Prove It To Me

CHESTERTON, Ind. — Two fourth-grade boys mimicking a scene from the movie"A Christmas Story" wound up with their tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole.

A portion of my childhood was spent in Golden, Colorado. We lived on a small hill in a small house that did not have indoor plumbing. We did not live there very long, but I have many memories and stories dating back to that time.

My mother who is a native Texan, should probably have been born in the "Show-Me State." She didn't, and doesn't , believe what people tell her; she always has to see it or prove it for herself. Sometimes I think my dad's goal was to see how ridiculous he could make her look. She fell for it every time.

On this particular day, Mother was pumping water from the outdoor pump. It was the old-fashioned kind that had to be primed and the handle laboriously pumped up and down until the desired amount of water was ejected into a container.
Seeing Mother at work on the pump, my dad warned her, "Don't stick your tongue on the pump or it will freeze to the metal."

I sincerely doubt that Mother had been contemplating the idea, but now she professed her disbelief as she carried the last bucket of water into the house. Then she returned to the pump and put her bare tongue against the metal. Daddy heard the noise and found Mother bent over the pump, tongue frozen to the icy steel, complaining unintelligibly. He poured warm water over her tongue, dislodging it from the metal. If there had been any damage, it wasn't apparent. Mother was still able to give Daddy a piece of her mind.

2/1/08
Well, I knew I didn't have the story completely right, but that was what I remembered. All the while, I was wondering why my dad would have stood there and watched my mother pumping water and carrying it in. She might have needed to do that when he was not around, but he was a bit more chivalrous in his younger years. So, here is Mother's version of the story.......

"I went outside when Dad was pumping water from the old cow-tail pump. I asked him why he was wearing gloves to pump water. He told me to be very careful not to touch the pump with wet hands when it was freezing or my hands would stick to the pump. I told him I thought that was a ridiculous notion. Then I went over and touched my tongue to the pump and found out he was right!"