Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: May 16th, 2014

So, here are a couple of little things about our life in Kentuck and just before we got there.  When Bob was born, I lived with the grandparents, when we went to Portland to visit grandpa in the hospital, Bob stayed with Aunt Edie and Uncle Dick and that went just fine.  When Louise was born, Bob and I stayed with Aunt Edie and Uncle Dick, but was very unhappy with that and he refused to talk to mom for a month after that.  Mom also weaned us after a year.  We nursed for a year and then she weaned us.  With Bob, she gave him a bottle after that and he loved it but then she thought he should not have the bottle so she cut a hole in the nipple and mile just went all over him.  He threw the bottle across the room and refused ever to have milk again.  He made that stick, but after we moved out to Kentuck, mom had a good idea.  She bought him a special cup, it was a ceramic cup, but looked like a corn cob and she told Bob this was a fairy cup and as long as she gave him milk in that fairy cup, he had to drink it.  So, he did.  We were so naive, both of us.  For a couple of years, he drank out of his fairy cup and then one day, it fell on the floor and broke.  That was it.  No more milk.

We had oodles of slugs out on that place, too.  And every morning and evening, mom would take a bucket out and gather up slugs, then dig a hole, put them into the bucket, chop up the slugs, and then use the results for fertilizer.  It worked just fine.  She used slug bait, too, but slug bait only kills off about 80% of the slugs and the other 20% multiply like crazy, so you really have to kill those things.  Eventually, Louise was big enough to see what was going on and so she would pick up a slug and give it to mom and mom would just about die.  Bob and I thought that was so funny.  So, we would sneak around and find a slug and then tell Louise to give it to mom.  She would do that and mom would get all upset and tell Louise not to do that.  Then one time, mom saw what we were doing and that was the end of that.  In those days, mom and pop believed in the old adage, Spare the rod and spoil the child and Bob and I were not spoiled.  One time pop also told the story how he gave our cousin Pauline a soap sucker.  Mom told us we were not to do that to Louise and we agreed, we would not do that.  So, the very next day, Bob and I each made a soap sucker to give to Louise.  Louise like at mine and right away did not want it, but she took Bob’s which really irked me.  So, sucked it and started to cry and said she would tell mom.  I was upset because she did not take mine so I said, here, Louise try this one, and she did and then cried even louder and went and told mom.  Well, mom dragged us into the kitchen and first washed my mouth out with soap.  I stood there and let her do it, but Bob resisted with everything he had, he was all over the floor screaming and hollering and finally mom finished the job.  Years later she said she never had so much fun in her life as when she washed Bob’s mouth out with soap, I was no fun at all.

But we were not all bad.  We loved to gather eggs.  We decided, too, that we would make an airplane and fly over the bay to town.  We took two two by fours, nailed them together, then glued on a lot of paper because paper was light and we had seen paper air planes and they fly.  So, after hours of work, we had something that was just perfect.  After some discussion, we agreed that I would fly first and then come and get Bob.  Bob was unhappy with that decision, but I was the oldest, so he let it be.  We went up to the bank overlooking the turn around, mom and pop went out to watch me fly away.  I leaped off the bank and came crashing down.  It is a wonder I did not break a bone.  I can tell you, that was one hard landing.  Another thing we liked to do was to “bail out” from a try.  That meant taking a leaf and either jumping out of a tree or off a stump and hold the leaf up to break the fall.  It worked like a charm, we jumped off some pretty high places and that leaf allowed us to come down and make a soft landing.  Well, one time, Bob climbed up to the top of a tree and it was pretty high and just as he got to the top, the top broke and he fell.  As he started down, I screamed, hold up a leaf, hold up a leaf.  He came crashing down through the branches and landed flat on his back.  I went over to him and said, Bob, I told you to hold up a leaf.  Oh, Boo, hoo, hoo, he cried, I did hold up a leaf.  So, then we realized that did not work.  We had constant adventures like that.

The summer of 1942, pop carried up the lumber from the start of the house and built the next addition.  The war was on and we were not doing very well.  It some places it was against the law to listen to enemy radio stations, but our relatives all listened to the German broadcasts.  I can still see Uncle Heini coming out to our place, just laughing like crazy, oh Goebbels was in fine fettle last night.  Every one who could also listened to the Tokyo Rose.  She really had a good program, too.  She played all kinds of music everyone like, particularly the soldiers.  It had no effect, but she would say in her accented English, Oh boys, go home.  Your loved ones miss you.  There is nothing for you out here.  You will just get horrible tropical diseases and die.  Go home.  You are home sick.  The soldiers listened to her also because they liked her songs.  For those fighting the Germans, the soldiers and everyone else listened to the favorite song of the Germans, too.  It was Lili Marleen sung by Lale Andersen.  It was so loved, that finally, the Americans had Marlene Dietrich make a recording of it in English and German, but the recording of Lale Andersen was most loved.

 To be continued.