Several requests have been made for more stories about the times when I was growing up and to include my parents in the stories. Well, there are a lot of those days, very clear in my mind, yet. Some seem like only yesterday but of course are not. My dad was not a real talkative person, but when he did speak, I always listened.

I loved to get underfoot whenever he was working with something complicated. One year, when we lived on a farm over by Tiffin, he was always fixing up our old vehicle. One evening he had the tire off the rim and I was getting right in there to help, so close I stepped on a tire iron and it flew up, hitting him on the knee. 

You have to understand that sometimes he would get really upset with his 10-year-old helper and the air would get a little blue. It was closer to black this time, and I decided I probably should get away from there for a while. 

I headed down the gravel road until it sounded quieter back at the house, but by that time it had begun to get a little dark. All of a sudden I noticed a bump at the side of the road coming towards me, so I made a quick turn around and headed back home. It kept following and so I ran faster, but not fast enough, I was beginning to think. I started to yell for help, but no one heard me, so I laid down on my back like my mom said she used to do when she was a kid in Canada to scare off wolves, and I started kicking my feet in the air. 

After a little while I was sure the thing that was following me had stopped, but I was so scared, I crept up to the house and into the cellar to hide before going up to where Dad was still complaining about me. I missed supper, which was terrible, but going up to where Dad was would have been a lot worse, I figured.

I snuck up to bed later, very unhappy, but glad Mom had told me so many times how she used to protect herself. 

The next day I went back down to where I had lain down and kicked in the air. As I got closer, I noticed the strong odor of skunk. When I told Mom what I had done, she surmised the skunk was probably more scared than I, but she was glad I had done what I did.

The next day Dad was okay again and I was more careful after that when we were working on important jobs together.