Difficult to Live With

Typically, I'm one of those people who drive those who live with me absolutely nuts. It's nothing new. Been that way all my life.

I've heard the tale several times of how, when I was only a year or two old, I destroyed something which had been in the family for several generations. It was a crib. I drove it around the house. Not the 'get down on the floor and push it around' kind of driving. No. I was far more inventive. What I would do was stand up in the crib, grab hold of the headboard (or footboard, depending on which direction I was going), and then shake the crib forward and backward. According to what I've been told (my memory fails me on this point) I was able to navigate doorways and corners using this method. I would drive my crib all around the house. Wooden floors in those days, you know. It only took a few months and I shook the thing apart. No more family heirloom.

I still like to drive. Don't like to stop often. That takes away from the feeling of freedom. But for Spouse, who's bladder is the size of a tea cup, and Son, who gets motion sickness, my excellent bladder control and love of just moving gets to be a bit much. It's more pricey, too.

Growing up in The Old House I had a particular annoying habit. (Annoying to others. Not to me.) I liked to play baseball.

Not that baseball, in and of itself, is annoying. For those who lack any interest whatsoever in it, keeping it out of sight and out of mind is satisfactory. Only I didn't do that. Oh, I would stand in the back yard hitting whatever roundish object I could lay my hands on with whatever baseball bat-like thing I could get ahold of. But I also would throw rubber balls at the house. Endlessly.

I tried throwing a real baseball at the house once. Didn't work out so well. I was stronger than most others several years my senior, and by the time I was in junior high I could throw quite hard. I set up a target on the outside wall of the porch and fired a good, hard fastball. Wham! Right through the wall. In an old post from April 13th I have a picture of The Old House in flames. You can still see the hole I made. It was never repaired. I believe the caption I wrote implies I made the hole with a rubber ball. Not so. It was a regular baseball. I made several soft throws to get my bearings, and then let loose. It only took once to break the old wood.

After the fiasco with the baseball I restricted myself to rubber ball. I think one can still find them, but they used to make rubber balls the same size as baseballs. They'd even color them up to look like one. I used those.

Scratched a strike zone on the wall of the porch (around the corner from the wall where I sent the baseball through the wall) and would spend hours pretending to pitch. Originally I used the same wall with the hole in it, but between my wild throws and the sloped roof I spent too much time running around the house to get the ball. The peaked roof gave me much more room for error. Still threw it over the roof on occasion.

That wall had a window in it. It didn't take long before the window was just an opening in the wall. Yep. Another fastball gone wild. When we were tearing off the old tar siding in order to paint the place, we also took down all of the storm windows and put them in the porch. I stacked them neatly in a row. After the porch window was gone I sent another wild pitch through the opening. I heard the painful shattering of glass. Now I would never have guess a rubber ball could break that many panes of glass like that. But I wasn't figuring on the strength of my arm. I broke them all. Amazing strength. Hmm. Not appreciated though.

But imagine being in the house and listening to the continual pounding of a ball against the house. No wonder the rest of my family likes winter so much. But winter wasn't a total respite for them. I had an indoor trick I liked to play.

I would lay on my bed and toss the rubber ball up to where the wall and ceiling came together. I'd bounce the ball up and catch it back. First with one hand. Then with the other. Did that for hours, too. The Old House didn't have sheetrock. It was plaster over lath. And every so often I would hear some break away inside and tumble down. Thump. Thump. Thump. Hours on end.

No wonder my family has never been keen on me. It's amazing I lived.