During the 1920’s, my mom, dad, five brothers and sisters and I lived
on a 160-acre farm in LaGrange County, Indiana, which belonged to my grandfather,
Fayette Woodworth. I was the youngest.
Most of the farmers kept a few sheep and my father was no exception. He had
his own sheep shearing machine and he knew how to use it. He not only used it on his own sheep, but he took care of the neighbors’
sheep, too.
The only pets we had on the farm were cats (every farm had cats) and a shepherd
dog that we called Shep. Not very original, but that was it.
Now, I can’t say if it was Dad’s idea or if my brothers talked
him into it, but Dad got out the sheep shearing rig and gave Shep a hair cut. It was something to see. He sheared all but
his head and a four inch tuft of hair on the end of his tail. He looked just like a little lion.
Along about this same time, our neighbors, Ed and Barbara Miller, decided to
conduct an experiment that was designed to save them money and time. Barbara gave Ed a haircut. The only tools she had to
work with were a pair of scissors and a comb. So, she had him sit on a kitchen chair on the back porch with a towel draped
across his shoulders.
Well, she started snipping away. She did pretty well on the sides, and from
the front he looked just fine, but in the back, well--- Barbara just couldn’t get it to come out even. Ed was getting
impatient because it was taking so long. He had work to do.
When she finished the back she showed it to Ed in the mirror. Right away he
could see that one side was cut higher than the other. “You don’t have it even. Cut it higher on the other side,”
he told her. So she did. You guessed it. She took off too much. “Cut the other side higher” and so it went. The
more he hollered at her, the more nervous she got and the more she botched up the haircut.
Finally, she stopped…In tears. She had cut all the hair off the back
of his head. You could have drawn a line from one ear up over his head to the other and there would have been no hair behind
it.
A few days after this, while I was playing with Shep in the front yard, I saw
the Millers’ big black Dodge touring car coming down the road in a cloud of dust. I was pretty sure they were coming
to our house because ours and the Reuben Foltz farm were the only ones on this stretch of road. I rushed excitedly into the
house to tell Mom. It was an event, because we didn’t get much company.
Mom performed what I’ve always thought was some sort of a magic act.
When unexpected company appeared, Mom could clean the whole house, put on a clean apron, and make herself look crisp and fresh
before they could get to the front door.
On that day, however, Mom could have saved her time. As Barbara drove up the
driveway, (she always drove) Shep and I jumped on the running boards, hardly waiting
for the big Dodge to come to a stop---Shep with his new haircut on the driver’s side, smiling up at Barbara and wagging
his tail a mile a minute, and me on the passenger’s side.
“Ed! Ed!” I called. “Take your hat off.”
“What for, Teddy? Why do you want me to take my hat off?”
“I want to see your new haircut. Dad says you look just like Shep.”
“Well, I never . . . !” muttered Barbara as she put the big touring
car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.
As they drove away, in an even bigger cloud of dust than the one they had arrived
in, I just knew I’d “done it again” and was “in for it.” Mom finally came out onto the front
porch to ask what had happened to Barbara and Ed. Dad was standing behind the screen door. I was playing with Shep and acting
innocent.
“Well, Teddy, was it Barbara and Ed or wasn’t it?” Mom called
to me. I decided I’d better “fess up,” and so I told her what had happened.
When she grabbed me to drag me into the house to give me a sound threshing,
she nearly yanked my arm out of the socket. And Dad? He ran out the back door laughing so hard he nearly died. Parents are
sure hard to understand. Sheesh!
The moral to this story, of course, is: Be very careful what you say in front
of your children.
