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Goeckeler Mishaps and Memories |
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David Goeckeler |
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Our family is like all other families. We have many memories together and cherish our stories both personal and shared. Most we can laugh at when we look back, but some were serious at the time. |
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Dad's Pet Tarantula |
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| In the summer of 1966, my dad and his family went to visit Grandma's sister in Oklahoma. One day while playing, Dad saw a tarantula the size of an adult fist. He dared his younger brother of ten to catch it. Uncle Ed, always being a daring one, decided to catch it with a coffee can. He put his shirt over top the can so the spider couldn't escape. Grandma was afraid that the spider would get out in the car. Later she admitted to having recurring dreams about the tarantula getting loose in the house. |
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| Dad remembered enjoying watching the spider burrow rapidly, using its legs to throw dirt behind it. Dad enjoyed feeding it, and fed it various live insects."It was fun to watch it kill the flies or moths, using its venom and then wrapping its legs around the victim,"Dad said. One day, dad found a voluptuous cricket to feed his pet and decided to bring it home. Dad woke up the next day horrified when he saw a live cricket and a dead tarantula. The cricket had viciously killed his pet. |
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Flash Flood of '77 |
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| Another family story before my birth, involved the flash flood of 1977. Sunday, September 11th, Carl and Nancy Goeckeler, my parents, had just returned from a weekend with church members in Rolla, Missouri. They enjoyed their trip and were ready to come home to a good night's rest. The next morning, it began to rain. By afternoon, it was pouring, and by late evening, rain was coming down in sheets. Mom and Dad were worried that water may be coming in through the basement windows. |
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| Sure enough, water was streaming in around the frames of their basement windows. They frantically scurried up and down the stairs, trying to take their possessions from the basement to ground level. After they did this, they put the washer on tires, which were placed on a platform step in the basement. Mom and Dad went upstairs to look out their window. To their amazement, the backyard had become a river along with the street by our front yard. They watched in horror as water began to back up through drains in the basement. |
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| They could do very little but watch and wait. The water in the back yard approached the sliding glass door that is elevated about a foot off ground level. They saw debris floating over the top of the back yard fence and began to stress. They were overjoyed when the water began to recede. Dad, an electrical engineer, was worried about electrical surges and fires, so he got in a non-metal trash can in the basement and hopped over to the breaker to flip the switches. They decided they could do little until morning, so they decided to go to bed. In the morning, Mom and Dad had the task of cleaning up the messy basement. |
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| Walls needed to be scrubbed, the floor cleaned, and some items needed to be disinfected. Dad installed float valves in the drains so that the disaster could be avoided in the future. That evening, Mom and Dad sat down to a bowl of soup. It started to rain again, and it rained in sheets. This time instead of the drains backing up, water came through the pipe leading to where the washing machine was usually placed."It was awful," Dad recollected."The place smelled terrible and there was little we could do." Mom said it wasn't a fun thing to go through, but it was a memorable part of my parents' early married life. |
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| Welcome Home |
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| Another odd incident with our family happened when I was 11. Coming home from an exciting vacation is usually a "downer." In our case it was dangerous. In the summer of 1996, we visited our family, as we often do, in Montana. We returned wearily at midnight Sunday night. My sister Shylla has Down's Syndrome and at the age of seven she went into a phase of wandering around the neighborhood without telling our parents. At about 6:30 A.M., the morning after we returned, the phone rang. It was our neighbor, Myrnith, calling to tell us that she noticed Shylla went out to the back yard, and that while we were on vacation a female pit bull had been terrorizing the neighborhood. |
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| Not only was the dog a danger to the neighborhood, it was particularly a danger to us because it claimed our back yard as territory while we were away. Dad ran outside and got Shylla. He went to the hardware store and installed internal, sliding locks on our doors so that Shylla could not get out. Animal control was called and they began to chase the dog. Since the dog was able to easily leap fences, watching the two women chase a pit bull with nets was comical. Since idiotically chasing the dog didn't work, animal control decided to try and trap it. They set up a cage on our patio in the back yard, and put food at the back of it, hoping it would step on the lever that closes the trap. |
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| In the mean time, no kids were able to play outside in the neighborhood, and Mom feared doing any yard work. We watched and waited. The dog didn't approach the cage that day. We figured that our neighbor, who was an animal lover, was feeding it. Dad told him how worried we were about Shylla's safety, so he put two and two together and stopped feeding the dog. The next day, we watched the dog approach the cage. It circled the cage, studying it carefully a dozen times. She went to the entrance of the cage and stopped. Careful to not set the trap off, the dog batted at the can of dog food until it was closer to the entrance. |
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| Then it leaned over and triumphantly carried the food away. We were beside ourselves, not knowing what the next step would be. We continued to watch the dog that day, and again noticed it approaching the trap, this time harboring no food. She circled the trap and approached the entrance. After that, she just walked right in triggering the trap. Apparently she was either tired of playing games, or was extremely stupid. We were relieved. |
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Father-Son Business Trip |
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| Dad and I have had great memories together too. When I was 12, my dad had a business trip to San Francisco in June. At first he planned on going alone, but when he found a "buy one get one for a dollar" promotion for airfare, he said I could go with him. I was so excited to be able to go with Dad. We stayed at a hotel with a marina in Berkley, across the bay from San Francisco. When dad had business, I went along with him, but the days never seemed long, and his business associates and friends were all very kind to me. While in San Francisco, we toured China Town, the Japanese Tea Gardens, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Red Wood Forest. It was a memorable trip because I had a week to bond with my dad. |
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| My First Real Job at Age 13 |
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| An event that was memorable to me personally was getting my first job. When I was 13, I had been selected to go on a three-week trip to Europe with a group called People to People. I had to have a source of income to at least offset my parents' cost of the trip. Mom had the idea of going to the grocery store to ask a favor. We would put coupons on products, and when people would ring up that item, the money saved would go towards my fund. Many schools had done this so we thought it was a good idea. When we went to talk to the manager, he said he was unable to do that. Then he looked at me and asked my age. |
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I told him that I had just turned 13. He said, "Well, you look older, would you like a job here?" My mother and I were floored but thankful. I was able to earn around half of the expense of the trip and enjoyed a dream coming true. |
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| Our family memories are meaningful to each one of us. Stories allow us to grow closer together and have a good laugh. Looking back, I see that some stories teach lessons while others just provide smiles. |
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Family Tree |
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Photos |
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