One summer morning, when I was going on eleven and brother Manny nine, we found a cigarette package on the steps of the town hall near the Trinity Lutheran parsonage where we lived.
The pack wasn’t crumpled, so we looked and found one cigarette left in it. We looked at each other, and both thought the same thing: It would be a shame to let a perfectly good cigarette like that go to waste. The fresh tobacco in the cigarette even smelled good. So we decided to get a match and see what smoking was like.
We chose our brother Ihno’s workshop in the shed behind our house for our experiment. After a couple of puffs, sure enough, five-year-old brother Danny came into the workshop, looking for us. We offered Danny a couple of puffs, hoping that would shut him up about what we were doing. However, things never quite worked the way we wanted them with little Danny.
As soon as puffed and coughed a little, Danny headed to the house and into Dad’s study. Sister Marcia told us what happened next. Danny blew his breath into Dad’s face and said, “Smell my breath, Dad. Arlo and Manny aren’t smoking out in the shed. Honest, they’re not.”
Of course, Dad believed what Danny said like he would have if he’d said there were two elephants playing hopscotch on the sidewalk between the house and the well.
In a minute, our father was in the doorway of the workshop. The room was full of smoke. I had the cigarette in my hand, and Manny was blowing out smoke from the last drag he’d taken. What were we to do? We were caught. There’s no other way to put it; we were caught! I think we felt like a crook must feel when a policeman’s flashlight shines in his face.
I thought Dad’s eyes were going to pop out of his head as he began a special sermon for us, totally without notes or manuscript, with his voice almost at full throttle!
Dad’s sermon full of fire, of course, was delivered in German, in his native tongue. He usually spoke only German when he was angry, which, at Manny and me, was all too frequently. We weren’t bad kids; we just got into monkey business at times.
Besides a barrage of words about smoking and the danger of fire, Dad marched us into his study. There was, of course, no trial, only a sentencing. Manny and I were assigned to an hour at attention in straight-back chairs in Dad’s study.
Danny, Dad’s Schatze (sweetheart), was ordered by Mom to stay out of the study during that hour. I think Danny thought he should have gotten a Medal of Honor or at least a cookie for informing on the family brothers-turned- criminals.
However, later he told us that he did not mean to tell on us. Of course, according to what Marty told us, we couldn’t figure out what else he was doing when he blew his breath into Dad’s face. Oh well, he was just a little kid; maybe he didn’t realize what he was doing. Danny, it seems, could do both right and wrong at the same time and not realize which was which.
Dad wasn’t a violent person, but it was bad to ruffle his feathers, and it was doubly bad to get his ire up on a Friday, his sermon-preparation day.
What was worse—he was preparing that day to preach on Sunday in English! Preaching in English was always harder for Dad because he wrote first in German, then translated into English. While we sat there, if we so much as cleared our throats, he would say, “Sei mal ruhig!” (Be quiet!)
After Dad calmed down a little and got back into his sermonizing, he asked me a couple of times, in a much different tone of voice, how to express an idea in English. I guess Dad knew that my English was pretty good, even if my behavior didn’t always measure up to his expectations.
I didn’t get time off for good behavior, or anything like that, for my language help. However, I knew I’d feel proud if he used in his sermon something I had suggested. I couldn’t tell anyone, though, no matter how much I may have wanted to.
The slogan for Chesterfield at that time was “They satisfy.” But I can assure you that the one we lit up that day didn’t do it for us. Not only did we get into trouble, but Manny and I turned green as we sat straight as boards in grim silence in those straight-back chairs.
We both wanted to head for the far reaches of the garden where we could have a private barf session and bury the evidence.
Finally, we were paroled and warned not to do that again. It was noon, our dinnertime, but I don’t think Manny and I ate much. We just didn’t feel like it after our experience with that Chesterfield. Because of the problem Manny and I had caused, I don’t think anyone at the table spoke much that day.
The rather odd benefit of frequently getting such a barrage of Deutsch was that Manny and I learned a little more of the language than the others on the younger side of the family.
Of course, our experiment taught us something about smoking too, which helped us in later life.
Dad said frequently, “Von unsere Fehlern, wir lehrnen.” (We learn from our mistakes.) I can assure you that brother Manny and I extended our education in several ways that day when we found that cigarette on the town hall steps.
We realized too late that we should have left it for the pack rats that sometimes wandered over that way from the old jail behind the town hall.