Chapter 16: What did You Hide from Your Parents When You were a Child?

This is a hard question. I was a good little boy. Well… I was never little, and I wasn’t always good, but it is hard to think of things that I hid. As I may have mentioned before, my father was a strict disciplinarian. He was a firm believer in “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” My father’s father, a.k.a. “Grandpa Young” was very strict. (I can’t believe that I am now “Grandpa Young”! Anyway…) If my brothers and I were bad, we would get spankings. My dad had a leather belt for the spankings. My brother and I hid the belt, so the next time, my dad used a dog leash. It was the size of a small rope, but it hurt more than the belt, so we hid that one too. Next, he used a switch by cutting a branch from a tree. It was even smaller in diameter that the leash and hurt even more. My brother and I then realized that wider is better when being spanked, so we took the leather belt out of hiding.

When I was young, I was rather shy and quiet. I was an altar boy for Sunday mass at St. Annes Church. I was a crosswalk guard before and after school. We wore a crosswalk guard’s belt that went over the shoulder and around the waist. I became a “captain” of the guards so I could wear  a badge that looked like a policeman’s badge. And, of course, I was a teacher’s pet. The elderly neighbors said, “Bobby is such a nice boy!” (Don’t call me “Bobby” only my Grandma Duke could call me that! Anyway…) I didn’t like being a “goody two shoes” so I wanted to act like the other kids who weren’t so good.

It was “cool” to smoke in those days. You had to be 18 years old to buy cigarettes. If we were under 18, we would ask someone older to buy them or take our parents’ cigarettes. My father caught me one time. There was no spanking, but he “chewed me out.” He said that I could smoke when I could buy my own cigarettes. Of course, I continued smoking secretly. I think that I started smoking when I was 13. One day my father asked me to help him in the garage. I forgot that I had a pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket. He saw them and asked, “What did I tell you about smoking?” I replied, “I could smoke when I bought my own cigarettes.” I was tall for my age and looked older, so I was able to buy them at some stores. I told my father that I bought them, and he never mentioned it again. I am so glad that most kids don’t smoke now, at least not cigarettes.

Once, I went out with some of my high school friends. They had someone buy them some beer, so I ended up drinking some. I drank probably only two or three, but I was rather high. My parents were at bingo. They usually came home at about 10 pm. I wanted to get home and in bed before they came home, but just as I was opening the back door, they pulled up. I knew my dad would go to bed soon, so I thought I would wait outside for a few minutes then go in. I fell asleep for about an hour. My clothes were damp because of the dew. I walked into the kitchen and bumped into the refrigerator. Of course, I said, “Excuse me.” My mom was in the dining room, and I walked in to say hi. Of course, she knew I had been drinking. I asked her to please not tell dad. As far as I know, she never did.

I can’t remember if I told this next story or not. My friends who have been to many of my barbecues have heard these stories multiple times, but here goes…

My dad’s hobby was target shooting and reloading bullets. He would go to car repair garages and get used tire balance weights. (If you got a new tire, it had to be balanced by putting weights on the tire rim. If you didn’t do this, the car would start shaking at a certain speed. With new cars and new technology, tire weights are no longer needed.) We would melt the lead weights, remove the slag, and add some beeswax and a little tin. Next, we would cast the bullets using a mold. My father would get used brass casings from the police firing range. First, we would remove the old primers and then put the casings in a machine that would polish them to look like new. Next step was to press in new primers, fill the casing with gun powder and finally press in the bullet. He would sell these bullets to his friends. The little money he would make would pay for his shooting hobby. Now that you know how to make a bullet from scratch, let’s get back to the main story.

Once in a while, my brother and I would take some of the gunpowder and go outside and burn it. Burning the powder on the ground is not so dangerous, it just burns very fast. If the powder is in an enclosed container and you light it, it will burn quickly, and the gas would explode the container. There was a pile of sand in our backyard. We found a four-foot section of a downspout. We put the spout in the sand at an angle and then poured some powder down the spout. The pipe was too long so a match would go out before hitting the powder, so we lit a cigarette and smoked about half of it. We dropped the cigarette into the pipe and stood back. Nothing happened. I glanced inside and saw that the hot end on the cigarette was facing up. Then my friend, George, looked into the pipe and at that exact time, the cigarette fell over, and the powder quickly burned. A big ball of smoke came out of the pipe and covered George’s head. He put his hands over his face. We thought that he was blinded by the powder. My brother and I were super scared. Then George moved his hands from his face and my brother and I started laughing. His face was totally black with two big white eyes and white teeth. Of course, George was angry because we were laughing. He ran home, next door to our house, crying with my brother and I right behind him. He ran into the bathroom and looked into the mirror and started laughing. Luckily, the pipe was long enough for the powder to cool down and his eyes were closed. It took a while to wash off all the burnt powder dust. As the old saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger,” or “All’s well that ends well.” We kept this a secret from our parents for a few years before we accidently told them. It was too late for anyone to be angry.

The photos below show a similar leather belt, leash and switch from a tree branch. Croasswalk guards wore belts similar to the ones in the third photo, but we didn’t wear hats. The tools are molds for casting lead bullets. My father kept much gunpowder in containers similar to the last photo.

“Things that I hid” means “in this case, secrets I kept from my parents.”

“Strict disciplinarian” means “to strictly punish someone for being bad.”

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” means “if children are not physically punished when they are bad, they will grow up to be a bad person.”

“Hid the belt” means “in this case, to put it where it cannot be found.”

“Dog leash” means “the chain or leather strap we connect to a dog’s collar when we take the dog for a walk. It’s also called a lead.

“Teacher’s pet” means “a student who the teacher likes best. I would always help the teachers before and after class.”

“Goody two shoes” means “a person who is never bad.”

“Chewed me out” means “he scolded me angrily.”

“Slag” means “the dirt, oil etc. that floats to the top of molten lead.”

“Cast the bullets” means “this is pouring molten, or melted, lead into a mold to make a bullet.”

“Downspout” means “the pipe that goes from the gutter along the bottom of a roof to the ground, it’s also called a rain pipe and a few other names.”

“Glanced” means “quickly looked.”