Go-Cart

Everyone knows I was a tomboy. If I couldn't do things better than the boys, at least I tried to be as good. When I heard that our friends had a go-cart, I REALLY wanted to get a turn driving it. I had never driven anything at all, but what difference did that make? Dad's friend Jim had constructed a round track next to his driveway and had gone to the trouble of banking the edges of the curves. Before he would let his sons drive the cart, he had driven it himself and proved that the ridge of dirt would stop the cart if it left the track.

There was no roll cage on the go-cart. It was long and sat practically on the ground, had a right pedal for the gas and a left pedal for the brake. I believe it had a lawn mower engine to power it. And naturally, a small steering wheel. I don't remember if there was a seat belt. I doubt it.

Jim called my Dad one Saturday afternoon to invite him and my brother to try it out. I jumped in the pickup with them before Mom could make me stay home and practice my piano lesson.

I watched enviously while everyone had a turn. This was after Jim had demonstrated it and assured Dad that it was quite safe. I can't remember Dad actually driving it but the boys all had a turn. It was best driven in a clockwise direction and there were no incidents.

I could hardly believe my good fortune when either Jim or Dad asked if I wanted to try it. I was so excited. Now this go-cart can't have been as large as I remember it being, because when they put me in the seat and showed me which pedal made it go and which one made it stop, I could easily reach them. I wasn't any taller then than I am now. The main warning they gave me was to be gentle with the steering wheel since those little tires way out at the front would make it turn a lot further than expected and it could fishtail.

Well, I went half way around the track with no trouble at all. Then, sure enough, I gave it too much gas or over steered and it did a 180 right in the middle of the track. It seemed to like going the other direction just as well so I didn't stop. I went right past all the guys and things were going fine. Jim was elbowing my dad in the ribs telling him that it wouldn't go counter-clockwise around the next curve and to watch what was about to happen.

By then it was time to turn a little to the left to stay in the middle of the track and it didn't want to go left. Instead it kept going straight. Straight over the edge of the track and the bank of dirt. Now I did have the presence of mind to put my foot, my left foot, on the brake when the go-cart jumped that bank, but, I forgot to take my right foot off the gas pedal. The accelerator worked much better than the brake.

Hardly slowing down at all, the cart and I sped south across the lawn, jumped the ditch, crossed the county road and came to a sudden stop against a utility pole (we called them telephone poles then) next to the local mechanic shop. Jim and Dad couldn't quite catch me, but they were snatching me out of the seat a split second later. Obviously, I was unharmed. The go-cart was a little dented up. Dad stuffed my brother and I in the pickup and returned home. I was mortified and it seems like Dad and my brother told mom we had fun until I was allowed to drive.

About an hour later the go-cart family drove out to the farm to rehash the event. They had taken a yardstick to the crash site and determined that my head had missed the bumper of a parked pickup by a matter of inches. They also speculated that the reason the bank of dirt didn't stop the cart when under my control was that I was so much lighter than the rest of them. The boys never got to drive it again. It disappeared the same day.

I Spy

In May 1981, the entire family gathered for my grandfather's funeral. My uncle and his family drove in from Colorado. My brother flew in from Texas. My Colorado cousins are much younger than my brother and me. Although they had already sat in the car for eight hours the day before, two of them thought it would be fun to ride to Wichita to get my brother at the airport. Mom drove. They were getting restless on the return trip and we decided to play I Spy.

There are a couple of variations on the game. We always started each round saying: "I spy something..."  Another is: "I looked around and guess what I found? I found something..."  My grandkids say: "I spied with my little eye, something..."

It doesn't matter how you say it. The idea is to give a helpful clue, but not too obvious, while also making it simple enough for small children to play. It didn't take too much time for us to go around the players twice spying something green (summer flip-flops) or black (the car dash), or pink (a blouse).

It was Mom's turn again and she spied something silver. Everyone guessed. She had stumped us and had to give another clue. It was something silver and round. We guessed the radio knobs on the dash, the knob on the window winder, the push button on the glove box. We couldn't see anything else silver and round. According to the rules she had let us ask for a hint. My brother asked if it was something outside the car that we had passed five miles back. Nope. I asked if it was inside the car. Yes.

The little girls had tired of the game, but my brother and I were determined to spy the round silver object. We looked harder inside the car. My brother asked how big it was. About an inch. We couldn't find anything that hadn't already been guessed that fit the description. I asked if someone was wearing it. No.

