My childhood was filled with fear because of my father’s drinking. I didn’t do well in school, and I wasn’t dumb. My sisters weren’t dumb, and I wasn’t down; it was just hard to concentrate.

But I also had some good times during my childhood as well. We lived right where the suburbs ended and the farm fields began. We used to spend a lot of time in the Pennsylvania hardwood forest. We had BB guns. We spent more time in the woods than we did at home; it didn’t matter whether it was winter or summer -- --we went to the woods!

We had some friends at the end of the street. She taught Floyd and me about sex. She did not have sex with us, but we learned about sex from her. She was not ashamed to tell us about what happened with our bodies. Of course, we liked her very much

She had two children and we played with them. We were all good friends.

Away from home I had a good time!


Trapping Animals in the Pennsylvania Woods

When I was a kid, I used to trap animals with my friend Ed. He and I ran a trap line on raccoon creek. We trapped muskrat, possum, and raccoons. With raccoons, we mostly got their legs because they chewed their leg off when they were trapped. The muskrat were valuable, and one time we got a mink. But with the mink, the trap practically cut him in two, so the pelt was damaged and we only got about $20.00. At that time, however, that was good money.

For muskrat we got about three to $5.00 for each panel. We sent them to Sears in Saint Louis.

But after a while, we quit trapping. One night we went out to check our traps. I was writing on the handlebars of the bike and Ed was pedaling. We came to a long hill, and half way down the hill Ed panicked because he couldn’t see around me while we were riding downhill. We hit the guardrail and I skidded on my butt for about 30ft. but kid got his leg tangled up in the guardrail and wound up with a compound fracture.

Ed was a big guy and weighed about 190lbs. I had a flashlight so fortunately I could find him. High on tangled him and dragged him up to the side of the road. There wasn’t much I could do for him except wait for the car to come along. Finally a car stopped and I ran down and got the chief of police. He called the ambulance.

But I can’t tell the kids mother because he told her that the accident was my fault.

How did we do trapping? We sent away for lures. These were scent lures such as the oil from the musk gland.

Muskrats used to make slides down the river bank so they could slide into the water. We would put a trap right at the end of the slide, and then stake the chain out in deep water. When the trap hits them, their instinct is to head for deep water to get away from danger, but then they drown. It’s not nice; it’s not pretty.

Possum weren’t worth much so we didn’t mess around with them. Mostly we use them as bait for fox. We never did catch one of those, thank god. They’re too beautiful. Now I’ve done a 180° turn and I don’t like to see animals be hurt.

But we did a lot of trapping for two winters. We trapped along Raccoon creek. I only had me – high waders, and it was cold! God, it was cold! I’d wrap up in three or four sweaters with an old field jacket and several sets of mittens.

The creek ran high and swift. At the only fording place the water came just an inch or so below the tops of my boots. Many times the creek just spilled over into my boots.

One time Ed and I were scrambling down a high bank. Ed slipped down the bank and went into the water up to his neck!

Like it said, it was a big guy. He floundered there in the water yelling: “help me, help me!”

I went down and pulled that big son – of – a – gun out of there. By the time we got out of there his clothes were frozen.


Floyd Flies His Flexi into the Freezing Water

We did other crazy stuff too.

My friend Floyd had a sled called a Flexible Flyer. Do you remember those? They were fast!

We used to build ski – jumps and go off them on that sled. But my sled wasn’t as fast; it wasn’t a Flexi Flyer. So the first time I went off the jump I got down to the creek and turned right.

But Floyd it came down and couldn’t turn soon enough and he rode that sled right into the creek!

There was another guy I had to pull out of the creek. He walked home looking like an icicle.

It was fun living in western Pennsylvania; there were lots of woods and we spent lots of time there.

Sometimes there would be wild grapevines that would grow around the trees. If they grew out on a limb, you could cut the Grapevine at the base and swing from the rest of the vine.

We found one that was a nice swing that went out and back over a little ravine. One time, we decided to swing on that vine together. Well, you know what happened. We got right over that ravine and down we went! We were scraped and bruised and got our butts broke. Thank god we weren’t hurt worse

I Hated Crows

Guns… we all had them. My dad had two .22 rifles a .22 pistol and the twelve – gauge shotgun. I was not supposed to take them out but of course I did.

It was crows. I hated crows. Every time I was in the woods with my BB gun or my 0.22, I could never find a crow. But when I wasn’t carrying a gun I found crows everywhere.

So I had a bright idea. I got a couple of shotgun shells and stuffed the gun down the leg of my pants where the Crows couldn’t see it. It worked!

The pros were in a tree, and I was sitting on a log. I pulled out my gun and loaded it with the two shells. I lifted up the gun, aimed, and instead of pulling one trigger I must have pulled them both at the same time. I flew off that log. The gun went one way and I went the other way!

And I didn’t hit a single crow.



Bow and Arrow Hunting

My friend head didn’t like guns so he would hunt with a bow and arrow. He almost hit me a couple of times with those stupid damned arrows!

One time I was down in the ravine flushing rabbits up where kid could get a shot at them. He had several shots at rabbits and missed them all. But then the arrow was lost and we would have to spend hours searching for it.

About two out of three times I found it is a row by stepping on it and breaking it. And those were expensive arrows!

One time I broke two of his broad – head arrows and he wanted to kill me.