Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Tuesday, April 28, 2020

A Forecast of Snow

George and Me.
One of us was smart . . . and the other has her hair in curlers.
I never was a particularly timid child.
In fact, if one were searching for words to describe me, 'timid' probably wouldn't have even been considered.
Boisterous. Cheerful. Loud. Noisy.
These all would have been correct.
But timid?
No.
And yet, there were certain times when 'timid', even fearful could have been used with complete accuracy.
Let me explain . . .
It was the fifties.
We had a TV.
And one channel which came on the air at 10:00 in the morning and left the air at midnight.
I often watched as 'Oh, Canada' played in the morning. Because I had already been watching the Indian Head test pattern for half an hour, waiting for Friendly Giant.
I never got to hear the playing of 'God Save the Queen' at midnight. Because let's face it, I was four. By that point in time, I had been in slumberland for hours.
Moving on . . .
When the TV station was off-the-air, we had 'snow'.
And not the good kind.
White, yes, but that is where all similarity ended.
It was static-y.
And, when your brother turned the volume up loud . . .
Scary.
Said brother discovered this early. (He says he had been watching when I discovered it. Let's just say I've erased that memory.)
And he used it often.
If he was playing in the living room and didn't want any Diane-shaped company, he would turn on the TV, confirm quickly that there really was nothing on, and turn up the volume.
Whereupon (good word) I would run, shrieking, from the room.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
Mom couldn't get after him because he hadn't said or done anything to me, personally.
Simple.
Genius.
Fool-proof.
And the room was cleared for another half-hour of uninterrupted fun.
Until Diane forgot everything that had just happened and ventured, again, into the front room.
TV. Volume. Repeat.
So you see where the word 'timid' comes in.
Unfortunately, the word 'brainiac' never applied.

8 comments:

  1. Your brother sure had your number, as brothers tend to do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aww smart brother. I wish I had had a trick like this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why is it that older siblings have weapons like this and younger siblings have . . . nothing? :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brothers are like that. And I too was/am a younger sibling. The youngest in fact.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So happy I was an only child!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even though i was the oldest, i let the two little guys have their way. It was that or have both of them sitting on me.

    ReplyDelete

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