Foul Fowl

I believe it was in the summer of 1978 when a truckload of chickens arrived at the house. These were laying hens that were past their prime and, therefore, ready for slaughter. They were contained in burlap bags. Since I was too young to be of much help I moved from station to station observing the process.
Outside the garage in the space between the driveway turnaround and the fence, Dad and Brad had placed a couple of tree stumps where the heads would be lopped. On each chicken was placed a little fabric hood which Mom had made. I'm not sure if it was to shield the victims from the descending hatchet or to keep Dad from having to look the chickens in the eyes as he chopped off their heads. It seemed humane.
In the garage were placed the large canning pots filled with hot water. I think Kathleen was in there dunking headless chickens, which were then plucked of all their feathers. I will never forget the steamy stench which permeated that space and the wet feathers that stuck to everything they came in contact with. I can hardly think of a worse memory.
Up the stairs in the kitchen, my mother disemboweled the now bare fowl. It was so interesting to me to watch her do this. She would extract an egg, almost ready to be laid, followed by a shell-less egg, then a whiteless yoke, then a smaller pea-sized yoke. Each egg removed was less developed then the one before. I had no interest in the rest of the process, for the smell which overtook the kitchen, as in the garage, turned my stomach.
Mom divided the meat and put it in the freezer. There was a lot of food stored that day. But after that, every time chicken was on the dinner menu, I refused to eat. The smell overwhelmed me and brought back the memory of that day. It took many years before I could enjoy chicken again.
Margaret

That Dad Blast It Cupboard!

The family home evening cupboard may have been my undoing, but Dad's downfall was another one of the cupboards in the kitchen at the Corydon Road house. To understand the situation, you have to understand the layout of the kitchen. The refrigerator was placed right next to the doorway that led to the side entry of the house and to the basement stairs. That junction was well used by the whole family. Over the refrigerator was a short cupboard that had two doors, which opened in opposite directions, and stuck out beyond the edges of the fridge when open. I don't remember what was kept in the cupboard because it was far too high for my reach, but Mom must have housed something significant in it because the doors were left open on a number of occasions, which coincided with Dad's entrance into the kitchen. It was a grand entrance, announced to anyone in earshot with a loud thud followed by what sounded like "Dad blast it, Ellen!". Dad was the only one in the family tall enough to have a problem with the errant cupboard door which he would run into pell mell as he bounded up the stairs into the kitchen. Usually it resulted in a temporary headache for him, but I remember once seeing poor Dad wiping blood from his forehead. I think that one of the selling points of the Fairfax Road house had to be the kitchen with no Dad Blast It Cupboard over the refrigerator!

The FHE Cupboard

Margaret's posting about the game closet prompted my memories about another storage space with a unique purpose. At our first house in Cleveland--the green house on Corydon Road--there was a window seat built over the radiator in the eating area off the kitchen. On either end of it there was a small cupboard. One of those cupboards was the "family night" cupboard, where Mom kept materials for lessons. I have two memories connected to that cupboard. For at least a year during the time we lived at that house we had spiral bound family night journals, in which we wrote or drew something each week--depending on our age and ability--in response to the family night lesson. I remember that my notebook was yellow and that I must have been in 1st or 2nd grade ( we moved from that house when I was in 3rd grade). In one of our lessons we apparently talked about the Holy Ghost, and took time at the end of the lesson to record something in our journals. I don't know whether we were invited to share what we had written, or if an older sibling was curiously looking over the shoulder of a younger one, but I remember the older kids laughing, and then Dad joining in, while Mom tried to keep her composure when they all looked at one of the younger kids' entry. Jon, David or I had shown our very literal comprehension of the lesson with a carefully drawn blob covered with spots--the "holey" ghost. Maybe Dad or Mom can remember who the artist was.

The other memory I have of that cupboard involves one of my naughty moments. Usually our breakfasts were structured and supervised, but one winter Saturday morning Mom and Dad were absent from the kitchen when a couple of us kids were eating breakfast. I had poured myself a bowl of my favorite Cheerios and was about to dig in when Brad or Doug brought out a pitcher of fruit juice from the fridge. They said something like " I wonder how this would taste on cereal". I loved juice and loved Cheerios, but had never thought about eating them together. Without Mom or Dad to intervene I became bold and poured the juice into my bowl, delighted at how the juice swirled into the milk. My delight turned into dismay when I tasted my cereal and discovered why juice and milk are not sold in a mixed product. It was awful. I was on my way to pour my disaster into the sink when I heard Dad coming up the stairs from the basement. I wouldn't be able to reach the sink before he got to the top of the stairs, which ended just past the sink. I quickly retreated to the breakfast table, anxiously looking for a way to hide my mistake. The family night cupboard! I hastily put the bowl in the cupboard and looked innocently around to see if anyone had noticed. I was able to get a new bowl of cereal and eat my breakfast without being discovered. I intended to retrieve my mistake out of the cupboard when everyone had cleared the room, but got distracted by something else and forgot. The radiator kept on working on heating the kitchen--and the bowl of Cheerios-- for the rest of the day and the next. On Monday night when Mom went to the cupboard for the journals at the end of her lesson, the sour smelling bowl was found, my naughtiness was revealed, and a second impromptu family night lesson was taught for my behalf.

