Did you ever get caught? That sounds so dangerous.  You are lucky you didn’t live in the city,

If I had lived in the city, I'd have probably spent my childhood in Juvie and gotten on the school to prison conveyor belt like seems to be what most big cities are designed for.

But it was a miracle that I survived to the age of 6. That was probably the worst of the things I did - but I didn't know - I thought I was doing something helpful.

About a week later, after Mom kept the doors latched so I couldn't get out of the house, Dad and Grandpa and one of my uncles and some of the oil field crew all showed up outside with several trucks and trailers of stuff.

They dug a bunch of holes, and cut up a whole bunch of old oil field pipe, and then set the pipes on end in the holes so about 10 feet stuck out of the ground. Then they tied ropes to the tops so they were straight up and down, and started up a cement mixer. They poured concrete around all the pipes in the holes.

Then they had this tall ladder. Someone was up on it cutting these "saddles" with a cutting torch. then after they did enough of them, they'd use the "cherry picker" to pick up an entire joint of pipe and lay it in the "saddles" to make a top rail 10 feet off the ground, then went back and welded it.

They would screw another joint into the one they had first run, and weld that to the top, too.

At the corners, they did some special cuts and welds with a much bigger pipe sticking 10 feet out of the ground, and welded the top rail pipes into that coming out each side.

The concrete was still wet but getting hard by the time all the welding was done, and this went all the way around the house where the yard was supposed to be.

Then they finished digging out a ditch between the individual pipes. Then they unrolled this silvery mesh stuff (chain link fencing) and stretched it and tied it with these steel band things to the pipe, and the bottom of it stuck about a foot or so into the ditch they dug.

Then they poured a LOT more concrete, which covered the bottom of the fence fabric and had put some boards above the ditch to fill it even more, and did that all the way around. They had put some other pipes and hinges and stuff to make 3 gates, and put the latches way, way up there higher than I could possibly reach.

By the time they were done, essentially the house was surrounded by a really tall cage.

The next morning the concrete was all set up and they took the boards away, so there was this nice little ledge I could sit on sticking about 8 inches up from the ground, with the fence "growing" out of it.

The dog couldn't dig out from under it any more, either.

Well, I figured out 2 days later I could stick my small feet and shoes into the 2 inch wide diamond shaped holes in the mesh, stick my hands into some overhead, and climb straight up that chain link fence fabric like it was a really wide tall ladder, go right over the top, and climb down the other side.

Grandma saw me and just grabbed me when I touched the ground outside, picked me up and just marched right through the gate and ratted me out to Mom. And Mom warmed my britches real good with a flyswatter.

I was about 6.5 when we moved into town, about 100 miles away, and we had this concrete block fence about 6 feet high or so. I had to jump really hard but I could get a handhold on the flat top of the thing and pull myself up. I didn't do it that often but other kids would be "sissies" and go around to the gate to get in or out of the yard. I went over the fence because it wasn't as far to walk. Or I'd get on the top of the fence and walk along the top around the yard. After all, I'd seen the cats do that.

By about the 2nd grade I'd kind of outgrown going over the fence routinely instead of using the gate, then we moved a couple more times.

By 3rd grade we were back about 30 miles from the old homestead. There was this deep draw or arroyo out behind the house just past the back yard. There was a pipeline, a pretty big one, that went all the way across it. It was big enough to walk on the top of it, although near the middle, the concrete pillars holding it up were really tall, taller than the house, so you didn't want to look down. You just put one foot in front of the other like you were walking on a sidewalk, and the pipeline was just a stripe painted on the sidewalk, and could get to the other side pretty easy.

Some of the other kids were too chicken to walk across the arroyo on the pipeline, and they told on me. So I got even. I watched for them to do anything they weren't supposed to do, and then I ratted them out. It was kind of what turned me into the school snitch in 3rd grade.

Your relatives were also good at building and creating. You got it from them. So you went from daredevil to tattle tale. Well, eventually you became more of an engineer.

Yeah, we always were being creative.

And that kind of creativity has paid off in the pandemic, because 90% of the people would not have the kind of skills to live frugally and do stuff rather than have to pay a professional to fix every little thing.

That is true.

I've heard all types of notice.
 

I heard plenty of thunder this evening.

And falling rain. But everyone else did too. We were exchanging times as to when the storm front reached each place as it progressed across the Permian Basin.

I agree. He is probably genius level in a lot of subjects.