My sister, Tina, and I have our share of stories that we have sat around and laughed about over the years.  I’m sure all siblings have similar experiences that they look back at after a period of time and go “really? I can’t believe we did that!”. I will probably need to get her blessing before posting some of these in the event she wants editing privileges.  (okay, did that and there were only a couple of tales she asked that I not include.  Like not mentioning Orvan.  Just ’cause I love ya Teena Beena.)

I’m going to try and group these into categories which may make it easier for me to remember them.  I need all the help I can get these days.  Here goes:

There’s no way I’d ever let my kids do that!  We were raised by our grandparents and spent most of our childhood years growing up in what most would refer to as “the boonies”.  We were fortunate to have some really great neighbors (in about a 2 mile radius) who had kids that we could “hang out” with.   Hanging out meant:  Take a .410 shotgun and run thru the woods with friends to go to the creek and shoot craw dads…..we might be gone for hours on end while exploring a waterfall behind our house while we would fashion “survival gear” just in case we “didn’t make it home” (which was too funny looking back because most times we couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards from our house).  Survival equipment included hidden stashes of our favorite things protected in ziploc bags placed in strategic locations so nobody could find them, except for us, of course.  We also used to collect water in those same type of bags and tie a string around the top and secure it to a young tree that would bend and position it in the cold water of the creek because you never knew when you might want a cold drink of water.  Hmmm…..hide water in the creek….so it would be cold…..okay, so we were critical thinkers even back then.  (wow)

In the wintertime, we would go sledding for hours on end and for anybody who is familiar with the area just between Omaha and Lead Hill (Arkansas, that is) you might have heard of Scotts Mountain which features the most stunning overlook you have ever seen of the beautiful Ozark Mountains.  Somewhere back in there, the absolute best sledding hills ever created to entertain children and adults alike reside.  These hills are phenomenal and while sometimes we look back as adults and think “that’s way smaller than what I remember” I can honestly say that those hills are every bit as impressive today as I recall back then.  So big, in fact, that one of our neighbors had a 4-wheel drive truck and used to provide transportation back up the hills so we wouldn’t have to walk them.  We would sled all the way out to the main highway (about 3 miles of hills) and then sled all the way back in.  It was awesome!  Sometimes we would go down to our neighbors who had three boys and sled down the hill by their house.  That is not so remarkable until you consider the fact that we would go under their mobile home trying not to hit the bracing underneath…they must have thought that was safe, right?  And it must have been because not once did the residence shake or fall over on us as we zoomed underneath and occasionally hit the stack of blocks supporting it.  (By the way, not sure what we would have done without the neighbors we had.  And I mean that sincerely….our childhood would have looked much different without them. God must have known we needed some recklessness in our lives.  They were great!!  Did I mention that already?)

Horrible stuff I did to my sister included the normal sibling pestering (I was younger by a couple years).  Common phrases heard throughout our home was “she’s touching me, she’s staring at me, she’s mocking me, she’s using my stuff, she broke it, she cut all my doll’s hair off, she chewed my Barbie’s toes off (sorry, Teen – yikes!), she poured Kool-aid in my Barbie case” and more that I’m sure I’ve mentally blocked out.  Our grandmother would put me in Tina’s care and would hold her responsible for me (totally a bad idea).  When we lived in Lead Hill when we were very young (10 and 8 maybe) we would wander up the hill to Pruitt’s Grocery (loved that store!) to spend our money on candy.  Those are the days that you could turn bottles in for a rebate and while we did occasionally have money which normally totaled less than a dollar, we would also come up from behind the store only to grab a 6-pack of bottles which were laying out back circle right around to the front door, walk-in and exchange those bottles for more change to spend.  Grandma Pruitt never batted an eye.  She had to know that those bottles just came from behind her store yet each time she would hand us the change to spend on her candy.  One of those shameful walks down memory lane that you have as an adult.  You’d think she would have just asked us to save time and steal the candy but maybe it was more fun to see how many times we thought we were pulling one over on her.  Grandma Pruitt, you had the last laugh because we now know what our children are capable of.

