TV Episode

When I was about 10 years old, John would have been 11, Jim 7 and Jerry 6, we lived in Butte, MT in an old house. It was summer so we were home from school and Mom and Dad had gone to do the grocery shopping and run errands. Jim and Jerry began fighting over the TV and were turning it off and on repeatedly. This is when TV's had picture tubes. Well they kept this up for so long, they blew the picture tube - very expensive. When Mom and Dad got home, we said nothing. Dad went to work and would be gone for 3 days. That night when Mom went to turn on the TV of course it didn't work. She asked all of us what had happened and none of us were talking. We had a pact among us kids in that we did not tell on each other. Mom said, "Wait until your father gets home." Of course it was torture waiting to see what Dad was going to do. The morning Dad got home, he said we should turn on the TV and watch cartoons. Dad never suggested we turn on the TV and watch cartoons. We knew that he knew and we were toast. He asked each of us what had happened and none of us talked. Since he couldn't find out the truth, we all got a spanking. Dad got the TV fixed because football season was coming.

Talking Snowman

Again we lived in Butte up on the hill by the School of Mines. Butte got a lot of snow and we were a little bored. There was a little girl who lived up a few houses from us named Annie (about 6 years old). We decided it would be funny to build a snowman around John and have him talk to Annie. We built the snowman, gave the the traditional nose, eyes, hat, scarf, etc. One of the boys went to get Annie. She came into the yard and was messing around, when the snowman spoke to her by name. She froze - the snowman spoke again and she ran. We laughed and laughed. We knew John had to be freezing by then, so we got him out by knocking down the snowman. In a couple of minutes Annie returned with her dad. The first thing he said was, "What are you Mabbott kids up to now?" We just continued to laugh. What fun!

Sledding

When we lived in Butte, my Uncle Errol used to take us sledding at Columbia Gardens with our cousins (it has since been torn down - shame). There were great runs that went under fences around curves and went for quite a while. We used to go in teams with the older kids taking the younger kids on their backs. John and Jim were going as a team. Again I don't know what possessed Jim, but he sat up right before they were going under a fence. It looked like a cartoon where the character smacks into something - goes up and straight down after hitting something. Jim was hurt AGAIN (nothing broken). I know it shouldn't be funny, but it was - even Uncle Errol thought it was funny. That ended the sledding trip.

Mumps

When we were growing up my dad loved holidays. Around Easter one year I brought home the mumps to everyone (I was always the carrier for all diseases contracted by the family). After I got the mumps so did all of my brothers born at that time (John, Jim and Jerry) and so did my dad. Bad I know. The doctor had to come to the house - dad could go nowhere (except the bathroom). Dad was really bummed because he couldn't take part in the egg hunt (he always hid the eggs). Mom decided that the way to fix the problem was to have the egg hunt in the living room where dad was recuperating on the couch. Eggs were even hidden in my dad's blankets. The hunt was a little limited, but dad got to take part and everyone was happy.

The knockout

I was watching my brothers while my parents were gone for the day. Jim and Jerry were teenagers and Fred was still a little guy. Jim and Jerry had been at each other all day and finally were actually fist fighting. I told them to stop it, but they were really mad at each other and just kept at it. I decided to make them stop and stepped in between them (very dumb!). Next thing I know Jim is patting my face and saying wake up, wake up. I am so sorry, don't tell dad. He kept saying that over and over. Apparently I stepped in just as he was throwing a punch and he knocked me out. Of course I never told, but they were angels the rest of the day.

Dish Partners

When we were growing up we didn't have a dishwasher until we were teenagers. Mom paired us up for the dinner dishes. Originally she had Jerry and John together and Jim and me. We thought this worked well because Jim and I worked fast, got the job done, and got back to what we wanted to do. On the other hand, John and Jerry played games with the soap and water and took a lot of time doing the dishes. One day mom decided that she had had enough of the game playing and decided to change the pairs for dishes. She almost lost a son! I was ready to kill Jerry. I just wanted to get the dishes done, but he wanted to play. This arrangement lasted about 2 nights and she decided to put us back with our original partners. Whew!

Adventures at Bloody Dick

We used to go camping a lot when we were kids at a place called Bloody Dick. John and I went fishing with dad one morning and at some point we wondered off and lost him. We decided in order to find him we should go up on the mountain so we could look down on the creek (very plush with overgrowth) to find him. We, of course, didn't want dad to know that we had lost him in the first place. So up the mountain we went. At some point John said, "Jo stand still - don't move." He sounded very serious, so I did what he said. Then he said, "When I say run - go as fast as you can back the way we came." Then he said, "RUN!" I ran. Later he told me that there was a rattlesnake just in front of him! What an adventure! We did later find dad just by following the creek. We never told anyone (until much later in life) about our little adventure.