It all started when the teacher, for some unfathomable reason, decided she didn’t like Daddy. There was no good cause for it... except that she was prejudiced toward another family in that district, and therefore excused their boy and blamed Daddy when one time that other boy caused trouble. She reached out and grabbed Daddy, shoved him back against the wall--and banged his head on a calendar box.
Daddy did not retaliate; he had been taught by his father to respect his teacher... and do his very best in school. He was a straight A student. Daddy went home and told his father what had happened... His father, being one of those “Fightin’, Cussin’ Swineys” of Illinois, and not at all ashamed of it (we’re not like that now; we don’t cuss), as much as ‘sicced’ his small son on that teacher. So Daddy set out to make that teacher regret it. By the time he was done with her, I do believe she regretted that she’d ever been born.
He trotted gladly off to school, bright and early the next morning, prepared to have oodles of fun. The first order of the day was to get all the children on his side. Now, the children (it was a country school, with grades one through eight) all loved Daddy, and would gladly do anything he asked of them, for he was without fail kind to the littler ones. After all--he knew exactly how it felt to be the underdog: his two elder brothers used him for a punching bag, and his mother did nothing to stop them. It was not until he got to age sixteen that he was able to hold his own--and then those older, more cowardly brothers..... refused to fight.
So, Daddy invited the little boys out to the coal shed... There, he blacked their faces and arms so nicely, that they all looked like little black Sambos. (I am most definitely not a racist... I’m just not politically correct, that’s all.)
The teacher was aghast. “WHO DID THAT TO YOU!” she gasped.
The children grinned at her, white teeth and whites of eyes showing in stark relief against their very black skin. “George did,” they chorused in unison.
“GEORGE!” she cried, “You take these boys right back outside to the pump, and you get that black OFF of them!”
“Okay,” he agreed cheerfully, and they all trooped happily out the door.
She should’ve suspected...
At the pump, Daddy sloshed just enough water on each little boy, to make total mud babies out of them. From head to foot, they were now a grimy, dirty, dripping grayish black mess. The teacher sent them back out to do a better job.
Second mistake.
When they paraded back in, I tell you, they were drownded (ala Victoria). Totally drenched, and making huge lakes everywhere they went. The teacher had to send them home to change clothes.
Round One: Daddy, 1; Teacher, 0.
Now, since it was getting close to Christmas, Daddy thought that, in order to keep with the Christmas spirit, the children in the school really ought to learn a poem. So... he diligently taught them all The Night Before Christmas. And they all willingly learned. From oldest to youngest, they learned that poem. There was a plan...
When everybody was well versed, they were given their instructions... One day, they carried it out: the teacher called a reading class up to the front, and began hearing their recitations. That is, she tried to hear their recitations. But suddenly, on the west side of the room, the boy in the first chair stood grandly to his feet------and began: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house--”
The teacher whirled and stared at him in amazement. “SIT DOWN!” she ordered.
He obediently sat.
And the girl behind him stood up and continued, “...not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
The teacher stared in amazement; that girl never caused trouble. “Sit down!” she gasped.
The girl sat.
The boy behind her rose regally and went on, “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...”
“SIT DOWN!” screamed the teacher.
He sat.
And the girl behind him popped up, just like an animated jack-in-the-box, and continued the poem. So it went, all around the room, one child after another rising to their feet, reciting a little snatch of poetry, getting screamed at, sitting down obediently, and another immediately taking their place. There was no end to it, most of the afternoon. As soon as the poem was completed, the next child started it over again. The teacher screamed in vain, and finally sat limply down at her desk and stared.
And the next round went to ... Daddy. Daddy: 2; Teacher: 0.
One afternoon the teacher was showing one of the classes something at the chalkboard when, from the back of the room, where was Daddy’s desk... here he came, crawling bumpity-bump down the aisle, just as fast as ever he could crawl. Arriving at the front row, where sat one of his best friends, he leaned right over and bit the hapless kid on the leg.
“YEEEOoooooooooooouuuuchchch!” yelled the boy.
The teacher whirled around. “What happened!” she demanded.
“George bit me!” blubbered the boy, bawling loudly, as was part of the plan.
Meanwhile, Daddy rose calmly to his feet and walked back to his desk.
“George!” said the teacher in anger, “WHAT DID YOU DO??!!”
“Bit ’im,” replied Daddy nonchalantly.
“Why?!” asked the teacher, furious.
“Hungry,” said Daddy.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” said all the children.
The teacher gave up and tried to get on with the teaching.
A day later, the recitation bench was missing. Everyone put on a puzzled face.
“Where is it??!!” cried the teacher.
