Once in a while, Mother would have to go to town, a walk
of about four and a half mile one way, leaving us children to fend for
ourselves. Those days became known as
Fun Days.
We always waited until Mother was over the hill and up on
the house Tommy and I would go. We would
climb to the comb of the house and the walk about half way across. Then, we would sit down and slide down the
roof, on the back of the house, almost always stopping right before we went
over the edge. Up we climbed; down we
slid, over and over. This area of the
roof was always nice and shiny.
One day, Clifton came up while we were shining the roof,
and said that we should try sliding down the roof, head first. Of course, Tommy and I were afraid to try, so
big brother decided to show us how it was done.
We had trouble stopping going down feet first, and Clifton just didn’t
realize just how slick we had made that old tin roof.
So, up he climbs to the top of the roof, and then he
walked over to the middle without even the slightest bobble. “I’ll slide down head first, and I won’t even
have to catch myself with my hands” Clifton said.
Now, I wanted to see this done, cause like I said
earlier, I had trouble just stopping with both feet and both hands. Needless to say, I was all eyes to see how
this was done. This is my big brother
telling me what he can do, and as far as I was concerned, if Cliff said he
could do it, then he could do it.
Cliff is all ready at the top of the roof. “Now you watch me” were his last words as
down the roof he went. To my surprise,
and his, he didn’t even slow down at the end of the roof, much less stop. It looked like he was going about thirty
miles an hour when he sailed off over the kitchen head first, out into the back
yard, right on top of his head. Blood
squirted everywhere and he was black and blue.
He even knocked off the trough, or gutter, that caught the rainwater and
carried it to the cistern.
Down off the roof Tom and I came. “Are you all right?” we asked. “Sure, that didn’t hurt me!” was Cliff’s
reply. But Tom and I always knew that it
had to have hurt, at least a little. But
now we had a job to do. We had to get
that gutter back in place before Mother came home from town. And we did because we were always a team.
Cliff didn’t get to play as much as we did. Although he was older than Tommy and I, and
younger than Marie was, he was the oldest son.
Therefore, in his mind, with this role came the responsibility for the
welfare of the family, which he accepted happily.