Pick a Game, Any Game

The game closet in Cleveland was my favorite room in the house. It's door was about three feet high and it was situated under the staircase off the front hall. It was a cosy little room filled with our family games. It housed Funny Bones, Uncle Wiggly, Flinch and Rook, Chinese checkers, Shoot the Moon and Labyrinth. There was Old Maid, Concentration, Checkers and Go Fish. There were countless puzzles, many with 1,000 or more pieces.
I have always loved playing games with my family. With ten people in the Thompson house there was always someone to play with. On New Year's Eve I recall games of Risk and Monopoly that seemed to go on all night long. I could never last. Around the holidays there was always a puzzle out on the game table. I would sit and work at it for a while, usually aside Dad, and then come back to it in bits all week long.
I received my very own game of Sorry when I was about ten years old which my boys now play with. Although I never learned to play chess as a child, my boys taught me the rules as they learned the game during our travels in Europe.
In most recent years we have enjoyed going over to Mom and Dads to play Uno, Chickenfoot and Quiddler, although anytime we get together as family, any game will do. No visit from the cousins is complete without a night capped with the playing of games.

A Tight Squeeze

As a girl, being part of a large family was all I knew. I'm sure others had a more difficult time accepting it. Every couple of years we had our family picture taken at Olan Mills. When our family entered the door, and kept coming and coming, the photograper and assistant would inevitably need to change the set up to accomodate us.
As number seven of eight, and one of ten, my place in the car was on a lap or in the gunner seat of the station wagon. On long drives Martha and I were always facing backwards. We would make up games to play with the cars we were facing. Sometimes we would write notes to the drivers behind us, telling them to honk or smile. We were thrilled when they would comply.
A few times we would have an extra guest who came along with us on a drive. I recall one evening piled in the red Toyota along with Sister Ashley. Not one of us, except perhaps Dad, who was driving, had any wiggle room. I was so hot and cramped that by the time we got home I had a nosebleed that took what seemed like hours to stop.

The Johnson Farm

I (Jonathan) remember fondly the many visits we made to the Johnson Farm to help weed, harvest, or process some fruit or other. It seems like we must have made the hour or so one-way trip at least one or more times a year. We always went as a family, and Mom and Dad expected even the smallest of us children to work while there. Of course us kids had a different plan. There was so much to explore on the farm, the barn, the chicken coop, and other buildings on the property, the expansive farm fields and the forest, the occasional farm animal, the black top loop drive, and in later years the pond. It was always a challenge trying to weasel out of work either weeding strawberries; picking them, apples, peaches, and probably other produce; or processing the produce. I remember not being alone in seeking creative ways to sneak off, while Mom and Dad tried equally hard to keep us focused on the work. Service at the Johnson Farm was one of the ways Mom and Dad tried to instill in us the importance of service and hard work. Once the work was done - and those of us who had snuck off to play had been tracked down – we’d pile in the big old station wagon, or whatever vehicle we had at the time and made the trek back home. We usually left with a feeling of satisfaction for having provided valuable service, even on days where we played more than we worked. And as an added bonus, we often stopped on the drive home for ice-cream at our favorite roadside ice-cream stand. Ahhhhhh!!! What an end to the day!

Dad, as Scoutmaster, Inspires us to Great Heights

Us Thompson boys (and probably even the Thompson girls) were well aware that Dad had been an exceptional scouter as a young man, earning his Eagle Scout and then three palms. Something that none of us probably considered, at least until he was called though, was that he would make an excellent scoutmaster. I vaguely recall not being overly excited when Dad was called to be the scoutmaster. There was nothing like having your father around when goofing off as a scout or trying to be cool with the guys. However, Dad’s status rose in my books, and probably in the books of the other scouts, when he inspired us to undertake and complete a major feat, that of hiking the four-day, 70-mile Emerald Necklace trek that circled the Greater Cleveland area. It was no insignificant undertaking for a bunch of young “tenderfoots” like us. No doubt it took a lot of preparation to ready us for the task. The journey surely was not free of whining and grumbling, but I recall us being encouraged and motivated by Dad and others to continue, to finish the course, and as we trudged on, and eventually completed that arduous four day hike, we felt a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and because we had a leader who inspired us to great heights, we and I gained a greater love and appreciation for Dad, and for how he could help us attain great heights in our lives.

