Thursday July 15th, 2021 Ready? GO!

   

Ervin, (the Palm boys dad), and his brother Clinton Palm  1931

 

   My dad was a fun-spirited person in his own right. He enjoyed playing with children, making their lives fun, and they liked him too. He had become an icon on both sides of the family for his antics, although by the time I was born in the early 1950s, he was almost all played out.

   In the early years of my folk’s marriage (beginning in 1929), when my mother’s much younger siblings were all still at home here in Roseau County, I suspect Dad played a few jokes on them, one of which I remember distinctly was when the Palm boys from ‘Da Range’ were up here visiting “Grandma Palm and Uncle Raymond,” in the early 1960s.

   Dad had one of the four brothers, all about my age, sit down on the floor with his legs wide apart. Then, using a few ounces of water, he made a small puddle on the floor between the lad’s knees and his ankles.

   Arming the now very curious boy with two table knives, their points down over the water; he was told to raise them, independently, up and down, just above the puddle.

   Dad, holding a dish towel in his hand, leaned down toward the boy, and challenged him by saying he could wipe the water up so fast that the boy couldn’t touch him with either of those knives.

   The boy laughed at the impossible notion because he was his hockey team’s goalie, “The best that ever was,” and there was no way this old old man could get through his defense.

   The scene set, the boy jabbing at the puddle with his knives; Dad made a few feint motions with his rag to either side of the puddle; the spectators cheering the adversaries on, when Dad deftly grabbed the boy by both his ankles and pulled him through the water, mopping the floor dry in an instant! The crowd roared! But not so the lad. Still, the lad took it well, for he had no choice, ‘Big boys don’t cry’ and all that.

   And so, fast forward to November of 2008 or so, when a certain young teen-aged mouthy person was at the family deer camp, acting out and pretty much disrespecting us older folks there, even though she knew better; when, at long last, this same lad now in his late fifties, motioned to the lass, who mimicked him, then loudly laughed her trademark laugh that which us older folks had grown all too tired.

   “Sit yourself down here on the floor with your legs apart and we’ll play a game you can’t possibly win,” he may have said as he gathered his tools.

   “Ha! RIGHT!” she may have answered, adding “I’m a state champion volleyball player and captain of my team!You’ll never win against me.”

   He chose a good place on the pretty-clean-for-a-deer-camp floor, and gave her two sharp hunting knives with their points down, to insure her rapt attention. Others in the camp were equally curious, for only two beside myself knew of its outcome and relished its delicious surprise.

   “You hold these like this ... and go up and down with them about ... here,” the old guy said, gesturing what it was he wanted her to do.

   Turning away from her a moment to get the cup of water and towel on the kitchen table, he leaned down to her and said “I bet you, ... I can wipe this...,” as he poured some water on the floor in that spot between her knees and ankles. “... water up, and even trying as hard as you can, you can’t touch me with those knives. Ready?”

   “You, you want me to stab you?” she said smiling, stifling her laughter momentarily.

   “Don’t worry,” the old guy said, smiling. “You’ll never touch me. State Volleyball Champion once-upon-a-time, maybe, but you’re too old and slow now!”

   Forgetting her former concern, she glowered, looking about the camp. “Better get the band aids out, grandpa!”

   He made a couple attempts, warning her that she couldn’t swipe at him, but had to go straight up and down, then grabbed her ankles and pulled her butt through the water.

TOTAL SHOCK AND HUMILIATION.

   She jumped up, slammed the knives to the floor, and angrily marched out of the camp, to her family camp, -- only to sheepishly reappear an hour or so later in a change of clothes and attitude.

   She apparently saw the error in her behavior. If anyone talked to her about it, I don’t know, but she continued to show a great deal more humility and maturity, at least in deer camp, from then on.
 

   I saw her at a community fund raiser nine or ten years after her debacle at deer camp, and here she was, all grown up, with a kid of her own. She saw me, smiled greatly, and embraced me like a long lost friend.

   “I don’t think I’ve seen you since that time at deer camp when Gene pulled that trick on me!” she almost squealed, showing me she had her energy levels still intact even after child birth.

   “Well, you weren’t the first one he did that to,” I said. “You were a good sport about it.”

   “I’ve used it on some kids myself!” she said, grinning. “I wonder who played it on him.”

   “My dad!” I confessed. “He tricked Gene’s dad, with that one too, when he was about the same age!”