Reminiscences (Part 2)
So on gorgeous, sunny Thanksgiving day—cool enough to be comfortable in sweatshirt and jeans sitting around the fire after our 4-wheel adventure—as we tell stories about our shared youth and life on the farm, Chris starts a story that neither Mike nor I nor anyone has heard.
“You know, Mom would give us 25 cents for every mouse we caught, dead or alive. I set traps up and checked ‘em a couple times a week. Sometimes they’d still be alive in the trap, and I’d take ‘em out to the horse trough and play with ‘em before I turned ‘em in; you know, mice can’t swim. Well, then I came up with a real money maker.
I’d fill a 55-gallon drum up about a third of the way with water and smear peanut butter on the end of a section of Hot Wheels track and then balance it on the edge of the drum. When a mouse walked out to get the peanut butter, it’d tip the track into the drum along with the mouse.” Chris nodded and grinned really big.”
How ingenious! I was so impressed! (Who knew mice couldn’t swim though? Even chickens can swim.) I asked him how old he was.
Probably seven.
Mike and I both have degrees in engineering. Chris didn’t even go to college. Yet he’s the one who always concocts some simple mechanical solution to an involved problem. I wish Mom was then as impressed as I am now. Then she might have contacted the paper. I can see the headline:
“Preteen catches mice with water, peanut butter, and Hot Wheels track.”
Of course, Mom probably had no idea of more than half her little boy’s tricks. He was crafty. Still is.
“You know, Mom would give us 25 cents for every mouse we caught, dead or alive. I set traps up and checked ‘em a couple times a week. Sometimes they’d still be alive in the trap, and I’d take ‘em out to the horse trough and play with ‘em before I turned ‘em in; you know, mice can’t swim. Well, then I came up with a real money maker.
I’d fill a 55-gallon drum up about a third of the way with water and smear peanut butter on the end of a section of Hot Wheels track and then balance it on the edge of the drum. When a mouse walked out to get the peanut butter, it’d tip the track into the drum along with the mouse.” Chris nodded and grinned really big.”
How ingenious! I was so impressed! (Who knew mice couldn’t swim though? Even chickens can swim.) I asked him how old he was.
Probably seven.
Mike and I both have degrees in engineering. Chris didn’t even go to college. Yet he’s the one who always concocts some simple mechanical solution to an involved problem. I wish Mom was then as impressed as I am now. Then she might have contacted the paper. I can see the headline:
“Preteen catches mice with water, peanut butter, and Hot Wheels track.”
Of course, Mom probably had no idea of more than half her little boy’s tricks. He was crafty. Still is.
posted by Elizabeth Evans Fryer at 4:08 AM
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