Chapter 4 – Broken Windows, Broken Dreams

The greatest souvenirs ever received in the history of souvenir-receiving were in our possession for just 45 minutes. Forty-five minutes.

We did not lose them. Or break them. And they were not stolen.

They were confiscated.

And with good reason.

When she was 18, our sister Linda went on a road trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, just a few hours from The Windy City. Lots of Chicagoans travel to Wisconsin to hike and fish and swim and ski. Linda and her friends went there to drink. Legally. Back then the drinking age was 21 in Illinois, but you only had to be 18 in Wisconsin to buy beer and wine.

Now I’m not saying alcohol clouded Linda’s judgment when she picked out those awesome souvenirs for her 6- and 8-year-old brothers, but after reading this story I can only conclude that she must have been drunk.

Has anyone ever brought you a cheap souvenir back from some exotic place like western Indiana or southern Wisconsin that made you stop and stare in utter disbelief?

Linda did. When she returned from Lake Geneva with those souvenirs for Charlie and me, it felt like double-Christmas-in-July. A matched pair of slingshots made from little Y-shaped branches with gnarly bark still on them. They had red rings and white rings painted on each tip, and each had a thick, black rubber band with a leather pocket from which one’s projectiles of choice could be projectiled.

They were sturdy and utilitarian – varnished to last a lifetime. Mom cringed when she saw them, but decided to trust us, and allowed us to take possession of the murderous weapons – thereby doubling the number of Klenn women who exercised exceedingly poor judgment that day.

Then Mom stepped in and took hold of both slingshots while Charlie and I clutched them to our chests, and told us to think long and hard before we went on any shooting sprees. Because if we ever, and she meant ever, used them to shoot each other, family members, friends, strangers, street lights, buses, cars, trucks or animals, they would be forfeited on the spot. And did we understand that? Of course we did not understand that, because all we heard was "slingshots … street lights … buses … animals," as we robotically nodded our heads up and down in faux agreement.

Seconds later, we were out in the alley behind our house, scanning the ground for ammo. I once heard of a place where people could pick diamonds up off the ground as if they were stones. Charlie and me picked up stones from the alley as if they were diamonds.

We lined up a dozen rocks apiece atop the lids of our 55-gallon, metal garbage cans, and paused to ponder the possibilities of the tremendous firepower we had assembled. Then we fell into focused action and began to launch rock after rock after rock over our neighbor’s garage roof and into the heavens, where our slingshots had obviously come from. We imagined our projectiles hurtling through space. Some crashing into other planets. Others being absorbed into the sun.

Where those rocks were actually going was straight through second-floor windows at the rear of our neighbor’s house. It’s hard to believe we never did hear the sound of all that breaking glass, since we later learned that 10 to 12 rocks had punctured two upstairs windows that we could never have hit in a million years had we been trying to. But the street noise must have muffled the sound of breaking glass, because if we had heard it, we would certainly have high-tailed it for parts unknown until the heat died down.

But just because our normal boy ears couldn’t hear the damage we were wreaking, that didn’t mean Mom ears couldn’t pick it up. And Mrs. Klenn swooped down on us like the wrath of the God of the Old Testament.

And just 45 minutes after we had received them, the greatest souvenirs in the history of souvenirs – our slingshots – were gone. True to her word, Mom confiscated them and stored them in the most secure place on Earth – in the top drawer of her bedroom bureau.

Mom probably realized we were idiots, however, I don’t think she had the slightest idea that our incredulity at the sentence she had meted out was sincere. But some primitive, motherly instinct prompted her to declare that when we were mature enough to handle them responsibly, our slingshots might be returned to us.

And forty-some years later, Charlie and I are certain they still reside in Mom’s top dresser drawer, wherever it might be, and we still hold out hope of one day becoming mature enough to get them back.