Grandpa and Grandma Caywood had a house full of boys. They lived way out in the country and far back off the main road. The boys had very little company because of this. Lloyd, Loren, Walter, Jesse and my dad Orville, were always looking for new ways to entertain themselves and found that sliding down the wooden roof of the old granary was a lot of fun. Charlie was too young to join in on the fun.

It did not take much sliding down the roof for the boards to become very slick and their slides became faster and faster. They wore the backsides out of their overalls very quickly. Grandma could not keep up with patching them. She asked her eldest son, Lloyd, to do something to stop this playful activity of his younger siblings.

He came up with the perfect solution. He hammered nails only part way into the boards on the roof in a zig zag fashion. This ruined the fun for the boys for several days until one of them got the idea that they could just lift one side of their bottoms, then the other to escape hitting the nails. Dad said it made it much more of a challenge and a lot more fun. They became very adept at dodging the nails after a very short time.

When Uncle Lloyd found this did not deter his brother’s activity, he hammered more nails in the roof. Still the boys slid down the roof snagging their pants on the nails they could not miss. Grandma finally gave up and decided to have the nails pulled out as they did more damage to their pants than before.

Grandma Caywood finally got her baby girl, Opal Laura, after having the six boys. Two more boys, George and Raymond joined the family after Opal.