The Penguin

I may have been only three years old or so, but I loved an adventure.  I also loved my dad – Mel Brady.  I would go anywhere with him – just to be with him.  That pretty much happened my whole life.  Dad was a dynamic man – always moving, quickly, to the next thing. 

He and Mom (Randolyn Sharp) were married on June 12, 1950.  I was born on November 19, 1952.  Nineteen months later, my sister, Cindy, was born. About seventeen months after that, my brother, Jim, was born.  Mom was swamped with kid stuff, and I was a busy, curious, loud, fast instigator.  Consequently, Dad became my nearly constant companion.  Wherever he went, I went.  Even to work.  In those days, Dad worked at Kitchen Craft as a commissioned salesman.  As often as possible, he would take me to his small distribution warehouse where he would follow up on orders and make sure his product was shipping to his customers.  That small warehouse is my very earliest memory.

It was somewhat dark, and a little daunting.  The shelves with boxes of pots and pans were stacked high on metal scaffolding and looked scary.  Dad told me that if I climbed on them, which indeed was my plan, that they might fall over and I would get hurt.  I believed him.

There was one item that fascinated me.  I’d never seen anything like it.  It was round, like a ball, but it had a black, stickie-out-thing on each side.  It would sort of roll, but the stickie-out-things stopped it from actually rolling.  It would not bounce at all.  I decided that it was a really terrible ball.  But, it had some awkwardly cute bird-like things on it.  Dad called them pen guns.  I wasn’t sure what a pen gun was, but it looked funny and I liked it.

It stayed in our family all my life.  Even after my parents’ death, I kept it.  I remembered all the times I filled it with ice for a party.  It brings other pleasant memories to me even now.  If this is passing to you, I hope you enjoy it.  But don’t try to bounce it.  It’s still a really terrible ball.