I remember it clearly, although my brothers probably won’t. Of course, I had more invested than they did at the time, so that is to be expected. They had both already moved out of the house, and thus were immune to any reprisals, I hadn’t, and wasn’t.
The family was gathered at mom and dad’s house and the air was filled with sweet scents and the easy joy of togetherness. Uncle Dave and dad were off tending to something or other that obviously had not interested us boys.
Our Grandmother Betty (Dake) Vandermolen had come over with Uncle Dave and was happily sitting at the kitchen table, with my brothers and I, chatting with mom as mom rapidly worked her way through a shopping cart pile of ingredients to make enough pies, rolls, mashed potatoes and what not for dinner to sate three growing young men, with a few leftovers to nourish the four full adults.
Barry had been talking about his job, but somehow drifted on into a story about some stunt we boys had pulled “back in the day”. He was completely at ease. The hair on the back of my neck began to rise.
Jeff joined in, and soon not only were the stories flying fast and full, but the hair on my arms were standing straight up.
Remember, they were out of the house and immune to punishment…I was still living under mom and dad’s roof. And the stories while related with a fair amount of laughter and mirth, had some unacceptable undertones to them that led me to fear for the long-term consequences, especially since my last “tanning” had yet to completely heal.
Now I can’t tell you exactly which, or how many, stories were related around that table; might have included the one about out blacking out all the street lights in town, might have been about waterballooning cars, jumping off the back of the high school grandstands, blasting for fish in the rock quarries, acquiring several thousand Christmas lights, or any number of other stories that centered on blood, broken bones, and or explosions of one size or another (intended or not).
After each story, and sometimes during them at critical points in the story, Grandma Vandermolen would expostulate; “No, you didn’t” with incredulity. Her eyes wide, he sense of appropriate obviously abused.
This went on for some time, with more and more grandmotherly interjections as each story became a bit more outlandish than the previous (owing in large part to Barry and Jeff realizing that they had no risk I bleakly suspected). At one point I recall worrying about Grandma’s neck. After-all, I knew for a fact that she hadn’t exercised it as much in any given month lately as she did that afternoon listening to stories.
Finally, after one particularly eventful story, Grandma turned to our mom and said; “Jan, tell me they really didn’t do that”.
At which point my mother turned around and faced us all with “that look”, took a deep breath and let it out in a long eloquent sigh, and replied: “Well, this is the first I am hearing about this, but I’d bet they really did!”
©Copyright 2018, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved
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