Splish Splash

Have you ever noticed how a child emulates their parent. Say, a boy and his dad are sitting on a log. Look close. If dad has his leg crossed, I bet junior does too. If pops has his chin cradled in his palm, you guessed it.
Since I could observe others in our family emulating a parent I suspect I do too. I certainly hope so. I have great parents. Somehow I missed the fact that life was a struggle. I did not realize that money was tight. My sister tells that we did not have good shoes and good clothes. Huh. How did I miss that.
But I digress, when I was very young, I suspect about five, I was very interested in doing the same things that dad did. One chore was to "slop the hogs". Dad would keep the skim milk and sell the cream and whole milk to the creamery. He would mix grain and skim milk together in a barrel. He would let it age until it got lumpy and very ripe. I guess this was better food for the hogs.
I know the pigs would fight hard for this slop. It was so fun to watch them line up waiting for dad to pour the slop into the trough. I wished I could do it. There was no way for me to dip the big buckets into the very tall (to a five year old) barrell. But, boy, did I want to.
Well, one day a thought came to me. I could turn his big bucket upside down next to the barrel and use the lard pail that was intended for picking blueberries to dip into the slop. It was tricky to stretch up and over the edge of the barrel and dip into the slop, but it was worth it to deliver the slop to the eager pigs. I must have kept at it for quite a while because the depth to the top of the slop eventually got far enough below my reach that I fell into the slop.
This could have ended in my death, but somehow I got myself out. According to mom, I ran from my crime site to the raspberry patch and there took off all my clothes and walked to the house. When mom queried me about my missing clothes, I acted surprised. Well, mom could backtrack the trail of sour curds to the clothes and then continue to the slop barrel. She asked how I managed to get out of the barrel and reportedly I answered that I splashed like a whale.
All I know is that if I choose to grow up, I want to grow up to be just like my dad. Dad you are my hero. Happy Father's Day
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'