We don't have many pictures of the Christopher kids when they were little so you will just have to use your imagination when you read these whoppers!:
"When Ken was working for a neighbor, Mrs.Lepold, she wanted him to catch a badger. What he caught was a skunk! The trap caught his front paw. Ken picked him up by the tail because he was always told that if you pick up a skunk by the tail it can't squirt you. That's how the story goes. So he was eye-balling him and saying..."..you can't doing nothin'." That skunk just doubled up and filled his eyes, nose and mouth before he could let go. He forgot the foot was still in the trap! It was like a trigger. The neighbor took all Ken's clothes and buried them in the wood pile. And Ken laid in the tub for an hour and scrubbed. Then, he had to borrow clothes to go on home."
"One day we skipped school and stayed down with the pigs all day in the straw stack. But we didn't fool Pa. He knew we were there. Pa said, "How'd you guys do with the pigs down there?" After that we stayed pretty close to the school house like we were supposed to."
"I remember one time when the kids were walking near the barn on the way to school. It was bitter cold. You guys told me, Bob you aught to try this..stick your tongue on that cold iron. WOW! So I did, and I can feel it yet."
Ken interrupts. "I think I am the guilty one; I think I told you to do that."
Bob asks, "So how in the hell, do you get the tongue off, I can't remember."
Ken says, "Well you just keep wetting it with warm water, but I think you probably pulled the skin off."
Bob laughs, ""Well, that's probably why I can't talk right yet."
Ken adds, "Well, that wasn't in any shed, that was right out it the open."
Bob said, "Well, yeah, but it was by a shed, cause you pulled this piece of iron out of it."
Ken explained, "No, that was the pump handle."
Bob asked, "Is that what it was?"
Ken said, "Yeah, or maybe you did it twice."
Bob objects, "I don't think I'd get caught twice doing that."
Ken said, "Yeah, so this was the pump handle and we couldn't bring you into the house to get it off so we had to pull it off right there."
Bob said, "It hurt so bad and can't remember it really...Anyways, I'd never let anyone try that one on me again."
"On Saturdays Dad went into town to get coal, groceries, and kerosene for the lanterns. The can we had for kerosene had lost its cork. The kids thought the storekeeper took it. But what he did do for a stopper was use a large peppermint gum drop. We used to get real good at eating it right down to the coal oil."
"In Medina, Dad made a coal shoot going down to the basement and about once a year they would buy a case of plums or peaches or some delicacy like that. They'd have them down there so we would slip down that coal shoot and get us some- a plum or peach, whatever was available. They never bothered us too much about it. They surely knew we were doing it, but we got by with it."
"We used to play a lot of cards. The neighbors all played Whisk an awful lot. So all of us kids would have to go along. We never thought of a babysitter in those days. So they would put us all to bed laying crosswise on a bed in a corner there someplace and they would play cards most of the night. Then we'd head for home again."
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