My grandfather, Roy Peck and his wife Vera (O'Bera) had gotten married and lived in Mtn. View Oklahoma and had their eldest son Roy in 1930. He was the only son, and there were three more to come.
Grandpa had polio as a kid, and worked as a sharecropper, tended to people who needed help, or hauled rocks for the WPA. They had a garden, a tiny little house and they loved each other. Grandpa wore striped bib overalls and Grandma wore her dresses down just above her ankles and her hair in an angel wrap on her head.
It was hot. The windows were open on all four sides of the house. Getting a breeze felt like heaven and the shade from the one tree in the back yard was their only reprieve from southwest Oklahoma heat. The little bit of shade helped, and that metal can filled with ice water with the dipper hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen were just enough.
Grandma had made a couple of pies before light, and they were cooling in the window sills. Grandpa had two yellow-meated watermelon's in the wash tub, packed with ice and covered with towels.
Grandpa had managed to buy about six-bits worth of firecrackers. He had a couple of cans he would set up on top of one another, added some water to the lower one, inserted a nickel firecracker to the top one, and the can would blow about 15-20 feet into the air.
My dad was standing behind him, and yelled, "Firecracker in your pocket Daddy, Firecracker in your pocket Daddy!!"
Grandpa took a step, threw his right arm up to the sky, and hollered "Let Her Blow!!!" And it blew.
The outside of his pocket off. The inside of his pocket gone, and his hide was blackened and he burned like fire. He immediately turned around and reached for Roy.
"No sir!" Grandma said, "you said let her blow, and there ain't gonna be no spanking!"
They had a grand celebration that year.
Ralph E Peck
Photo by Geraldine Peck
Mtn View, Oklahoma
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