To my knowledge, the first home my parents purchased was in Cave City, Arkansas. It was a grey rock home that they put a lot of love and care into. We must have moved into that house around 1973.

One day, mom was outside her bedroom window doing some prep work so my dad could install rock around the window trim. She was outside working and the window was open. Tammy and I were in the kitchen fixing Kool-Aid (adding water and sugar). That day, we were having red Kool-Aid. Tammy liked to lick the Kool-Aid powder so we usually would pour a little into her hand.

Being the nice sister I was (no sarcasm intended), I gave her a little of the red Kool-Aid powder into her hand and she started licking it, causing her hand to turn red. Light Bulb!

I decided to play a trick on mom and without telling Tammy anything, I gave her the big butcher knife my dad kept in one of the kitchen drawers and told her to take it to mom.

A few minutes later, I heard my mom screaming. Wow, worked better than I thought it would, she rushed into the house and grabbed Tammy, who had no clue what was happening. It took my mom a few minutes to determine Tammy hadn’t cut herself with the butcher knife.

My mom was so upset, she couldn’t even punish me. The only thing she said, with her finger pointing right in my face was, “You’re dad will take care of you when he gets home!”

This was one of the few times my dad didn’t punish me. Maybe he thought it was funny also.