The children all looked high and low (while staying in their respective desks). “We don’t know,” they told her, snickering and giggling.
“YOU DO TOO!” she shrieked.
“giggle giggle giggle giggle giggle” said the children.
Daddy and his best friend suddenly ‘found’ it in the coatroom.
“Here it is!” they called, and came dashing out with it, running full tilt toward the front of the room, one on either end of the bench. The teacher barely leapt out of the way with her skin intact. The recitation bench crashed headlong into the platform at the front of the room, and with a sickening “Craaaack!”-- one leg was no more. Daddy hadn’t intended to do that; he was not the sort to ever destroy property. His friend had refused to slow down. He, as you might imagine, was quite a bit bigger than Daddy, who was very small for his age. So Daddy didn’t make much more mischief that day, feeling rather guilty over that leg.
But, the next day......... Daddy was creating such a disturbance that he got himself banished to the coatroom.
It being wintertime, the coatroom was full of all sorts of wonderful hats of all sizes and shapes---and a step stool, too. And the wall between the coatroom and classroom only went up about 7 feet; it didn’t connect with the ceiling.
Now, Daddy thought it was great sport to try on everyone’s hats. I have pictures of him, not more than a year before he died, with my niece Susan’s Sunday hat on, at our house opening Christmas presents with us. He often entertained our own children by putting on funny hats, or putting the hat on the child and then holding the child up to the mirror, the better to see how funny he looked.
So.... he began trying on hats. And more hats. He began stacking them, one atop the other, on his head... and then he pushed the step stool over to the partition wall. He climbed up. As soon as he knew by the sound of chalk writing on the board that the teacher had her back to him, he peeked over the wall. It was not long before one of the children spotted him. Snickering and giggling, the child pointed him out to another, who pointed him out to another, who pointed him out to another… and then the teacher whirled around to see what in the world was so funny.
But Daddy had safely ducked back down behind the wall. The children were all loyal enough to Daddy, that they would not look at him, while the teacher was looking at them. Each time the teacher went back to writing on the board, Daddy peeped over the wall--and the children erupted in fresh outbursts of laughter. And each time the teacher spun around to find the source of the hilarity, Daddy crouched back down behind the wall.
And then, quite suddenly, the stool folded itself.
CRASHSHSHSHSH!!!
Down came Daddy, hats and all, taking a heavily laden coatrack with him as he fell. The teacher ran into the coatroom, and Daddy was brought out in one big hurry--and he was not again banished to the coat foyer when he misbehaved.
One evening not many days later, Grandpa Swiney was driving his horse and buggy down the country road when he came upon the teacher walking dejectedly down the lane, head down in a posture of defeat. Grandpa, always a gentleman, stopped his horse.
“Would you like a ride?” he asked congenially.
“Yes, thank you,” she responded, and climbed in. They proceeded on.
“How is school going?” Grandpa asked politely, knowing full well how school was going, on account of the fact that Daddy faithfully went home and told him, every single day.
And then, without warning, the teacher was sobbing into her hands. “Oh, Mr. Swiney, it’s not going well at all!” she wept. “George won’t do a thing I say, and he is able to get all the children to do anything he tells them to do!”
Grandpa said nothing for a moment or two, while the teacher sat and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then, in a gentle voice, he told her, “Well, Miss --, I am the one who gave him permission to do those things.”
The teacher’s head came up, and she looked at him in surprise.
“You see,” Grandpa went on, “you accused him of something he didn’t do, and you wouldn’t listen to him, and you banged his head on the calendar box. So he declared war on you.” He smiled at her. “But I’ll put a stop to it--on one condition: you must publicly apologize to him.”
She agreed.
Grandpa let her off at the farmhouse where she was a boarder, and continued on to his own house. After supper that night, Grandpa said, “I took the teacher home tonight.”
Daddy looked up. “Oh?”
And then Grandpa told him all about it. There were no secrets in the Swiney household. “So,” finished Grandpa, “I want you to go to school tomorrow and do your best to do whatever she tells you to do.”
“Okay,” agreed Daddy willingly.
The next day was a whole new era. Daddy set himself at his schoolwork with a will, and by afternoon his marks, which had fallen to just above failing, were right back up to the 100 percents to which he was accustomed. The other children looked at him with a mixture of bafflement and disappointment, and if they started cutting up, a shake of his head put a quick stop to it. So order was restored, and all the children were soon the model students they had once been.
Hester went to Jr. Fire Patrol Tuesday evening, Joseph going, too, as usual. The regimen this week was climbing ladders and sliding down poles. Either that, or it was to exercise one’s lungs; Hester said the kids were yelling and screaming so, she could hardly hear herself think. Goodness, I’m glad we have our very own church school, so we don’t have to subject our children to that, all the time.
