I suppose every family has its embarrassing moments. We certainly had our share growing up. I remember one experience in particular when I was about 10 years old. By that time, my oldest sister, Jean, was married and my oldest brother, Don, was in the Marines serving in Vietnam. So, still at home was my older brother, Dennis, myself, my next younger brother, Bruce. Then came my brother, Scott, then my youngest sister, Penny, and last of all, the baby of the family, David, who was just a toddler.
It was late one night. Everyone was sound asleep when all of a sudden my dad came into our room and told us to get up quickly and get out of the house.
"You kids get out of the house," he said, "there's a gas leak and the house might blow up!" The sound of gas leaking from a pipe was loud as our precarious situation began to dawn on us.
Well, we didn't dawdle, I can tell you that. Jumping out of bed, we rushed out of the house in our underwear. With one accord we all gathered on the carport. It was a chilly night and we huddled together for warmth.
All of a sudden Dennis spoke up, "That gas is getting to me! I'm going to pass out!" And, with that, he fell straight over. Unfortunately, he fell directly onto our baby brother, David, who was crushed to the ground. David let out a scream that would curdle your blood. Mama quickly grabbed him up and tried to comfort him. Down on the concrete slab, Dennis was starting to come to. Bruce and I helped him to his feet.
Constantly assessing our situation, Daddy thought it was unsafe in the carport, so we all loaded up in the car and pulled up the hill to watch our house blow up. We sat there with the engine running, waiting for the explosion. We were parked across the street next to our Uncle Tim's house. The commotion had awakened Uncle Tim and Aunt B.B.
Aunt B.B.'s name was actually Beulah Vera. She was a great aunt -- a sister to my maternal grandmother. Her siblings called her B.V. for short and most everyone else called her B.B. I reckon it was because it was easier. Uncle Tim came out to the car to see what was going on.
"Hey Phillip," he said, "what are y'all doing out here in the middle of the night?"
I remember my dad sitting there with the window down, smoking a cigarette. "Looks like we have a pretty big gas leak in the house. You can hear it way up here."
And sure enough, you could hear the gas leak. It was an angry hiss like highly-compressed air escaping under pressure. All it would take would be one little spark and kaboom! I just knew the house was about to go up in a mushroom cloud of flames and smoke. I wondered if the explosion would reach the car where we sat. Up front, David was still crying in Mother's arms.
We all sat there and waited. Every now and then one of us children would ask Daddy when the house was going to blow up. Daddy finally got tired of hearing that question. So, after a while, he said he was going in the house to check on things. When she heard this, Mother got panicky. She didn't want him to go back in the house. Daddy said he had to know what was going on. You could still hear the hiss of the gas escaping. Uncle Tim thought he should wait and see what happened, but Daddy was determined to go into the house.
We all cringed as Daddy made his way down the hill to our house. Any other time it would have been comical because all Daddy had on was a pair of shorts. But, at that time of the night and under those circumstances, none of us found it in the least bit funny. We watched in fear as Daddy opened the front door and went in. We were all afraid the house would blow up with Daddy in it. I could see that Mother was real worried. We waited for what seemed an eternity. Then, just as we could barely stand the suspense, Daddy came out the front door. He motioned for us to come down to the house. Mother slid over to the driver's seat and drove the car back down to the carport.
Mother leaned out of the window. "What did you find out?" she asked.
Daddy looked kind of sheepish. "Well, it's not a gas leak," he said, "The pop-off valve on the water heater got stuck. It's just steam."
"Honey, do you mean to tell me there's no gas leak?" I could see Mother was struggling to understand the situation.
"That's right. There ain't no gas leak," Daddy said. "It's just a bunch of hot water steam blowing off."
"But if there was no gas leak, what made Dennis Wayne pass out?"
"Well, I guess it was just his imagination. You know how kids can be sometimes. I'm going back to bed."
My folks headed to their bedroom while the rest of us made our way back to bed. We were all relieved that the house had not blown up. I looked over at Dennis. He looked at me. "Do you smell any gas?" I asked him.
"Nawh," he said, "I don't."
"Did you smell any gas out there when you passed out?" I asked him.
"I don't know--I thought I did then."
"I guess you know I'm not going to let you live this down, don't you?"
"Yeah, but right now I'm going back to sleep. It's been a crazy night."
And with that we all settled down for the second time that night.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 09/30/2015