"Devilish" or Curious?

[Calamity Kris]

Were you a “devilish” child or just curious?

 

All this time on my hands has me reminiscing.  

 

My parents had a sitter by the name of Mrs. Graham.  She was a nice older lady, as I recall.  I believe she may have had grandkids of her own.  I was 7, my sister was 4 and my brother was 2 so she had her hands full with the three of us.  I can’t say I was a trouble maker but I was very curious.  I was interested in cause and effect and how things worked.

 

Late one spring, my parents had her come over to take care of us while they were out.  It was a nice sunny afternoon.  I was out in the backyard playing with a ball.  I was throwing it on the second story roof and watched it as it bounced off the shake shingles and how the shapes of the shingles effected the direction it rolled off the roof.  It rolled off into our yard, most of the time.  It rolled into the neighbors yard a couple too many times and they told me they would keep it until my parents came home.  I was looking around the back yard for something else to play with and found a small round piece of concrete, about the size of a softball.  I’ll bet that would roll really differently than the ball did, I thought.  I threw it on the roof a couple of times and it rolled off and onto the grass with a thud.  Cool, I thought.  Made an interesting noise too.  Well, the last time I heaved it onto the roof, I didn’t quite get enough lift and threw it through the window of my parents office on the second floor.  Mrs. Graham came running out very angry with me.  She sent me to my room and made me stay there until my parents came home.  Boy, I got a whooping for that.  

 

Several months later, my parents had poor Mrs. Graham come over to watch us again.  I did promise to be good this time.  If I recall correctly, my sister and I had been fighting so I was sent out back to water the plants for my parents.  They had numerous potted plants all around the back patio so there were a lot to keep me busy.  After I finished, I was coiling the hose back up at the hose bib when a drop of water splashed on the screen of the nearby window.  I was fascinated by the colors and patterns it was making as it slowly slid down the mesh.  I flung the end of the hose in the direction of the screen again and watched the drops as they slid down the screen with their rainbow of colors and interesting bubbles.  I turned the hose on low and continued to fling water at the window so I could watch it slide down the screen.  Unfortunately, the window was open…….  All the water I was flinging at the screen was going into my parents bedroom, splashing on their dresser and running down the wall onto the carpet.  Mrs. Graham heard the water running and came out to see what I was doing.  She shrieked and turned the water off.  Grabbing me by the arm, she again led me upstairs to my room.  She gathered as many towels as she could find to help soak up all the water.  I recall her apologizing to my parents for the damage I caused.  She then told them she wouldn’t ever watch us again because I was too “devilish”.  I really got a whooping for that one.  

 

So, tell us your "devilish" or curious stories....

 

[Cowboy Small]

I  loved taking  things  apart  to  see  how  they  worked. Didn't  always  get them  back  together  like  they  should  be .  Watches, motors, etc.  Had to learn  to get  things  that  didn't  matter .  Used stuff  from  garage  sales  or trash cans.  My parents  were reluctant  to let  me  have  pets . 

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

45 minutes ago, Cowboy Small said:

I  loved taking  things  apart  to  see  how  they  worked. Didn't  always  get them  back  together  like  they  should  be .  Watches, motors, etc.  Had to learn  to get  things  that  didn't  matter .  Used stuff  from  garage  sales  or trash cans.  My parents  were reluctant  to let  me  have  pets . 

 

Ha!  I started with ball point pens (when I was done, there was not a pen in the house that still had a spring); moved up to my Dad's lawnmower (caught the Devil over that one), and finally started "fixing" cars.  

 

Along the way, I discovered a book in the family library entitled "Fortunes in Formulas" - a 1930's treasure trove of chemical combinations, including recipes for black powder and pyrotechnics.  Blew up model ships in the neighbor's swimming pool; made crude bottle rockets and firecrackers.  At some point Mom heard from the neighbors (who would have said "devilish"), and my 5 lb. supply of powder "disappeared".  

 

All in all, it was curiosity; I just wanted to see how things worked, and if they were broken, fix them.  There were casualties, but with experience came skill.  What started with ball point pens led to a career in product liability litigation, where I often get to disassemble, test and even, on occasion, blow up my clients' products.

 

If a kid's not curious, he's not learning.

 

LL

[Charlie Harley, #14153]

I was fortunate in that my parents encouraged curiosity. They’d bring me old clocks and small appliances to take apart and learn. Eventually got to where I could figure out how to fix and reassemble stuff. 

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

5 minutes ago, Charlie Harley, #14153 said:

I was fortunate in that my parents encouraged curiosity. They’d bring me old clocks and small appliances to take apart and learn. Eventually got to where I could figure out how to fix and reassemble stuff. 

 

Amazing how quickly this attitude and these skills are being lost.  Every boy in my school took a year of Mechanical Drawing, a year of wood shop, and a year of metal shop.   3-view drawing teaches you to visualize missing parts and surfaces; shop classes teach tool use and care, welding, metal work, and mechanical assembly.  Most of my friends had Dads in the trades, and their own set of tools before they graduated from high school.  I'd wager that less than 10% of the kids that graduated with my son own tools.  I have a neighbor with two $80,000 cars in his garage, but not a single tool.  

 

Teach your kids to wrench; they'll save money and learn to think logically.

 

LL

[Michigan Slim]

I wasn't really a bad kid. I could stay in the woods or the lake all day and keep myself busy. But.... When my folks moved us to Indiana and put me in a neighborhood, those activities didn't fit well. I've posted before about the neighbors bird feeders, or windows (BBs bounce off things...). Then I bought a 69 Camaro and life got fun again! Then 'devilish' applied well.