The other night, I was trying to type…but I could hardly see the screen, because we are all laughing so hard we are crying--at Larry, putting in the sound effects for a video we are watching... he brought it home from work, and it is telling how one should drive a truckster. It is just what you would expect from a government bureau, telling all the safety procedures one should follow... when to use the clutch, when to use low gear, and when you must never, never use high gear.
Larry was loudly putting in the “ooden oodens”, and the “wweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”s (that’s high gear) and the “Ksshshshshshshs”s--that’s when it hit a tree... and on and on... … oh dear, it was SO funny. So a boring, nearly maddening video has become immensely entertaining.
They next explained when one should turn slowly, so as to avoid tip-overs. Larry: “ah oo ah oo ah oo” (he’s tipping) After this, the man instructed us solemnly, “Be sure you use caution.” and Larry was frantically yelling, “Where’s the caution? Where’s the caution?! WHERE’S THE CAUTION!!!” and “AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!” Oh, mercy, we laughed till our backs hurt.
As I was bringing Victoria home from church Wednesday night, she was gazing up at the stars, not paying attention to where she was going--and when she stepped off the curb, it must’ve felt as if she were tumbling from great heights, for she gasped in fright. Luckily, I was holding her hand, and kept her from falling. After she regained her equilibrium, she giggled and said, “Didn’t I jump off that curb funny?!”
This week I sewed a shell (sleeveless top) to go with my last Easter’s suit, and I cut out three dresses--two for Lydia, and one for Victoria. They will have matching dresses of turquoise taffeta, and Lydia will also have one of white eyelet with yellow and orange flowers, and yellow collar and belt.
At Jr. Choir Thursday night, we played ‘Guess What Song This Is’. The kids always like that game, and it’s a jolly good way for me to get more piano practice.
Thursday, we sold our Four-Runner, which is always quite a helpful sort of thing to do… now, if we could just sell the Chevy, the Ford, the GMC, the Pontiac, the Buick, the Olds, the Honda, the BMW, the Ferrari, the Jaguar, the Mercedes… On second thought, no, let’s keep that Jaguar.
Friday after school, Hester went to Emily’s house. She is the little cousin who has seven sisters and one brother. They live on a farm just east of town, and they have horses, goats, chickens, cats, dogs…you name it, they’ve got it. Hester enjoys going there. One of her favorite things to do is to gather eggs.
The littles are having an uproarious time playing in one of those plastic tunnel things, with big cubes and tubes connecting them. Larry found it wrapped around a pole at his shop; the wind must’ve blown it there. No telling where it came from; the nearest houses with children are quite some distance away.
Yesterday it was nice enough that I told the children they could go play outside. Caleb, exuberantly donning his coat, knocked a thin metal butterfly off the wall. It landed on the floor with a loud “TWANG-ANG-ANG-ANG!” Caleb stared at it for a moment.
“It didn’t fly very well,” he finally remarked.
Some friends of ours sent us a video clip of a hefty office worker in a cubicle, having a wee bit of trouble with his computer. He watched his fingers typing for moment; looked up at the screen; back down at his fingers; back up at the screen. Suddenly he yelled and whacked the side of the monitor.
A thin man in a cubicle on the other side of the partition rose cautiously to his feet and peered over the top. He reseated himself, just as cautiously.
The man typed a little more…looked up at the screen--and then he banged his fist on the keyboard. It didn’t improve his disposition in the slightest. After slamming his fist with all his might onto the keyboard two more times in succession, he scrambled to his feet, picked up the keyboard, and, wielding it like a baseball bat, he smashed it against the screen, shattering it to bits and knocking the entire monitor off his desk. It crashed to the floor and tumbled on out into the aisle.
Once again, the man in the neighboring cubicle rose and stared over the wall.
The heavyset man marched around his desk and headed for the entryway--and as he neared the partition wall, his fellow cubicle worker seated himself rather quickly.
The angry office worker followed the monitor into the hall, where he vented his spleen on the hapless thing by offering it a few more vicious kicks.
And that was the end of the clip. This was not a play-act; it was a real-life, honest-to-goodness video recorded by security cameras in that department. We sent the clip on to several of our friends, one of whom returned to me a post I had written some time ago, which said, “Stupid, stupid computer won't WORK!!!!! AARRGGHH!!!”--and she asked me, “Hmmmmm... Did you knock yours around like that guy did his??!!”
I answered, “No, of course not. I just kicked the dog.”
