Kid Days

Lately my thoughts have drifted back to my pre-teen years on that farm seven miles west of Grants Pass where my best pals were the Wardrip brothers, Bob and Lee; Bob my age and Lee two years older. Yeah, the ones with whom I went on that spelunking fiasco.

One time we started playing with hoops, using those metal rings barrel makers used to hold the barrel's staves in place. We would cut a three foot long stick from a board and then nail a piece of lath about five inches long crosswise to the end of the stick making it a T-device for driving the hoop as we ran behind it. We drove those hoops for miles.

One day we went hooping with some beer bottles to the Applegate Tavern where each one would net us a nickel which we would immediately spend on candy bars carried by the tavern. It was necessary to cross a narrow highway bridge over the Applegate River to get to the tavern so driving the hoops over the bridge was too dangerous. There was a high bank at the entrance to the bridge and we would throw our hoops up to the top of the bank and then walk across the bridge. This time Lee and I were successful in getting our hoops to the top of the bank, but Bob didn't release his in time and it went flying back over his head right into the windshield of a farm truck approaching the bridge. Loud sound of shattering glass.

The driver couldn't stop on the bridge but he pulled off on the other end and came running back shouting as us. He was using adult language. We knew it was in our best self-interest to not discuss what happened with an angry farmer, so we scrambled up the bank and went running through the woods to escape his vengeful justice. We did feel guilty about the unfortunate accident but considered the loss of our beer bottles and the consequent loss of the Mounds chocolate bars to be payment for our sins.

The whole thing pretty well cooled our enthusiasm for hooping and we never went back to it.