I guess I am a little late, I should have posted this on the 4th of July. I guess that living in a very humid and wet state has made me forget about the dangers of fire associated with fireworks. We went to a couple parties. One of those parties included a ton of sparklers for the little kids, some of which were running around in bare feet. This reminded me, not that I needed much reminder, of when I stepped on a recently used phosphorus sparkler. It hurt pretty bad, and now when I see a kid with a sparkler and no shoes I cringe.

So, back to the story! (By the way, I'm not sure anyone knows I was responsible for this, there are a few stories to come in future blogs that will feature stories that no one knows about. I feel that enough time has expired to keep myself from getting into trouble- the statute of limitations has expired!) It was the 4th of July and we were out in front of the house lighting off a mixture of legal and illegal fireworks. I think I was about 5 years old at the time. It was great fun! We had flowers, tanks, bottle rockets, and sparklers. I was waving a sparkler around, writing my name in the dark evening. I was having a good ol time. It had been a little dry that summer, no more than usual for Salt Lake, but it hadn't rained in a couple weeks. Our neighbors across the street didn't take care of their lawn and it had grown all spring without being mowed. Combined with the dry climate his yard was a nice tenderbox waiting for my just burnt out sparkler.


I had gone on my way after tossing my sparkler over their fence. Some of the adults noticed that smoke had started to come from the neighbor's otherwise empty yard. Soon flames were visible as their dry grass became fuel for my sparkler which was still clinging to some semblance of purpose, beit destructive or entertaining.

While the adults were scrambling with their garden hoses and buckets I was trying to act cool, like the innocent boy I was. I felt bad at the moment, but I never said a word. The back spot in their yard was an improvement! Good ol sparklers!

Gasoline

One winter evening my brother and I told my parents we were going to play out in the back yard in the snow. We did just that and we built a snowman, but Josh and I weren't building the snowman just to build a snowman. We had plenty of experience building snowmen- a regular snowman was boring! No, this snowman actually served a purpose! He was our target for target practice for our bows and arrows. It was getting dark and we decided that we needed something to help us see where our arrows were going. We found the solution was to put toilet paper on the end of the arrows, dowse it in gasoline and have flaming arrows.

My dad was in the kitchen and noticed a flame going shooting from one end of the yard to the other. And then another. He came out to investigate and found Josh and I with a can of gasoline with our bow and several arrows prepped with paper and gasoline ready to go. Our snowman with a couple arrows already sticking out of him with some residual burning toilet paper.

We got a good lecture about how dangerous gasoline was. This was the first time I remember hearing that lecture, but it definitely wasn't the last time either. A few years later, after having heard the gasoline lecture a few times, my brother and I were playing around with the large plastic cars that my parents had bought as toys for my younger brothers and sisters. These cars are the ones that are big enough for a child to get inside. You propel yourself in these cars with your feet like the Flintstones. Josh and I decided to fill the consul on these cars with gasoline- light them on fire and send on a quick trip down the hill in the back yard. When the cars hit a bump it would slosh around the burning gasoline and would make the fire much bigger. We would dowse the burning car in water which would just spread the flames. Eventually the cars just melted and burned after having done this a few times. This time there would be no lecture, apart from the angry look on his face I remember him saying, “I'm tired of talking!”

Ghostbusters

Josh and I loved (still love) the movie Ghost Busters. We would watch the movie over and over again. We would play ghost busters with our backpacks and parts from mom's vacuum cleaner. The family garden was also a favorite playground. We would dig holes in the garden and then fill the holes with water. We would then take the dirt we had taken from the holes and put it back in and mix it all around to make mud. But this was no ordinary mud. My father had decided to fertilize our garden using chicken manure, which, like cow manure, provides nutrients for a variety of garden plants, it also has the added property of increased aromaticity . . . i.e., it stinks really bad. In fact the aroma from this chicken manure would cause people getting off the bus walking by to gag. My dad even witnessed one person running to the other side of the street while attempting not to throw up.


So it was just natural that Josh and I used this situation to our advantage. We sat waiting for our unsuspecting victims. Our backpacks on with the tube to mom's vacuum somewhere nearby in the garden. We sat quietly. Who would suspect children anyway? The nice men and women getting off the bus in front of our house, in their nice suits and skirts after a long day at work. Walked by our fence, and then . . . . that mud we had concocted, with chicken manure and sopping wet went flying over the fence by the shovel-full as Josh and I shouted, “YOU'VE BEEN SLIMED!!!” I'm not sure if sliming people was in accordance with the Ghost Buster code, but we sure got busted.

Jared vs Fat Lady

The UTA (Utah Transit Authority) bus stop was situated in front of my parents' house. It would take all sort of our neighbors to work and wherever they needed to go. Most were dressed in suits and ties or dresses. The stop in front of our house was a big getting on and off point. Most of the time it just became part of what went on in front of our house. Unnoticed and largely ignored. I have always liked playing with water. I would just take the hose as a child and see how far I could spray it. The bus presented a large, irresistible target.

During the summer heat the bus passengers would put the windows down, making my attack on the bus all the more effective. It would spray the bus as it came to a stop at the bus stop. All the passengers NOT getting off got hosed down. I was doing them a favor by helping them to cool off and make the breeze coming through the windows more effective!

That wasn't the only incident to occur with the hose. One of our neighbors was a rather large but very nice lady. She would frequently take the bus and would always get on and off at the stop in front of our house. One day, after getting off the bus she started to tease me. I was playing with the hose at the time and I decided to turn the hose on her for her insolence. As she was a big lady she could move very fast which prolonged her escape as well as making it easy for me to focus the entire spray of the hose on her massive body.