A Haunted House to Remember

For Halloween one year, perhaps in '77 or '78, we created a spook alley in the big house in Cleveland. Viewers would enter through the back door, led slowly up the back stairs by myself as the guide. I was robed in black, seated in the creeping electric chair with a flashlight held under my chin. At the landing by the apartment entrance they were then turned over to someone else who led them up more stairs to the attic. They had to pass through black plastic strips and wet strings, I think. Upstairs Mom had a bowl of peeled grape eyes and spaghetti intestines. I recall there were shadow shows and halloween spooks lurking. The real thrill came when they entered the dark, musty attic room and were startled by dead bodies rising from coffins. There was a large trap door in the floor and a pulley suspended overhead from which an ancient looking rope and hook were attached. The participant would sit on the seat from the swingset and get lowered by the thick rope down into the apartment below as dry ice mist rose up through the trapdoor opening. Victim after victim were lowered down by Dad and his assistant, that is, until large Pete Gail had his turn. With much strain and difficulty, he was let down to safety below. The next person in line was Jon's friend, Tyler Yorgason, who couldn't have weighed more than 80 lbs. But, after the last oversized load, the old rope gave up and broke with Tyler on the swing. He only suffered minor injuries, but it sure was a scare. After that I don't recall if that part of the tour was closed or if another rope was used.
-Margaret

The Boys Beer Can Collection: Who says Mom and Dad Were Always Strict?

Us Thompson kids probably all agree that Mom and Dad were pretty strict disciplinarians. Yet there were moments when they definitely gave us some leeway or at least chose their battles. One such occurrence was their allowing David and I (Jonathan), and I believe Brad too to keep vast beer can collections. In the 1970s in Cleveland, OH beer can collections were all-the-craze. Many of my friends were doing it and us younger Thompson boys did not want to be left out, so we began collecting empty beer cans, most definitely in a clandestine way at first. In time we worked to collect cans with exotic shapes, sizes, and brands. We had 7 ouncers, 8 ounce short stacks, 20 and 24 ounce cans, and even 32 ouncers. We had flip tops, pop tops, cone tops, and unopened tops. We had shiny, new, pristine cans, rusted out cans from decades gone by, and everything in between. We had cans from all throughout the country and even some from around the world. Unlike the other kids, our Mom and Dad didn’t drink beer, and we knew they’d never purchase full cans just so we could expand our collection, like some of the other kids folks did. Consequently, we relied on hunting and scavenging to find new exotic cans. We’d ride our bikes around town and on occasion rode to the outskirts of downtown Cleveland in search of rare finds. We searched for new labels on our vacations across country and even stashed them away on our rented RV. I wouldn’t have thought Mom and Dad would’ve let us keep the alcoholic beverage containers, even though they were empty, but they did. It just goes to show that they did grant of more leeway at times then we probably give them credit for, or at least chose their battles. I’m sure Mom and Dad were relieved, however, that we tired of the hobby before we developed drinking problems.

Juvenile Delinquents

Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” What the scripture doesn’t say is how wearing on the parents the never ending training opportunities can be.

One such training moment was the time when David and I (Jonathan) were entering/approaching our teenage years. We decided to take the idea of throwing crab apples of the roof of the house at cars to the next level. We gathered up a large paper bag of crab apples and late one weekend night we trekked the few block to Fairfax Elementary School (the newer school with one story and pitched roofs). It must have been close to 11pm when we arrived. We scaled the roof and proceeded to heave crab apples at the cars passing by on Lee Road. Somehow the police got word of our mischief, because just before we called it a night, a towering, intimidating beast of a police officer pointed his huge beaming flashlight up at us from the ground below and said in the deepest bass voice “Hey you boys come down from there right now!” Dave and I looked at each other and quickly debated whether we should make a run for it, but decided against it. We climbed down and were whisked off to the police station. I trembled at the threatenings spewed by the police officer of putting us into a juvenile delinquent center, and being “eaten alive” by the bad-to-the-bone inner city boys who were there. I equally dreaded the anger and utter disappointment I anticipated receiving from Mom when she came to reclaim us from the station. The only thing in which I took solace was knowing that Dad was out of town and so we’d be spared the harshest punishment until his return. The ride home from the police station felt much further than it was.

The Big Elm Tree

I remember when Dad set us to the task of helping to cut down the big elm tree in the back yard of the big house in Cleveland. Mark Pohm?, a friend from church, was high up in the tree tied off in a rope and harness. There was another strong rope looped over a crotch between the trunk and a strong upper limb. Dad explained that once Mark cut the limb, it was our job to hold the rope taught, until it swung free and could be lowered, rather than simply crashing onto the roof of our house. He explained that although it was a very large limb, if we held together, we would be able to stop it’s fall.
Dad was in the front position, followed by Brad, Me (David), and Jon, like four guys lined up for a tug-o-war. (I imagine that Doug must have been on his mission at the time) Dad exhorted us to “hold on tight.” We waited grimy, leaning against the rope, muscles straining against the anticipation of the weight of the huge limb, as Mark began cutting that limb, right above our heads.
All of a sudden, there was a loud CRACK; the limb, that seemed to fill the sky, shuddered, and then began its downward plunge. Upon seeing this green monstrosity, many times our size, hurtling directly upon us, instinct overcame fatherly mandate; Jon and I dove for the nearby bushes, to save our skulls.
Looking back, we saw Dad and Brad half-jerked off the ground by the limb’s weight. Jon and I stared dumbfounded, until Dad glanced back and seeing us, barked, “get over here!” We rushed over and sheepishly helped lower the monster to the ground. “Hmm”, I thought, “I guess Dad knew what he was talking about.”