On those trips up and down the hill to the store which included walking up the highway for a short time, I would sometimes ask Tina to give me more of her candy.  When she refused, I would tell her that I would sit in the middle of the highway until a car came by to hit me and it would be her fault if I got hurt.  And I’m also ashamed to say that I did that on several occasions (sit in the road, I mean) until Tina gave me some of her candy.  I had a real mean sweet tooth (and streak) back then.  I have no idea how she put up with me.  Maybe that explains why she locked me in her closet on occasion.

Then I pulled the most cunning (and disgusting) prank ever on her.  You know how when your sister’s friends come over to spend the night and you really want to hang out with them and you show off the entire time so they’ll think you’re cool?  In reality, you’re being the pesty little sister who won’t leave them alone but you don’t know that.  Anywho, Grandma had made a hamburger casserole, the one with hamburger, rice, cream of mushroom soup and the little crunchy oriental noodles on top.  It must have been a special occasion because we were allowed to set the card table up in our bedroom and eat.  After we first got our plates, Tina had to run back up the hallway to the kitchen to get something and I thought how funny it would be for me to chew up Tina’s casserole and put it back on her plate before she got back.  Yep, the friend was right there with me watching and thought I was the funniest thing ever.  Especially when Tina came back none the wiser and proceeded to clean her plate.  I don’t think I told her that for a few years and could still hear her friend’s hysterical laughter in my ears.  I had scored the ultimate joke on my sister….I’m still waiting for her to come clean and tell me what gross thing she did to me along the way to get me back for that.

Funny but weird stuff that we did and never failed to get a laugh (at least from each other) included wearing .45 records on our ears.  You know, the small vinyl records with big holes in the center?  We would poke our ears through the holes and talk funny while making crazy faces.  I’m digging through old photos to see if we ever took a picture of that.  And we wanted our ears pierced so bad when we were really small that some kids that our grandmother used to be the housekeeper/nanny for had these little dot wax earrings that you could get hot and then stick them on  your earlobe.  I can remember it hurting a little bit but really didn’t care ’cause they looked cool.

Imaginary things that we believed in were not your normal stuff.  Okay, so most kids have an imaginary friend, right?  Well, we had a chick called “Bad Debbie” who we used to blame for everything we did wrong.  Somebody broke one of our Grandmother’s favorite glasses?  Had to be Bad Debbie.  Somebody put a spoon in the garbage disposal to see what it would look like when it came out?  Bad Debbie did it.  Somebody lit fireworks off the front porch which left black stuff all over the concrete? Absolutely Bad Debbie.

There was also our nemesis, our arch rival of all time, who insisted on following us everytime we got in a car (or were stuck in the back of our camper when we were traveling).  His name was Meanie the Minnow.  (don’t ask, I have no idea)  He was always in the car behind us and it was our civic duty to shoot at him with our guns made out of our thumb and index finger to keep him from overtaking us.  We occasionally saw him at the store hiding in the next aisle but mostly he liked to chase us in vehicles.  I can remember that rush of adreneline I always felt when Tina announced he was following us.  I bet Tina could loudly annouce even today that “Meanie the Minnow is behind us!” and I would turn and look.  Old habits die hard.

Describing our childhood to our kids is about the strangest thing ever.  There is no way they can believe or comprehend how different it was for us than what they are living today.  Not only is the technology so different, but the economic conditions that we grew up under as well.  Looking back, we didn’t realize that at the time we were what many would consider poor.  Or at least a family with a below average income.  We now know that our grandparents moved us out to “the boonies” to somewhat shield us from a family situation that had taken place in our very young lives.  Living in the middle of town with easy access to highways was not a good option for us as kids.  You never knew who might show up unexpectedly.  We wanted to believe that it was “the adventure of a lifetime” moving so far back in the sticks.  I also now wonder if Grandpa ever shared with the neighbors what our exact situation was so they could help watch over us.  If that was the case, the neighbors did a very good job of accepting us into their families and watching out for us as if we were their own.  There was not a meal they would not share, a car ride into a ballgame that they wouldn’t offer, or a sympathetic shoulder they wouldn’t make available when we felt our grandparents just didn’t understand us.  The kind of relationships that you will remember for a lifetime.  God must have known we needed those too.