Childhood adventures fail to stop brave boy

In June 1964, I, my husband and our three children — Ben, 5, Mark, 3, and Karen, 2 — moved into the farmhouse owned by the LaLonde family on Northeast 50th Avenue. It rented for $100 a month. The barn was there, and the shop and the Gravenstein apple tree (as mentioned in the story submitted by Marlice Bryant, which appeared Sept. 9 in The Columbian). I was about 4½ months pregnant with my next son, Mike, who was born in November.

We liked the yard. It was a good place for the children to play with one exception: the creek in the ravine. Somehow the kids got the idea that it was an alligator pond so, for obvious reasons, I let the myth remain. Meanwhile, their dad acquired an old packing crate and put it in the Gravenstein apple tree for a playhouse, which was fine except when the yellow jackets were buzzing around the fallen apples.

Mike’s older brothers shared a room upstairs. Mark discovered that a door going from their room into the dark, shadowy attic could be left open. This would make Ben call for his mom, as he believed that there was a monster in there who would creep out and crawl under his bed.

We lived there for four years. During that time, even our youngest son had some learning experiences. When Mike was about 6 months old, I taught him how to back down the stairs, so he wouldn’t tumble down and break his head open. He was not afraid of heights. When he was a little older, he climbed to the top of a bookcase and had to be rescued by his father.

Another time he was missing, and we found him by noticing two big eyes shining at us from behind the fireplace screen. He was covered in ashes!

Still another time, Mike climbed into a large bathroom closet with a latch on it while a baby sitter was occupied with the other children. He ate some baby aspirins. The baby sitter’s mom rushed him to Memorial Hospital, where he had his stomach pumped. By the time we got home, he was sleeping peacefully.

Another time, I was in the basement preparing to wash some clothes. When I came back into the kitchen, I saw a mountain of open packages and my little boy with a big black ring around his mouth. I was shocked! He spilled corn flakes, opened Jell-O, Kool-Aid and puddings, and topped it all off with a package of black Rit Dye. I still don’t know how he climbed to the top shelf to get it. Hurriedly scanning the list of ingredients, I found the dye to be nonpoisonous, but it was hardly edible either. I won’t mention what the punishment was.

Somehow this child managed to grow up anyway. After we moved from 50th Avenue, he fell off a fence he was trying to walk on and got stitches in his forehead. Another time he got his foot stuck in the fork of some tree branches, and I fed him marshmallows while we waited for rescue.

He survived a tornado that blew through Peter S. Ogden Elementary School, channeled his energy into Little League baseball and was a first-string running back for the Columbia River High School Chieftains.

Still climbing, he and a friend ascended a water tower on Ludlum Hill to watch fireworks one Fourth of July and ended up doing some community service for that stunt.

After high school graduation, he went on a Mormon Church mission to Lima, Peru. He came back and got married to a gal from Kentucky whom he met while attending Brigham Young University. He got a bachelor’s degree from WSU Vancouver and a master’s from Murray State University in Kentucky, which laid the groundwork for his becoming a facilities manager for an LDS Church in Ohio. He recently moved to Arizona and began training to be a project manager for new temple construction for the church.

He and his wife have three sons and three daughters who love their unconventional dad, who still does crazy things.