This page will continue our story in the life of Tom C. Lee.
After Tom's first phone call he became a big trusted boy. Then one day he pulled a really good stunt. It seems a meaness streak catches up with him even to this day .
Tom was still living in Bruni, Texas and they had a big square block with mesquite trees and plenty of tall dead grass.
There were no fire trucks back then and the nearest one was in Laredo which was over fifty miles away.
All the boys had been warned about starting any fires and were told if they played with fire they would wet the bed.
Well don't you know Tom did some of that too I reckon !
One cold winter day the preachers son and the Maxwell boys came and got Tom, and they went to the middle of a field.
They had built a big camp fire and of course they were not to tell anyone.
The warm fire felt so good so they circled it and were smoking cigarettes that they talked the preachers son into stealing from the grocery store.
They thought they were grown men of course as they stood around a camp fire trying to out lie each other.
Tom's buddies had him beat so he was bored and walking around looking for something to get into and he found it ~ A Del-Monte catsup bottle with the lid on it. He slipped up behind them and threw it in the fire.
His friends asked him "T.C. what the heck you do that for" ?
Tom laughed and told them they had out lied him and something was going to happen for them telling so many lies .
Well, about that time that old catsup bottle got hot and started whistling through a hole in the lid and it flew way up in the air. It was spooky and went out of sight and with a loud noise exploded.
It shook the whole town. It even rattled windows and with it being during world war two everyone figured the Japs were bombing them.
All of the boys were scared so bad three or four wet their pants a couple dirtied themselves as they flew out of them woods.
Lands people was running out of their houses and looking and hunting for that explosion.
Driving all around the boys slipped back to their houses and folks asked all of them if they had seen or heard anything.
Of course they all said no because they knew they would have been skinned alive.
Now sixty two plus years later Tom shares this life long secret with me as he recalls it so vividly as though it was yesterday. Land sakes I don't know what else he did back then but I am sure we will be hearing again from him soon.
