Not My Memory Wednesday

Everyone has these "day" posts and I'm just to disorganized to play that game, plus sometimes I just... don't want to. And it's my blog so I don't have to if I don't. Got it?

So, I feel the need for some sort of mirth today, and so I started thinking about stories that make me laugh. And one of my all time favorites is something that happened to my dad back when he was 11 or so.

All my dad's childhood stories seem to involve a young man named Harold. In this particular story we find Harold and Henry (my dad) playing with their new Bow & Arrow sets. (You know, the arrows with the suction cups on the end?). Now these two rambunctious boys lived in the suburbs of Chicago where there weren't over abundant amounts of free-range land for things such as arrow shooting. But, Henry & Harold weren't about to let that stop them. They took to the sky, pointing their bows up and letting those arrows take flight. Up they would go, down they would come. Up they would go, down they would come. Taking turns. Henry's arrow up, Henry's arrow down. Harold's arrow up.... Harold's arrow up.... um.... Harold's arrow stuck on the roof.

The boys headed up to the attic of the home, and looking out the window could see the arrow resting on the shingles, just above the edge of the roof. Now these two boys, being the creative and industrious boys they were, decided the best option would be to tie a rope to the back of Harold's pants, and then he would crawl out the window, onto the roof, and retrieve his arrow.

In what would later be determined to be a moment of sanity for the two, they took the precaution of tying the other end of the rope to the claw-foot tub in the attic bathroom.

They tied the rope through the back belt loops on Harold pants, and he headed down the window. Slowly, carefully he worked his way down the steep slant. My dad stood at the window, letting rope out, bit by bit. Bit by bit. The pitch of the roof was a steep one. Harold was a boy but not a small one. The weight on the rope was becoming too much for Henry. Heat built up in his hands as the rope started sliding through. Heat that soon became more than Henry could bear, and his hands released the rope. Harold wasn't prepared for the sudden slack, and lost his balance, falling over the edge of the roof.

My dad has a sister who is 13 years older than he. She and her husband had come over dinner that night, and my Grandpa & her husband were sitting in the living room, enjoying a little happy hour, when all of a sudden out the picture window was a young man, screaming, hanging by his belt loops at the end of a rope.

WITH

An arrow in his hand.

The boys considered the mission successful.