I didn’t, of course... I only kick dogs who try to bite my leg off. I did that once. I won, the dog lost. He was a big German Shepherd; a man sicced him on me. You see, a friend and I were riding our bikes down a street a mile or so from home. We were just going past a big body shop and junkyard, when a young man who worked there opened the door and looked out at us.
“Sweeeneys!” he yelled, making nasty signs at us. And then he opened the gate and told his dog, “Siccum! Go get ’em! Kill! Kill!”
The dog took off like a shot, straight for my friend, who had decided that the best course of action was to pedal as fast as she could, and try to get away. So she was some distance ahead of me, because I had slowed down.
The dog had not the slightest trouble catching her, and of course he chased her instead of me, simply because she was fleeing. He latched right onto her leg, bringing her to a sudden stop. She screamed and tried to get away.
My blood boiled. I sped up, pedaling as hard as ever I could. The dog was standing sideways in the road, hanging onto her leg, growling, snarling, and jerking his head back and forth. I didn’t slow down when I got there.
“Ooooooooommmmpphh!” said the dog, nearly falling flat when I plowed headlong into his side. The beast let go of my friend and turned on me, fangs bared. But I was ready. I’d come to a sudden stop, after ramming into him... and when he tried to latch onto my leg, I kicked him in the snout with every ounce of strength I had in me.
He said, and I quote, “Yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi!!!!!”--and he turned and fled back to his junkyard, while the man in the doorway, who had been laughing, cursed and swore at him, telling him, “Kill! Kill! You blankety-blank, chicken dog!”
But the dog, tail tucked, sneezing and rubbing his nose with his front paw, went back to his doghouse and refused to come out. I waved to the man.
“Bye-bye! See ya later!” I called cheerily.
He swore at me. My friend and I proceeded on our way. We were about eleven at the time, I think. My poor friend was shaking so badly she could hardly ride her bike. She’d had a bad experience with some big dogs when she was little, maybe three years old, and she was deathly afraid of dogs. She always said after that, “When I run into any mean dogs, I want you to run into them with me!”
Saturday, Bobby and Hannah went to Menards, where the salespeople used their computer to print an image of their kitchen with new cupboards. If they would get everything in the picture, it would cost them $3700. Bobby would like to get all new cupboards, because they plan to put another whole section of cupboards in their kitchen along one wall that has none, and, because of the age of the house, it is not possible to match the old cupboards. They have not yet decided exactly what to do; I think the price astounded them.
Last night Larry and I went off to the grocery store--at least, that’s what we planned to do. But, because we were listening to a cassette we’d been recording, and because we had a mug of fresh coffee, we decided to drive out along Shady Lake Road to see the deer.
The first thing that happened was that we interrupted somebody breaking into vehicles in a lot belonging to a friend of ours who sells used vehicles. There is a fence all around the property. Larry pulled quickly into the driveway, jumped out, climbed the fence, and went to investigate. Of course, as soon as we’d slowed down to pull in, the man (or men, as the case may be) disappeared. Windows in two vehicles were broken, and an expensive CD/cassette player had been pulled from one. They had not taken the player out of the other car, however; we’d caused them to abort that mission, I guess. We drove home quickly to call our friend and tell him of the incident--and, on the way there, we realized that the car in front of us was trying to ditch us. We thought it was probably the car in which were the perpetrators of the crime, so we tried to catch it. We couldn’t, however; there was too much traffic. We called the owner of the business.
Our good deed for the evening completed--or so we thought--we headed back toward Shady Lake Road, determined to see those deer. Sure enough, the cornfields along the road were full of deer, mostly does and fawns. Since it was getting late, and we still needed to go to the grocery store, we turned around and headed back to town when we were only halfway to the road’s end.
And there, on the first corner past Keith and Esther’s house, just a mile or so to the west, lay a pickup in the ditch--upside down. We were almost certain that it had not been there when we’d passed by five or ten minutes earlier. Larry went past, turned around in the middle of the road, and shined his lights on the driver’s side of the pickup.
There was somebody inside it.
We jumped out of our car--and our noses were immediately assaulted with the malodorous stench of alcohol. A man was trying to climb out headfirst -- or maybe the impact of the accident threw him out that way -- but his leg was resting on his own back. Our hair stood straight up on end in horror. This was one very mangled piece of human, indeed. A pretzel, no less.
You can’t imagine our relief when we discovered it was actually two humans, both quite alive, and both trying to get out at once.
The driver, who was somewhat dazed, was having difficulty getting himself out, so Larry told him to move back, and he would try to jerk the door open.
The boy moved back. Larry jerked on the door.
