While I was growing up, my
dad was always telling me stories about his childhood. His best times as a child were shared with
his brother, my Uncle David. From the
stories I’ve heard, my Uncle David was quite a “wild child”. One story that my Dad told me about my Uncle
David proved that he wasn’t afraid of anything, even at the age of five.
It was a breezy Saturday afternoon,
in the early spring of 1965 and my Uncle had gotten in trouble at school the
day before. My dad and his other brothers and sisters were all out enjoying the
beautiful day when their mom came to the front
porch. She told everyone except David
that they could each have an ice cream cone.
She knew this would really punish my Uncle David because there was nothing
else he loved more than ice cream. He
was furious with rage and was determined to get back at his mom. He told everyone bye and decided to move out
on his own. My Granny knew he wouldn’t
go far, so she told him to go right ahead.
A few minutes later, David came huffing down the hallway carrying a
small suitcase and stormed out the back door.
My Granny went to the back
bedroom to see what David was up to. She lifted the blinds to look out on the
backyard and saw David working very diligently on building a fort out of a
picnic table. He put a big sheet over
the top of the table and stacked two by fours up under so no one could see in
his new “house”. He stayed in that fort
for the rest of the day with only the neighbor’s dog, Ringo,
keeping him company. My Dad said it was
a big dog, a Boxer and Pit-bull mix, which obeyed everything he was told to
do. My granny, the prankster she always
was, told my dad that when it got dark outside she was going to scare David.
As soon as it started to
get dark out, my granny went to the linen closet and grabbed a large, white,
sheet and cut two holes in it for eyes. She was pretending to be a ghost. So David couldn’t hear her, she slipped out
the front door and made her way around the side of the house. My dad and all his brothers and sisters were
watching from the back window and said my Granny was a very scary looking
ghost. She made her way up to the fort
and in a very raspy whisper she said, “I’ve come to get you David, boo!” David’s little bald- head came up out of the
fort and he said, “I ain’t scared of no ghost, sick
em’ boy.”
All at once, Ringo,
attacked my Granny with full force. She was flailing her arms and trying to run
from the huge animal, when David picks up one of the two by fours and started
swinging it at “the ghost”. He just kept saying, “I’m gonna’
get that old ghost”. As soon as my Granny saw the two by four, she came out of
that sheet so quick and yelled, “No David!”
They both busted out into uncontrollable laughter. After they finally
stopped laughing, my granny said she was sorry for trying to scare him. David said he was ready to move back in, and,
since Granny felt he had been punished enough, she invited him in for a nice
big ice cream cone.
Whenever we go to visit Uncle David,
my dad and I always like to remind him of the ghost-buster story for a good
laugh. I can’t help but laugh every time I hear it. All I picture in my head is
a funny old lady, dressed in a sheet flowing in the wind, getting attacked by a
dog. Then, on top of that my Uncle is swinging a two by four at her. You just
don’t hear classics like this anymore.