Remember When

Every now and then something happens that makes you remember something from the past. It could be something some one did or said. Or a smell that drifts by. Or even just an image that prompts that memory. I was watching the television and there was a spider and web that was just like the ones we had in Okinawa. And it reminded me when…….

Dad had five kids to keep track of and try to keep out of trouble. That was a very tall order. All five of us, Donnie, Danny, Teri, Tracy, and David loved to be outside and looked for fun stuff to do. There was only one television channel and it had very old programs that were of no interest to kids. We discovered very early on that fireworks are sold year round. We would spend a good portion of our allowance on fireworks. The two firecrackers of choice were lady fingers and 2-B bombs. For those of you who do not know what a lady finger is, it is a very small firecracker about the size of a matchstick. My brothers and I were messing around in the boonies, we saw a spider web. We would take a small object and toss it in the web and low and behold, the spider would come running down the web to see its catch. Boys being boys, we thought wouldn’t it be cool if the spider would attack the firecracker.

Well, we had to give it a try. We took the firecrackers apart and used two fuses for one firecracker. Lighted the fuse and tossed it into the web. Hidden from somewhere above this huge spider speeds down the web and starts to spin a web on its new “victim”. The fuses came to an end and so did the spider! There was a small pop followed by thunderous laughter. Way cool! Living on the edge of the boonies, there was an abundance of spiders. We continued for a while taking turns tossing the firecrackers and blowing up spiders. Meanwhile, Dad and one of his Army buddies are in the house. They hear the sound of laughter and small pops.

Dad looks out the window and sees all the boys walking the edge of the boonies and then he catches what we are doing. “Hey, what do you think you guys are doing?” he yells at us. Dad and his buddy move out to where we have just unleashed our wrath on the spiders. He confiscates the ladyfingers and tells us that we should not be blowing up the spiders and to go inside and think about what we did. There were bunches of “Ah man” going on as we hung our heads and headed to the house to “think about what we were doing was wrong”.

Once inside, after a few minutes, we started to hear laughing coming from behind the house. That sounds very much like Dad. We headed to the back window and what do we see? There is Dad and his buddy lighting up ladyfingers and tossing them into the spider webs. We knew they were successful when their heads would go back and roar with laughter. I guess that is what is meant by the saying “Do as I say, not as I do”.

Those days were so much fun.