Mischief under the harvest moon

After another long week of book learning followed by an evening of play, we were all tucked in bed for the night with the harvest moon shining through the window.

However, my brother and I, with twin beds setting side by side in our spacious room, were doing anything but sleeping.

Six-year-old John, the oldest, was using his headboard as a track for his race car.

“Vroom! Vroom!” muttered the brown hair freckle-faced lad as he pushed the plastic toy back and forth across the top of his bed.

Just turning five not long before and in kindergarten, I clutched my black and white teddy bear as I propped myself up in my bed. “Whatcha doing up there?”

“I’m practicing to win the Indianapolis 500,” the first grader stated matter-of-factly nodding his head, “just like Mario Andretti did a couple years ago.”

In the distance, you could hear the rumble of the train as it rattled down the tracks carrying coal through the small town of Bentleyville nestled in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania.

With a gleam in his eye and a broad smile across his face, my elder brother came up with a brilliant idea. “Let’s jump off the diving board into the shark infested waters.”

My face lit up like a Christmas tree.

We began jumping off the diving board onto our beds. Actually, it was a typewriter board that was pulled out from the top drawer of the large desk in the corner alcove.

We climbed up on the wooden two-armed chair and onto the big oak desk before stepping onto the board jutting out into the make-believe ocean.

John helped me up first to make sure I didn’t fall due to my mild disability of cerebral palsy.

The first grader made the first leap into the air with the moonlight shinning through the window as our only source of light.

He landed on his bed. “Whoa! That was a close call. That shark almost got me,” he said with a chuckle.

He then dove over to my bed before I took a flying leap of my own. “Watch that shark doesn’t eat you for lunch,” John called out as I let out a stifled squeal.

Then the two of us jumped back into our own beds, which acted as our own individual boats, away from the ravenous sharks with very sharp teeth.

We could hear our parents still milling about the apartment beneath the sanctuary of the church where our father was the pastor.

Our bedroom was off the living room, which was between the family room and the kitchen at the other end of the nine room dwelling.

Just about that time, John bounced on his bed and tumbled off onto the floor with a thud.

I climbed off my bed and onto my brother’s and leaned over the edge to find John sprawled out on the floor. “Are you dead?”

“No silly,” my older brother snickered. “I was trying to keep quiet until mom left the doorway.”

I looked over my shoulder and could see the shadow of our mother’s feet from under the crack in the door.

“You boys need to settle down and get to sleep,” mom commanded.

“Yes ma’am,” I called out as both of us hurriedly climbed back into our own beds and pulled the covers up. “We’ll be quiet and go to sleep.”

As soon as our mother’s shadow left the entryway, I glanced over at my brother who was propped up on his elbows.

“Dad’s gonna be awful mad if he finds out we was jumping off the desk again,” I fretted while squirming round in my bed. “He might even whip us.”

“Stop your worrying,” John poked his pillow to get more comfortable. “He ain’t gonna find out.”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I announced climbing out of bed.

“Aww…” John ruffled my brown locks. “Why didn’t you go before we went to bed.”

“I did,” I mentioned while protruding my lower lip. “But I have to go again.”

“Can’t you hold it until mom and dad go off to bed?” John queried looking into my blue eyes.

“Not unless you want me to pee in my pajamas.” I stood next to the door crossing my legs. “I gotta go really bad.”

“Oh, all right,” John conceded. “Hopefully they won’t say nothin.”

The second child of the Rev. Cecil and Barbara Farrell Price, I quietly entered the darkened family room with the television screen as the only light in the room.

A lamp next to the recliner switched on. “What are you doing out of bed young man?” Dad inquired looking sternly at his youngest son from the recliner.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I fidgeted by shrugging my shoulders and flipping my hands palms up.

“Didn’t you go before you went to bed?” Dad questioned while clearing his throat from the popcorn he had just eaten.

“Yes. But I have to go again.” I crossed my legs and began to do a little jig.

Mom, who was lounging on the couch against the back wall, let out a chuckle. “Then you best get in there before you go all over the floor.”

When I came out of the bathroom, Dad asked, “Have you and your brother been jumping on the beds again?”

“We was only bouncing a little,” I replied.

“You best stop bouncing on them at all,” Dad commanded. “If the fall off the bed doesn’t get you, my belt on your backside will.”

“Yes sir,” I swallowed hard, looking at my father.

“You and your brother best not wake your baby sister Kathleen,” Mom issued the stern warning. “Now you scoot off to bed and I don’t wanna hear any more noises coming from your room tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I turned tail and hurriedly left the room.

Safely back in the confines of my bedroom, I was about to reiterate the words of our father. However, I was stopped short by the sharp words of my big brother.

“I heard what he said,” John proclaimed sitting up in his bed. “You don’t have to repeat it.”

“At least he doesn’t know we was jumping off the desk,” I declared with a smile climbing back into my bed and under the covers.

Stay tuned… this is the first in a series of eight connected stories about a break-in at the church where my dad was the pastor in November 1971. You can read the next exciting segment of the “Church Thief” in my column next Tuesday.