Th Antics Of Little Boys

As a girl, I loved hanging out with my uncle, Bill Spencer. We always just clicked. He was a favorite of all my sisters too. Uncle Bill was my dad, Allen Spencer’s older brother…older by two years. The brothers did everything together. Uncle Bill was always protective of his little brother, keeping an eye on him and teaching him all the things boys of the Great Depression era needed to know to get along in life. They were close, and they were “partners in crime” or at least in the antics of little boys. Being farm boys, they played with and in the things of a farm, one of them being the wood pile. The thought of the boys playing there makes me cringe a little, but they survived, so I wonder in the wood pile was smaller than I imagined or solidly stacked. Uncle Bill told me once about a time they were playing on that wood pile. When he looked over to check on his brother, who was 3 or so, my dad was sound asleep…standing up but leaning against the wood pile. The story might seem incredulous, but I’ve seen my great grandson, Axel Petersen asleep standing up, leaning over my coffee table. It still makes me laugh, so I can imagine what Uncle Bill did.

Being farm kids, my aunts, Laura Fredrick and Ruth Wolfe, as well as my uncle and my dad knew how to work the hay, gardens, wood piles, and how to remove stumps…with dynamite!! These were just boys, but they had been trained since they were little. So, by the time they were old enough to stay home alone while their mom, Grandma Anna Spencer went to town for supplies, they were also old enough to get into mischief, and so they did. They decided one day to see what would happen if dynamite was set off on the top of a gatepost. Well, they found out alright. When that dynamite went off, that gatepost sunk several inches into the ground. Now, they had a dilemma. The gate wouldn’t close, and their mom would know. So, the boys got busy repositioning that gatepost so the gate would close before her arrival…and then to act like nothing happened. It was a typical antic the brothers pulled off, with their mother none the wiser…or if she was, she never let on. I suspect my grandmother knew more that the brothers thought, but they were good boys, so she gave them some latitude.

My Uncle Bill and my dad always had a little bit of the mischievous boy in them. It was a permanent part of who they were, and probably one of the things that endeared them to us the most. They really were the little boys who would never fully grow up, and that was ok with all of us. I think that if they had been too serious, we would not have had so much fun when we were around them. These days, they live in Heaven with their parents, siblings, and even their spouses. Uncle Bill had been divorced for many years, but as neither he nor Aunt Doris had ever remarried, I believe they always loved each other, and I believe they are good friends in Heaven too. I look forward to seeing all of them in the future. Today would have been my Uncle Bill’s 104th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Uncle Bill. We love and miss you very much.