Tales:
The Fenley Chronicles
Just before I was to start the first grade we moved from Guam to Bloomington, Indiana where my father was to enter graduate school. We lived in a "Married Student Housing" complex that consisted of rehabbed World War 2 army barracks. These are a few of my memories of that time:
Icicles of Death
Many of the older buildings around the Indiana University campus had
no gutters, so in the winter time long icicles (up to three foot!) would build up on the edges of these roofs, sometimes two or three
stories above the sidewalk. Was it my parents or my sister that first
extolled the dangers of these frozen spears? My memory isn't clear on
this, but I vividly recall glancing up nervously as I made mental
pictures of the stories I had been told of the people (usually small
boys) who met a ghastly end when they carelessly strayed into the drop
zone, to be inevitably skewered by The Icicles of Death.
Little Wheelie
During this time my sister Gareth and I shared a bedroom, spending
hours on end producing "plays". Each stuffed animal had a
roll to play in these productions, and when there was a shortage of
bears and such to fill the cast, other toys (or parts thereof) were
pressed into service. Hence the invention of the famous "Little
Wheelie", a plastic wheel broken of some long-discarded Tonka truck.
Little Wheelie was so popular with Gareth that she wrote a song about
him:
Little Wheelie rolls along,
Little Wheelie sings a song,
Little Weelie goes putt-putt -
He's stuck in a ruh-ah-ut!
(The song isn't complete without the dipping and rising inflection on the final "rut"!) Strangely, this song lives on, and can still be counted on to wring giggles from Gareth to this day.
Leaf Books
As an aspiring Ms.Ed., my father had access to the AV resources at the
University. I clearly remember one autumn Gareth and I made Leaf Books,
collecting a variety of leaves from the many varieties planted on the
Quad (I recall gingko and persimmon trees). Once we had selected our
best leaves, we placed them on sheets of heavy paper, labeled them and
used the AV center's dry mount presses to laminate them. Finally the
pages were bound into books with a coil binder. We were very proud of
our "professional" results! Little did I know I would be
making a living with this exact same equipment twenty years later.
Finger Chopper
The renovated barracks we lived in had old double-hung windows, whose
counterweight ropes had long since rotted and the window weights
fallen down inside the walls. As a result, you had to prop the windows
up with a Lincoln Log or other stick-like device if you wanted any
ventilation - no air conditioning for grad students back then! One day I
had been sent to my bedroom (unfairly as usual, I recall) for some indiscretion, although I wanted
to play outside. I sat looking out the window forlornly until another
neighborhood kid came by, at which point I engaged him in a
conversation on the merits of the Kung-Fu Grip vs. the regular GI Joe.
Sadly for me I became animated in my gestures and forgot to watch out for the window prop until it was too late. Realizing the guillotine was coming down, I pulled back sharply - and almost made it. The window crashed down on the middle finger of my left hand, tearing a half-inch chunk of flesh away from the bone. Needless to say, I was somewhat distressed at this development, and began bawling like a lost calf as I tried (unsuccessfully) to raise the window with my one free hand and release my mangled digit.
My parents were home at the time, but decided I was putting up way too much fuss about being sent to my room, and I could just stay there until I decided to settle down, by golly. Luckily the outside kid eventually recovered from the initial shock and informed the proper authorities of my fate. A trip to the hospital and eight stitches later and I knew I would survive - if one of the Icicles of Death didn't get me.
