On June 30th, 1983 we found ourselves catapulted into year five of our Portugal adventure. About mid-summer, one of my former students came to visit us. Tommy (name changed to protect the guilty) kept the classroom lively for me when I was his teacher.
Once he tried to scam his mother. Tommy failed a Social Studies test on Thursday. He had until Tuesday to get a parental signature that they had seen it. So, he hid his failing test and took his study sheets home. He persuaded his mother to him help him study for the test all weekend.
On Monday afternoon I got a phone call from his frustrated and weeping mother. It mystified me. She kept saying that she had studied with Tommy all weekend for the test he took that day. I had no idea what she was talking about. I repeated several times that I never gave tests on Mondays. Then the truth struck me. It took me 15 minutes explain to Tommy’s mother and for her to understand that he had totally scammed her. We will pull a curtain of charity over the succeeding events.
Shortly after Tommy went back to the states, we set up Harry’s “single” bed for Bethy. She was almost two years old, and was going to sleep in a big girl bed. Then, the night terrors began. She woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Harry dashed down the hall certain something horrible had happened to her as she slept. When she saw her daddy, Bethy told Harry that there were lions in her bed. Harry tried to reassure her, and eventually she went to sleep.
This happened several times a week. I was not a fan of the lions. Finally Harry, in a moment of inspiration, asked Bethy to show him where the lions were. She pointed to the top of the high headboard. He reached up and “grabbed” all of those lions. He held them as he ran down the hallway, opened the door and yelled out into the dark of the night: “You are bad lions. You get out of here and don’t scare my Bethy anymore.” After that when she woke up scared he chased the lions again, and she soon grew out of it.
The Portugal Years 
Aww, Bethy is so cute! Does she have kids yet? If so, I wonder if she knows about lion catching on the other end of the reap? Tommy sounds like he was a pretty smart kid. What a clever ruse! 😀
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Bethy has a little girl who will be five next month. If her daughter would ever sleep, she might. “Tommy” is married with a lot of kids, I’ve been told. Would love to see him and his family.
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Aww, that’s so cool! The internet is such a useful tool now for new parents. (I.e., I recently saw a spray bottle filled with colored water and glitter and there was a label on it that said “Monster Repellent”. And I thought, “Why wasn’t I that creative when my kids were small?”) So when you have stories like yours from back before there was this “idea box”, I am truly impressed by the creativity parents used. 😀
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Sometimes I think the Internet has altogether too much information. I know I depend on it for various needs. But, I assure you that my parents managed to raise me with Dr. Spock’s book on child care and I survived. 😉
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LOL! I know what you mean. That’s why I really do appreciate when I meet someone who was so creative from “way back” (i.e., back before the Internet.) 🙂
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*laughs* A great way to deal with the lions! Harry is a warrior. Lions are mean, I know.
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So they are in fact mean. Especially mean thing sitting on a toddler’s bed.
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Unless they just wanted to play!
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Erm….they meant business.
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I would have katana-ed them!
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Ah, but they sneak up on people when they are sleeping.
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I sleep with my katana ready!
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That sounds uncomfortable. What if you accidentally roll over onto the blade?
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I have armor!
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You have what? I can’t hear you over the nut case who is singing about Saints marching in or some dadblame thing.
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*laughing* Is it Harry or George?
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George and Mikki were singing a duet.
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Does George like Mikki?
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He likes to watch him, but I think the novelty of it has worn off for Mikki and George.
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My father was long time member of the service organization, Lion’s Clubs International, and for the last 25 years of his working years he was Executive Director of the North Carolina Lion’s Foundation. As you might imagine, over the years Mom and Dad had accumulated quite a collection of lions of all shapes, sizes, and material.
One of the most impressive of the collection was a three foot high ceramic Lion in mid-snarl. When my brother’s David’s boys were little, they were quite leery of ol’ Leo. But the worse came when young Dave junior spent the night with his Grandmother and Granddaddy Spencer. Already worried about the snarling ceramic lion outside his room in the hall, he awoke in the middle of the night to my father’s prolific world class snoring, which of course he attributed to the lion. He cut loose with shriek of sheer terror that not only started Mom and Dad wide awake, but woke the neighbors next door.
To this day young Dave, now a successful engineer and graduate of NC State University, has very little use for lions, ceramic or otherwise.
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Poor fellow. None of the cats in my collection have ever wreaked mayhem. Dear me.
Engineer, is he? What does he do specifically?
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David Junior lives in Charlotte and designs industrial air conditioning systems. His younger brother Scott just graduated from NC State this past spring. Also an engineer, Scott’s field is alternative energy systems.
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A lot of brain cells in those families.
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Great entry — especially the way Harry dealt with the lions! Interesting about Tommy’s little scam! Lovely photos, S.
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Oh, “Tommy” was a piece of work. That was just his pièce de résistance. And I’m not ashamed to say that the rascals were the ones I enjoyed the most.
Yes, that was all Harry’s idea. It worked. And eventually they left for good.
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