How things change over time. One summer Dean and I were trolling around the neighborhood as usual and we had a pocket full of firecrackers. We climbed the wall of a nearby church and got up of the roof and were lighting firecrackers and throwing them down. To our suprise the police showed up and asked how we got up there and to come down now. We did not comply to the order and told them we were scared to climb down. After the standoff contunied for what seemed like a long time we were told to come down again. We did not want to do so in front of them beacuse they would then know how to come up if they had to. We finally surrendered and came down.  After a long lecture one officer removed his hat and held it out and said empty your pockets of fireworks into my hat and we will not call your parents. This we felt was a sucker deal because we figured they just wanted them for themselves or their kids. After a short period Dean empied his pockets to his hat and I reached halfway into my pocket and scooped out a handful and placed in the hat. When asked I replied that was all. They lectured us a little longer and told us if there were any more complaints they would come back to our houses and tell our parents. When the left I pulled out the remaining firecrackers thinking Dean would think I was the coolest ever. Then Dean pulled his out. We laughed about it and went on about our day carefully conserving our remaining fireworks.

When my brother was about 3 and I was about 5, he decided to climb a mesquite tree in our back yard. I decided it would be my job to support his adventuresome spirit by encouraging him from below as he went higher and higher still. Well, at some point, we both suddenly realized just how high he was, and getting back down would not be so easy. Fear took hold as he surveyed the distance to the ground, and I began meditating on the consequences to my backside for encouraging him to seize ever higher and higher opportunities. When it became apparent that he lacked the skill level necessary for backing down, and he began to whimper, I was left no other option than to go and enlist my mother's aid. She too was lacking the skills or height to get him down, and you can imagine how disheartened I was when she called our dad to come home from work to effect a rescue (look out butt cheeks)!  Daddy was indeed not happy to have his morning disrupted, and I being the oldest, naturally held responsibility.  Daddy talked Dean down a limb at a time until he was able to reach and pull him down. I cried (taking preemptive action) and apologized abjectly, and somehow avoided corporal punishment. We laughed about it later, but neither of us ever forgot the lesson.