End the war in Europe

The following all took place in the summer of 1944.  The weather was warm, so it must have been shortly after D-Day, June 6, 1944 because I was aware that we were fighting the Germans in Europe.  I was six years old and had not as yet started school, so my vocabulary was limited.  I had never heard of the words, “testicles”, “gonads”, or “scrotum”.  I had not yet started to associate with the older boys, so I was not even familiar with the words “nuts” or “balls”.  I was aware of that useless fold of skin between my legs just below my “wee-wee”.  It was called a “bag”.  Now that we have the groundwork laid out I will proceed.

I was helping my dad build a feeding station in the barnyard.  It was constructed from shiplap and 2 X 4s.  He was using a hand saw to cut the 2 X 4s so there were several short pieces laying around on the ground.

I told my dad that I knew how to end the war.  I said that we could take short pieces of 2 X 4s and nail the Germans soldiers “bag” to the piece of wood.  Dad gave me a long look and did not say anything for a moment.  I think he must have been trying to decide if I was a sadistic little son-of-a-bitch or if I was a deep-thinking moron-genius ahead of my time.  He finally said, “yes son, I would guess that would take the fight out of them”.  I was really proud to have figured out how to end the war.

Perhaps that was just an early sign that I was meant to be an engineer.