As I look over my shoulder at my childhood, I find that it is sometimes difficult to place exactly how old I was at the time of the incident that I want to recall actually occurred. I can precisely pinpoint when mud puddle madness occurred because of the hardware involved -- a bicycle with training wheels. I learned to ride a bicycle at an early age, graduating from a tricycle to a two-wheeler with training wheels when I was four years old. The training wheels were removed by the time I was five. So I was about 4 when mud puddle madness occurred. Three of us were involved in this memorable incident -- me, my brother who was 6 years old, and my younger sister who was two and a half, not yet three years old.
Our home had a lovely curved gravel driveway. Unfortunately, right as it curved, the gravel would wash out from the wheels turning to make the slight turn. This created a nice two-track set of ruts that became puddles whenever it rained. My brother and I loved to ride through the puddles watching the water spray out behind our bikes. He would ride through one track, say the right side one, while I rode through the left. One day we made a startling discovery that when the puddle was deep after a big rainstorm, my bike with its training wheels would not go through the puddle. The training wheels held it just enough above the actual gravel that I could not get any traction. I simply stopped above the puddle, but the fun did not stop. The water did not stop spraying. In fact the more I pedaled, the more water would shoot out from behind the now stationery bike. This would have been a bit of harmless fun, if my little sister had not gotten involved.
On the particular day of our mud puddle madness, my parents were heading off to some event that now escapes my memory. My little sister was going along. My mother got her ready to go, bathed, hair neatly combed and dressed in her best dress and then took a few minutes to get herself dressed and ready to go. My father was unaware of what was transpiring as my mother dressed. My sister wandered outside to where my brother and I were playing with my bike at the deep mud puddle. My too-curious-for-her-own-good sister came to take a look. She got splattered by the muddy fountain we were creating. She seemed delighted and played right along as the game shifted to how close could she come without being doused with the spray.
This did not end well. Mom and dad came to collect her and leave only to discover that she was happily drenched in gray gravel water: a new bath was needed, hair needed washing and a complete change of clothes was required. My father handled the madness part, severely scolding my brother and I for drenching her, even while he recognized that she was the one who came too close for her own good. (By the way, in my home older children always were punished or scolded if they had anything to do with a misfortune that befell a younger child.) My parents were of course delayed in leaving for their event, and our game was over. It was fun while it lasted, and still some 70 plus years later mud puddle madness stands out as a memorable incident as I look over my shoulder at my childhood.
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