Making Mudpies with Rationed Gasoline
The gasoline, for example. I grew up in Dorchester County, so I grew down the road a bit, on a farm. My father once a month would go down to Federalsburg and get his monthly allotment for gas and oil for – you didn’t have the type of farming equipment you have now-a-days, you had horses, but you also did have a tractor here and there and of course trucks. One thing I will never forget is he went one day to get his allotment and he came home and he was very busy and instead of putting it away he put it under a tree out in the backyard, and I was very good at making mud pies. (Laughter) I spent quite a bit of time making mud pies out of those cans I can still remember them because I got a hand to my backside when he decided that I should have known better. I used it all.
Did you feel like you should have known better? I mean, were you told what was going on?
I was probably 6, mud pies were okay, because farm kids did all sorts of things like that. Dig a hole, get some water, and make mud pies, and do all kinds of things; it was a favorite pastime! And so if you had fuel or oil in a can, well, that made it even better than the water!