I must have known that I was in trouble because I ran to my room and hid. I heard the doorbell ring and my mom answered. I could hear her voice talking to my mom. She was a very nice lady and she said that she had asked for it by teasing me. Phewww!

Spackle, spackle, spackle

Brothers often fight. With only 18 months separating us we were great friends but we also fought a lot. Some of which included us rolling around in the isles of the grocery store wrestling. My dad, apparently embarrassed by the spectacle of being seen with the two of us, would simply walk around to the next isle and wait for us to finish the bout. These fights were much more evenly matched until Josh began taking Karate while I didn't. Little did I know that I was now out classes when it came to fighting. That would soon become apparent.

The exact reason for this epic fight eludes me, but I recall an argument ensued over laundry. I believe I had taken Josh's clothes out of the washer to put my own in. I didn't care to pass his clothes to the drier so I just tossed them on the floor as any reasonable person would do. Josh happened to come into the laundry room just as I started the washer for my own clothes. He realized what I had done when he saw his wet whitey tighties being trampled by myself. An argument ensued and we ended up arguing at the top of the stairs. I don't remember who struck first (I'm sure it was Josh) but a good ol fashioned fight ensued. I attempted to throw a coupe punches but as I was kicked in the face I realized that my current knowledge of fighting styles were no match for a kick to the face. I quickly came to the conclusion that I should go straight to wrestling to counter his reach advantage. As he threw me down the stairs I realized that this was a poor decision. He threw me so efficiently that I didn't even touch any of the stairs on the way down. Luckily the drywall at the bottom of the stairs broke my fall. I was lucky enough to hit the wall between the studs, allowing the largest possible hole to be created. He realized that Josh now out-matched me, I was desperate. I ran back up the stairs at him- I couldn't lose, I wasn't going to lose! So I pulled out the last tool in my fighting tool box, to be used only in case of emergency . . . and so I bit him!

The fight was over but the aftermath had just begun. My father came home and saw a hole you could walk through in the wall that had been created by our colossal struggle. My father was very upset! He immediately ordered Josh and I to patch up the hole. He told us there was a bucket of spackling in the garage and left us to do fill the small cave we had created. We had limited spackling experience, especially with a hole the size of my little brother Taylor.

We went to work filling the hole with the entire bucket of spackling material. We didn't know of the aluminum mesh that could be used as a backing to the spackling, nor did we have any extra drywall to cut to an approximate shape to fill the majority of the defect. Even if we did we wanted a good solid repair- so we filled the defect with a 5 inch thick layer of spackling. My dad took one look and walked away muttering something indiscernible under his breath. Two years later this spackling had failed to completely dry. Before I went away for college I remember seeing a large crack form in the center a repair that was finally drying out. Needless to say I have never been asked to spackle another hole by my father.

Birthdays

Josh and I are only 18 months apart in age. This was perfect for the both of us in that we were close enough in age to be friends in addition to brothers. We fought a lot as brothers do when they are that close in age, but for the most part we did almost everything together. This presented a problem for my parents around birthdays. I would throw a tantrum if Josh got something and I didn't, even if it was Josh's birthday (which is 6 months from mine). One year Josh got an expensive toy (expensive for my parents, who as they put it many times, “were not made of money.”). It was a Transformer! Josh and I loved the Transformers, we would watch the show regularly and we even went to see the movie (not the new movies, but the old cartoon movie). How could my parents have been so insensitive? How could they get Josh the best of all toys and not get me one too? Only in my parents' heads could those questions be answered! Anyway, I pled my case (which probably included a great deal of tears and crying, and carrying on) which eventually persuaded my dad to buy me one too. Now that I think of it I can't recall specific birthday presents that I received, but this one I can . . . It was the best birthday present I ever got- except it wasn't my birthday!

Speaking of birthdays, my family knows I love snow cones. They even know what brand of snow cone I enjoy. I spent some time abroad in Spain (for religious reasons). One summer I was stationed in the city of Sevilla in southern Spain. It is known to get very hot during the summer. In my letters home I told my family of this and they expressed sympathy (or at least on the surface). I didn't have any air conditioning and my apartment was on the top floor of our apartment complex which meant that it was the hot! My birthday being in July happened to occur while I was in Sevilla, and as a good family does they sent me a birthday package. In the package were various chocolates that had melted in the heat one more item that couldn't quite make out through the sweat running into my eyes and the mass of melted chocolate at the bottom of the box. After carefully separating the item from the chocolate and wiping the sweat from my forehead I realized it was a birthday card. Hoping it was cash to buy some ice cream, or even enough to pay to get our air-conditioner fixed I opened it with enthusiasm. I was surprised at the cruelty and irony of it all- it was a picture of my family eating snow-cones with the caption- Happy Birthday. As it turns out my parents got me back for that Transformer!

My Dad's corrections- edited in the original post

At the behedst of my wife (and due to the funny nature) I have decided to post my dad's response to my blog. Remembering that some of his details were actually funnier than my own I decided to publish his version. I hope you all enjoy. Please note that this is the actual email, no editing was done:

Hold on buck wheat - 1) I didn't notice the smell till after you were caught - I caught you when I told Josh to go get the bags of crap to put into the trash and he started crying. I asked "why you crying, I just asked you to go get the dog crap for the trash" he continued crying - realizing he was now in deep dog doo doo. Then I found where you two morons were throwing the dang %$^$%^%$%$433. It was not only all over the ground under their bedroom window, but it was all over the side of their house where it hit first before it fell to the ground - there was %$##$#%^&*() everywhere, on the house, the fence, the ground and all their kids toys that were left there. And I had the audacity to complain to them about their stupid kid taking a crap in our van just the week before. How we ever survived you two is beyond me.

Dad