I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. That's my spot. Rule Seventeen: the person with the shortest legs straddles the hump. My cousins were technically a little shorter, but they had elected to rest their arms on the armrest. That's what it was there for.

My brother, in the front seat, looked back with his face all screwed up, trying to think of another question. Finally, he asked what supported it. That was a pretty sneaky question.

Mom thought a minute and said she guessed it was the government. Huh?

I asked if she was talking about money?  A Quarter?

Finally, someone guessed the correct answer.

My brother is looking around on the floor boards, in the cup holder, on the dash, trying to see a stray quarter. He asked where it was. It was in her purse. Naturally.

Hey, Mom. The whole point of I Spy is that the players can see the object.

Rule Twenty-four: Never assume Mom won't change the rules in the middle of the game just to drive you crazy.

PRANKING MY BROTHER

Generally, I don't recommend playing practical jokes on people who know you well. They know how to get even.

When I was teetering on forty, a flyer from a well-known photography company appeared in our mailbox.

             FREE GLAMOUR SITTING

Free stuff.  I'm in, with my husband's enthusiastic approval. A lot of ladies I knew responded to the invitation. Students from an area cosmetology college did our hair (but only the part around your face that would show in the photo) and applied makeup. The photographer provided racks of accessories, from pearls and lace to denim and rhinestones, and feather boas.

About six weeks later they rolled back through town with the proofs where we learned the fine print. I wasn't the only one who mistakenly thought I'd get some free pictures. My husband was persuaded to purchase a framed canvas of his favorite, and we bought a couple of loose 8 x 10s and all the proofs.

I gave one to my mother and told her it was my thirty-nine and holding shot. There is something about sitting in an alluring pose with a professional photographer tilting your chin just so, and giving you a specific spot to look at that changes your entire demeanor, especially when combined with soft lighting and out-of-focus effects. Mom spent way too many words saying she didn't recognize her daughter. She said I ought to send one of the poses to my brother and see if he knew who it was.

My cousin from Denver just happened to be visiting. So we hatched a plan. At first, the idea was to anonymously mail the picture from an address he wouldn't recognize.  My cousin graciously said one of her friends wouldn't mind if we used her return address. Naturally, she would need to carry the envelope home with her and have it postmarked from the city.

Then I got the idea of messing with him. What kind of message could we write on the back that would make my brother think a strange woman had sent him a picture of herself?  We considered and discarded the idea of saying something like 'Wish you were here.'  We didn't want his wife to accuse him of something he hadn't done. Finally, we settled on 'Thinking of you.' My cousin wrote on the back of the picture in her lovely script and dotted the i's with cute little hearts. 💜 💜

Two days later it belatedly occurred to me we had excluded a vital participant from the joke. I called my sister-in-law and confessed what we had done. She promised to keep an eye on the mail. Several days went by. I had stopped imagining possible scenarios of my brother pulling that picture out of the envelope.

His wife called. In a barely audible voice, she said, "Lisa, the picture is here. How long am I supposed to keep him guessing?"
I said I thought a week or ten days would be about right.
"I can't do that. He's about to stroke out," she said.

An hour later he called.  "You got me good.  REAL GOOD."

He went on to tell me that when he opened the envelope, his first instinct was to stuff the package in the garbage disposal. (It probably had something to do with another story about strange high heels in his hotel room. He was innocent!) He couldn't destroy it because the mail was on the counter where his wife had laid it. She was sure to ask what was in the manila envelope. By that time she had sauntered into the kitchen, and he managed to choke out that someone was playing a rotten trick on him.

First, he investigated the return address. A grade school friend lived in the Denver area. He looked the address up, and it didn't match. It didn't occur to him that our relatives in Colorado would play a joke on him. Then he combed through the business cards he had exchanged with female engineers over the past few years. None were from Denver. None should be sending him enticing pictures.


Meanwhile, his wife had nonchalantly examined the picture and read the intriguing message on the reverse. "I think this looks like your sister," she blabbed.

He told me he scrutinized the photo even more closely and disagreed with her. He retrieved his family memento shoebox, and a magnifying glass, and compared every picture he had of me to the one in his hand. Through the process of comparison, he proved the glamour image wasn't me.

About that time their daughter came home from school. My sister-in-law stuck the picture in her face and said, "Quick. Who is this?"

"Aunt Lisa," she responded.

As practical jokes go, that one was a great success. I spent the next ten years waiting for him to get even. He sure knows how to keep a person in suspense.