[Calamity Kris]

1 hour ago, Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438 said:

 

Amazing how quickly this attitude and these skills are being lost.  Every boy in my school took a year of Mechanical Drawing, a year of wood shop, and a year of metal shop.   3-view drawing teaches you to visualize missing parts and surfaces; shop classes teach tool use and care, welding, metal work, and mechanical assembly.  Most of my friends had Dads in the trades, and their own set of tools before they graduated from high school.  I'd wager that less than 10% of the kids that graduated with my son own tools.  I have a neighbor with two $80,000 cars in his garage, but not a single tool.  

 

Teach your kids to wrench; they'll save money and learn to think logically.

 

LL

 

I was a little bit of a tomboy.  I wanted to take auto shop and wood shop so I could make things with my hands.  Mom insisted I take homemaking so I could learn to cook and survive on my own.  Auto shop would have served me well after I divorced, having to replace the water pump on my old Mercury, and I still couldn't cook very well, but I did develop a passion for sewing.

[Cactus Jack Calder]

2 hours ago, Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438 said:

 

Amazing how quickly this attitude and these skills are being lost.  Every boy in my school took a year of Mechanical Drawing, a year of wood shop, and a year of metal shop.   3-view drawing teaches you to visualize missing parts and surfaces; shop classes teach tool use and care, welding, metal work, and mechanical assembly.  Most of my friends had Dads in the trades, and their own set of tools before they graduated from high school.  I'd wager that less than 10% of the kids that graduated with my son own tools.  I have a neighbor with two $80,000 cars in his garage, but not a single tool.  

 

Teach your kids to wrench; they'll save money and learn to think logically.

 

LL

My Dad started me out about four years old. He laid tools out on the ground next to the car, crawled underneath, stuck his hand out and said hand me a screwdriver. I picked up a tool and passed it to him. Dad took the tool, looked at it and said this is a wrench, I need a tool that is straight with no moving parts.. As I learned the tools I began to anticipate which one would be needed next. I learned to read fractions on the wrenches by the first grade, even though I might not understand their full meaning, I knew a 1/2" was smaller than a 9/16" and could judge pretty close on which was needed if I could see the nut. By the time I was seven Dad just stuck his hand out and I was expected to hand him the correct tool. We had a lot of good bonding time repairing that 14 year old 1937 Buick. Dad saw to it I had my own tools for repair of cars, carpentry and plumbing by the time I graduated High School.

Electrical work I picked up on my own. My mother always insisted I was going into that line. At about three I used to crawl behind the sofa. When Mom asked what I was doing back there, I told her I was playing with the "Pretty Blue Lights". The old lamp cord was frayed and if you shook it the sparks made a blue flash. around that time I also stuck a pair of tweezers into a wall socket. That got the folks attention.

 

CJ

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I was a "problem child", overly active and very smart.  Way ahead of other kids my age.  Probably came from very intelligent parents who were both teachers and practice new stuff on my sister and me.

 

Sure am glad they hadn't invented ADHD back then or I'd have been medicated into subserviency.  Ot maybe not.  Mom and Dad were mighty independent, too.

[Cat Brules]

My folks left me alone with my guns, firecrackers, powder, knives, “inventions,” gadgets, complete bicycle (and other things) disassembles, oil, grease, my dad’s car, and other stuff.  My dads only warnings were, “Don’t forget how it goes back together!”  “Yes sir!”  (He’d sometimes have to help.)  I got in trouble once for repeatedly shooting (Daisy BB rifle) the neighbor’s dog that was trying to kill my two ducks (my babies I raised from hatchlings).   My ducks didn’t wander, and they always hung out nearby me.  My dad almost got into a fight with the neighbor over it.  Didn’t help that I yelled at the guy that if his dog hurt my ducks, I’d kill him.  The dog kept coming over, so I had to catch him, introduce him, and teach him to leave my ducks alone.   He was friendly with my ducks and me after he got to know us.  My momma, a Georgia farm girl,  helped.  My ducks lived a long time.  They loved the rain, and that old dog. :-).  Funny how you remember things like that.

 

Cat Brules

[Tex Wilson]

I guess you could say I was adventuress as a kid. My family lived in a new development on the edge of the country in Iowa (think cornfields). Most of us boys back then (pre-teen) that lived in that neighborhood had Daisy BB guns and we would hunt the country wild life, squirrels, rabbits, birds of all species, muskrats at the creek, etc. When we got really bored we would divide up into "armies" and hunt one another with the rule being you had to shoot only at the butt.

One day my buddy and I decided to take our dogs and go on a hunting expedition which meant we would follow the creek to explore new hunting lands. We came up on a bull that chased us across the creek and shot at it with our BB guns which only pissed it off more, but we were the "great hunters" and we were having fun, until the farmer who owned the bull came up behind us on his tractor and chased us off his land.

Our big adventure (me and my same buddy)was when we heard there were 2 men who had kidnapped a girl in Illinois and the police were hunting for them in our vast "hunting territory". Since we both knew the terrain better than the local, county and state police we decided we would traverse the creek that was full of lush vegetation on both sides and with our trusty Daisy BB guns flush them out onto the highway where the cops would catch them and we would collect a reward. We never saw the 2 men and the kidnapped girl, but they were traversing the same creek and they did come out onto the highway where they were apprehended. We came out at the same spot 5 minutes later, with our BB guns in hand to the surprise of the police who were cuffing the 3 suspects. After questioning both of us as to what we were doing there and listening to our story, they had the local police officer drive us home and tell our parents what we had been doing. Our parents were frantic because the news of the kidnapped girl was all over the local radio station and everyone was told to stay in their homes. Anyway the "reward" I received was a whuppin' from my father and I lost the use of my trusty Daisy BB gun for the rest of the year. By the way the girl was not kidnapped, she was just running away from home.

[Raylan]

Obviously you all were little devils, me I was just curious.