Flashback Friday #38

Large things in small packages

Hello, one and all, welcome to another edition of Flashback Friday. In today's edition, we deal with the old adage, "big things come in small packages". What does this have to do with your child hood, you ask?

I have always been big (aka fat). As long as I can remember, I was one of those "big boned" kids you hear about. My clothes came from the "husky" department at Sears.

But at the same time, I've always enjoyed squeezing into places where you would never expect to find me. I was a killer "hide & seek" player because people would overlook certain places because they thought I could never fit there. One such place was the dog house that Dad built for Trixie (she was the outhouse cheek kisser of Flashback Friday #2). If I laid on my stomach, and entered feet-first, I could squeeze into her dog house. There was even room for her, if she didn't want to stretch out.

Nobody ever thought to look for me there until Dad saw me exiting one time. To this day he is amazed that I fit into that dog house.

Another place I liked to hide and play by myself was in an old storage tank that grandma had at the back of her lot in Westerville. This tank was steel, and had a hatch that opened on top like an army tank. I would climb into that tank and pretend that I was chasing Rommel through Africa.

One afternoon, I squeezed into the tank to begin my search for enemy tanks. When I finished, about an hour later, I went to squeeze out through the hatch and something terrible happened, I couldn't make it back out. I was stuck inside this steel tank. That hatch was the ONLY way in or out. It was summer, and I had been in it for about an hour, so it was getting mighty hot inside. I couldn't yell for help because the house was too far away. There was a sheep pasture behind and to the sides of the lot, and sheep are too stupid to play Lassie and go fetch help. They probably laughed at the stupid fat kid who got himself stuck in a steel tank.

I wanted to panic, but I told myself that it would do any good. I was the only one who could help me now, so I had to stay calm and think of a way out of this predicament. After several failed attempts to escape, it dawned on me what I needed to do. I bent my knees, raised my hands over my hear and put my palms together. I looked like Jeanie from I Dream Of Jeanie in that pose. I slowly raised up and got my shoulders through the hatch. I was then able to pull myself the rest of the way out.

I never again got back into that tank. In fact, I never told anybody about getting stuck until about a year ago when we were telling old stories at a family get together. I thought Dad was going to fall over when he hear the story. Did you ever do anything that you told you parents (much) later that they found hard to believe?