "Hey" and we would run for the fence.  Running when you are full of watermelon is not easy and often I fell behind.  Following the "Hey" was soon to be a slam of a door and by this time we were nearing the fence.  At that point you thought: Okay the yell then the slam, we are still okay the next slam usually came as we were climbing the fence and if you weren't fast enough you heard the shot.  Did you know that a lot of farmers load their own shot?  Buckshot was replaced by this guy with rock salt and when you are climbing the fence you give a guy a great target.  My butt would sting for days and sitting down was not easy, but I was a great actor, never once did my Mom and Dad find out I was one of those kids that their friend the farmer was shooting at.