Uncle Wiggily Takes Ten Hops. . . .

My father, James Allen Wadsworth, was a true English Gentleman. A gentleman is defined as being of good family or social position, well educated, a man of the highest honor, courtesy and morality. He was all of that. He was also handsome, determined, and tenacious, while at the same time being a gentle, kind, and under-standing husband and father. If he was a little in awe of the beautiful "sprite" who was his wife, he never-the-less loved her deeply and was very proud of his "Loie".

Dad was a true Englishman in yet another way. He was blessed with an English sense of humor. He could be

very funny without even realizing it. Over the years, this gave much pleasure and many a laugh to his family and friends. I can still see the staid look on his face as he would deliver, or receive, a joke. In his own time, this

look would be followed by a chuckle, which would start suddenly and softly, and soon develop into a rumbling

"belly laugh".

We were a happy family. My siblings and I benefited from our parents loving, involved, hands on style of

parenting. We were a reading, story telling, and game playing family. We did these things together. From the

time we were small we were read to and taught to love books. We always had games. One of mine and

Delores' favorites, from the time we were very young until we were into our preteens, was the Uncle

Wiggily board game. In this game, the players advanced along a colorful story telling trail, from Uncle Wiggily's

Bungalow in a hollow stump to Dr. Possum's House. The first player to arrive there was the winner. Two

decks of cards were placed in the center of the board, one deck yellow and one red. On their turn, a player

drew a yellow card which either had them advance or tell them to draw a card from the red deck, which would

move them forward or backward. The cards were very entertaining, written in catchy little verses.

It wasn't all fun and games, though. From the time we were small, we also had certain chores to do. One of

mine and Delores' Saturday chores was to dust the whole house. It was no easy task. There was a lot of dust

that would settle in a house with as much traffic as ours had each day. Mom had her ceramic elf and sea shell

collections and there were a lot of pictures and books. Dad's upright Grand Piano and piano bench took a lot of dusting. With such a large family, there was always odds and ends of stuff scattered about. Rather that take the time to return it to it's proper place, we had a habit of just grabbing an envelope from one of the compartments in the little desk/table/magazine rack that sat at the end of the couch and cramming the stuff into it. Some one always seemed to be hunting for an item that had met that fate.

Ours was a large family, which presented challenges even in the best of times. These challenges reached a

critical point during Word War II. In May of 1942, our government introduced rationing because certain things were in short supply. Food, clothing, shoes, gasoline, tires, and heating fuel, were all rationed. Even if you had money to buy these things, you couldn't just walk into a store or pull into a service station and purchase whatever you needed or wanted. Rationing was the government's way to make sure everyone received their fair share. This rationing lasted for three years.

Families were issued Ration Books filled with red and blue stamps and another referred to as the airplane stamp. This became a kind of currency. Red stamps were used for meat and fats, blue for processed foods, shoes and other clothing used the airplane stamps. The size of the family determined the number of stamps and coupons in the book. In addition, each family was issued a Gas Ration Book and a Sugar Buying Card. A point system was used to purchase these needed things. It was joked around that it took "a heap of learning" to figure it all out and most often it was a "trial and error" situation; for instance, How far was four gallons of gas a week going to take you? What were the alternatives to using sugar in cooking? In a large family, the simple act of buying a pair of shoes became a difficult task; Who was most in need of new shoes? Who could wait until the next allotment dates?

With so many of the young men going off to war, Panaca's farmers and ranchers suffered. Money and labor were in short supply. One day Dad received a notice from the bank stating that he was overdrawn on his account. Being a proud and ethical man, he was upset and embarrassed. To cover the overdraft, he immediately sold, for much less that it was worth, one of the pigs he had been counting on to feed his family. He put the money in an envelope he pulled from a compartment in the little desk/table and mailed it to the bank in Pioche.

A few days later, he went to Pioche on business and before returning home, went into the bank to make sure

they had received the money and his account was free of the overdraft. Having been a school teacher and holding political offices in the county and state, he was well known throughout the state. The bank manager and most of the other employees, were long time friends of his. When he entered the bank, he instantly became the focus of attention. As he went along greeting people with a handshake or a clap on the back, there were a lot of smiles, chuckles and outright laughter, from both employees and partrons. This puzzled him and he was wondering if he really was the cause of every one's merriement.

The question was answered when the bank manager called from his office, "Jim could you step in here for a moment?" Dad said later that it immediately became so quiet in the bank you could have heard a pin drop, and

then he heard his friend laughing. He handed the envelope he was holding to dad as he said, "You really out did yourself this time, Jim!" Confused, Dad looked at the envelope and recognizing his own writing, looked inside. It held several different items. They included the slip he had filled out for the deposit to cover the overdraft, a blue rationing food stamp to be affixed to the Sugar Buying Card for 5 pounds of sugar, an advertisement for Buster Brown shoes proclaiming, "I'm Buster Brown. I live in a shoe. That's my dog. Tige, He lives there, too.", and a yellow card from the Uncle Wiggily game, which proudly stated, "Uncle Wiggily takes 10 hops, while in the woods the ice cream pops!"

Dad didn't have a clue how this could have happened and so didn't try to explain it, but just left the bank followed by a lot of friendly ribbing and laughter. Mom said he didn't say anything when he got home. just sat in his rocking chair with a Max Brand western. Quite a while later, mom said she heard a chuckle and then a deep rumbling belly laugh, coming from the rocking chair in the living room. When she went into the room, he was still laughing as he handed her the envelope. He said, "It is a mysterious coincidence, but I guess the joke is on me!'

This quickly became our family's favorite story and these many years later, it still makes us laugh.

Even though I never admitted it, I have always felt that I was most likely to blame, albeit in innocence, for setting Dad up during one of my dreaded "dusting" experiences. Or could it have been Delores?