Family Memories
Bridget Confesses
It was one night when mom and dad were out of
town, and they weren't supposed to be back until the next day. I decided this would be a perfect chance for me to have a little party. So I had 10 or 12 girls over and 10 or 12 boys over. We got a keg and put it on the back porch. This was when I was just getting over my mono spring of my senior year. We were having a great time drinking keg beer and talking loudly when all of the sudden Colleen Allen runs into the kitchen and screams MR. GRAY IS HOME!!! I thought she was joking and laughed. I walk into the front hall and dad is just standing there. Somehow I stalled him for long enough for my girlfriends to hide the keg, get rid of all of the cups and kick about 10 boys out. I am not sure if he really knew what was going on, but me and my girlfriends thought we were pretty sneaky. He just looked at me and said "you must be feeling better." I think that I have been caught for everything else I have done.Eli and John Throw their Weight Around
One afternoon in I think the summer of 1990 John Lentz and I were being pro wrestlers in my room. I came up with this great idea to jump off of my desk from across the room on to my bed, just like when the WWF people jumped off the top rope. With our new found moves we would take turns jumping off my deck on to my bed. Let see... John was about ten that would have made him about 5'8" and 145 lbs.. I remember it like it was yesterday, John always stuck out his chest before he jumped off. He looked kind of like a seal that was jumping into the ocean. He took one great big leap and the next thing we knew it one side of my bed was touching the grounds and the other up in the air. We both thought this would be the end of us. God only knew how much a steel frame for a queen sized be cost. It was more than we had for sure. So we disassembled the bed and found that one of the casters was bent to all hell. So we went down stairs to see if we could bend it back. We tried hammering it and heating it up. Then John thought we could use the vice to straighten it back. We cranked on that thing with all our might put together. It wouldn't budge. Recently John had learned about levers in school. So we found a piece of pipe about 6 feet in length and we put it on the end of the lever on the vice. I still couldn't straighten it. I was literally hanging on the lever. Then John got on and he started pushing. BAM!! The cast iron vice broke in half. We ended up trying to superglue the vice. And we thought we had it, until about a week later when dad told me the vice broke. He didn't blame it on me, he said it was an old vice and was bound to break some time. So much for Eli's great idea.
Andrew Lost his Good Sense
They never knew it happened at 488 Holly, but one time, when Danny Latzer and I were playing (probably about 5th grade
or so) we went up to the second floor of the carriage house and found a can of white paint. That morning we proceeded to dump white paint on every kid who rode bike down that alley, and even had a few well placed shots of paint that happened to fall on a few cars/station wagons, etc. Well, one driver must have stopped to see what it was, and proceeded to come into the carriage house and start climbing the ladder. In an attempt to escape, we dropped out of the window and ran like heck! This guy left a nasty note on the back door, but we got home before you saw it!
Melissa Attempts to Mend a Problem
I don't remember when this happened, but it was when we were all at home.
You and dad were out and Peg and I were babysitting. I got angry at something and slammed the refrigerator door. This was the old yellow fridge, obviously. Anyway, I managed to crack one of the molded shelves in the door. I don't remember when this happened, but it was when we were all at home. You and dad were out and Peg and I were babysitting. I got angry at something and slammed the refrigerator door. This was the old yellow fridge, obviously. Anyway, I managed to crack one of the molded shelves in the door. Someone ran downstairs to the workshop and found some epoxy that should have worked on plastic, I cleaned the site and we glued it. It didn't stick. So we decided it was too cold. So there we were, standing in front of the open fridge, aiming hair dryers set on high and hot at the door to warm up the plastic so the epoxy would hold. I don't know that we ever managed to get it fixed. I think you ended up replacing the shelf, or whatever you had to do. I don't know if you ever found out how it broke, or not. Now you know.