When Grandma Was A Little Girl-cont'd

Story #6 - Swinging from the Pear Trees just like Tarzan
My father, your great grandfather Douglas Bates, worked as a Civil Engineer at Holloman Air Force Base. When he and my mother and the two little boys Geoffrey and Douglas Jr. moved west, he found employment at the Air Base. ( When he was a young married man and they lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he worked in carpentry and was very good at it. My dad always enjoyed working with his hands and was very good.) When he had time when he came home from work out at the base, he helped a friend of his work on his house that was about half a mile up the road from where we lived. Then my dad decided he wanted to build some houses and make extra money to support his family. For a couple of years, every day after he got home from his full time job on the base he built 3 houses on the acreage we owned behind our house. We owned 3 acres and only lived on ¾ of an acre.

In the back of the acreage off on the west side, we had about six pear trees growing. My brothers and I had a lot of fun playing in those pear trees. The trees were only about 8 feet tall. The six trees were planted somewhat close together. Their branches are not too thick. Pear trees are somewhat flimsy, but when you’re only about 7 years old, the branches hold up pretty good. I was quite a tomboy when I was young. I had two older brothers and a twin brother and no sisters. Now you can see why I was not a prissy little girl. I wanted to be a boy like my brothers and often acted like a boy. How unladylike! I was pretty good at climbing trees. By the way, my mom, your grandmother, told me that she was also a tomboy when she was a girl, up until she turned 14. I was a tomboy until I turned 13.

I kept getting braver and braver trying to swing from one branch to another. I had seen the movie ‘Tarzan’ on television (it was in black and white, color TV. had not come around yet). In my mind I thought I could swing just as good as Tarzan could. I would reach out as far as I could and grab a branch in the neighboring tree. That was way fun! Well, one day I was just a little over confident and did not watch my step as good as I should have. I missed a step on one branch while reaching over my head for another branch and fell out of the tree! I had been about 6 feet up in the tree and now I was on my back on the ground. I had the wind knocked out of me! The one remaining hand that was holding onto a branch suddenly was ripped loose when my foot stepped off the branch that I was standing on. I got scrapped up on my arms and legs. I was wearing shorts and that didn’t offer any protection to my bare legs. Nobody was around to help me. I got up off the ground and cried all the way home. It was a wonder I did not get any of my teeth knocked out or break my arm or leg or neck!

The cure we got in those days for cuts and abrasions was something called ‘Methiolate.’ OUCH! That stuff burned and stung like no other! My brothers and I hated having that painted on as it almost hurt worse than our injury! They also had a product called ‘Mercurochrome.’ That was so much better as it did not burn. But, my mom said if it didn’t sting it probably didn’t work as good. Oh brother! We all cried many times getting that stuff on! As far as climbing the trees…that little accident falling out didn’t stop me. I kept right on climbing trees and now and then got scrapes, but oh what fun I had!