I will tell you this: if any inspector worth his weight in wildcats examines that pickup, he will be puzzling over that warped door for a good long while. The bottom is all bowed out, and the top is bent out, too. But it stayed fastened--because it was locked, and the boy didn’t seem to know where the lock was, or even that he should unlock it. But in a minute or two, he got himself into the proper position to pull himself out of the truck. He tried to lift himself to his feet, but collapsed into the ditch and crawled a short ways, groaning. Well, grumbling, maybe.
We thought perhaps he had a broken leg, or was in shock--or was just that drunk. Larry took his arm and told him, “Just sit down for a minute.”
The boy sat. He lifted his head, and I saw that his face was cut up, and covered with blood.
After a great deal of effort, the other young man, who was quite a bit bigger than the driver, managed to clamber out, crawling backwards, cursing as he came. He staggered to his feet, looked at us, swore, then turned and looked at the pickup.
“----!” he yelled. “You rolled it!”
He hadn’t known?
We told them to come get in our car, and we would take them to the hospital.
“No!” yelled the bigger one, who had the mouth to go with himself. “Just call the blankety-blank cops!”
I lost my patience. (If I’d ever had any, in the first place.) “Stop talking like that!” I said. “We don’t like that kind of talk.” I looked at the other boy. “Come and get in the car. You need to go to the hospital.”
“NO!” yelled the loudmouth, even louder. “We ain’t goin’ to no blankety-blank hospital until the blankety-blank cops get here!”
“I said not to talk like that,” I said, louder this time. “What kind of a person are you, that you don’t give a hoot about your friend?! He’s hurt! He needs to get to the hospital, fast!”
Smart B. Mouth turned his head and looked at his friend for what must’ve been the first time. With the headlights from our car shining right on him, he looked terrible. “Blankety-blank,” breathed S. Mouth in a somewhat different tone. “I didn’t know,” he said, addressing me.
“Come and get in,” I said, and they both got up and tried to climb up the embankment. Larry helped the driver, as he was having trouble with the incline. I opened the back door for him, and he weaved his way toward it. He lurched, and his face came frighteningly close to the edge of the door. I quickly reached past him and pushed it out of the way.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, and all of a sudden I felt quite sorry for him.
But then I realized that The Mouth was preparing to climb into the front door!--my door! --and take my seat! “You sit in the back,” I instructed him.
“No, I’m going to sit up here,” he retorted belligerently, opening the door wider.
“No, you’re not. Get in the back,” I told him.
He went on heading for my spot, lifting one leg to step in.
So I did the only thing I could think of: I grabbed hold of his arm with both hands, and I pulled with all my might and main, while I said in his face, “You sit in the BACK!”
He came. And he sat in the back.
He tried his favorite bad word one more time, and I turned around and offered him a piece of my mind, telling him how awful he was to talk like that, when we’d been trying to help, and his friend was hurt, and he didn’t have any respect for anybody, and he wouldn’t be in the situation he was in, if he’d act like he ought to, and a few other choice remarks. His friend helped me out by agreeing with me--and do you know what S. B. Mouth did?? He apologized, that’s what he did. I was so astonished, I hushed, too.
We would’ve taken them straight to the hospital, but as we went past our friend’s lot, where we’d earlier seen somebody breaking into those cars, we saw that several police cars were there. The boys wanted us to drop them off, and Larry agreed, so I reluctantly gave in, although I really was quite worried about the injured boy, and knew good and well we would get him to the hospital much quicker, ourselves.
I was right. Instead of taking him on to the hospital, the police called an ambulance to that location. It was at least ten minutes before the ambulance arrived.
Well, I did not regret helping the young men…but I sure do wish they would’ve taken their scent with them. They left Hannah’s car reeking of alcohol, and when I climbed into it and turned up the heat, I only intensified the aroma. Uggghhh.
We answered some questions for the police, and then we headed off--finally--to the grocery store. The fresh fruit department made me feel totally nauseated, because every breath I took smelt of fermented something-or-other. Or at least I imagined it did. Yuck.
On our way home, we met a wrecker, headed out to retrieve that pickup. And when we got home, we heard the police discussing the accident. One said that the steering column was completely broken to bits. I wonder if young people ever stop and consider the fact that they’re lucky to be alive? Those boys certainly are. They said they had hit a deer, but we did not see one around. I suppose it is possible, for there were many deer out there…but they’d have probably avoided the deer--and the accident--just fine and dandy, had they not been drinking.
Today Susan played the piano, so I stayed home with Caleb, who has a bad cold and a sore throat. And now…it is time for bed!
“Goodnight, all!” (ala Mrs. McGee)
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