Another “character” we encountered during our youth years was John Reichley (pronounced rack-lee). He was a local farmer who lived about ½ mile east of us. He was “crippled,” as everyone put it. He walked with a stagger like a drunk and talked with slightly slurred speech and all his bodily movements were jerky. We had “heard” that he was like that because when he was born, his brain was “cut off from oxygen for awhile.” WOW! These days that would make a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the doctor who delivered him, but “in those days” suing doctors was rarely attempted, which was one reason why a “house call” was only a few dollars then. Later on, we heard that he had Muscular Dystrophy or something like that. John provided hours of “entertainment” for Tim and I. When he wasn’t farming (which seemed like hardly ever), he’d be sitting inside Heckleman’s Sohio Station on an old metal “lawn chair” and chain-smoking Salem cigarettes. The thing we can vividly remember about when John was smoking was that the smoke would seem to roll out of his mouth constantly after he took a “drag.” Another thing was that due to his disease, he couldn’t cough properly, so when he got into his “smoker’s coughing” spells, he would go “eh eh eh…” for minutes at a time. One guy once said, “You just wanted to cough for him”! Even as kids we could never figure out why he smoked at all since he couldn’t cough and had trouble breathing as it was. Oh, well, everybody smoked in those days, even us (clandestinely, of course)! John’s tractor was a John Deere “B,” which we later somehow acquired. The John Deere had a hand clutch and it was humorous to Tim and I as we watched him operate it, especially when he was planting corn. His head and hands would be flailing in all directions as he came to the end of the field and changed gears. One time I was doing some corn cultivating for him and wasn’t paying attention, and tore out a very small section (maybe 5 feet or so) of 2 cornrows, right when he was watching me, of course. He came staggering out to the end of the field and as I approached where he was staggering toward me, I could hear him yell over the tractor sound, “YOU RUM DUMB”!!  At my tender teen-age years, “grownups” yelling at me didn’t bother me at all. In those days a kid NEVER “talked-back” to an adult (unless it was your mother or father, then a “backhand” resulted). In those days kids had to “internalize” a lot of words and anger. I’m sure I was “loudly” thinking something like, “F--- you…” Of course, these days a kid would actually say it to an adult, followed by the appropriate finger gesture! In “those days” a kid would certainly THINK it and do it in private around his peers, but would NEVER have had the courage to do it TO AN ADULT’S FACE!!!! On one occasion I did, however, “get back” at John for all the years of yelling at us kids when we were around him. When I was around 15 or so, I was home from school “sick” (Hmmm, as I recall, I think I really was sick). This was during the time I was going through a “Shooting paperclips with a rubber band phase.” I would take a paperclip and twist it ½ turn so that it was an “S” shape. I would then take a large rubber band used for wrapping cauliflower leaves that I got from Len H. With a large, thick rubber band doubled between my thumb and forefinger, the result was a really “high caliber” paper clip shooter! Because of the large thick rubber band, the “muzzle velocity” must have approached or exceeded Mach 1! I remember the “Whizzing” sound the paper clip made flying through the air, much like the sound of a passing bullet! That day I was shooting paper clips at birds from my upstairs bedroom window. John was helping Uncle Ned on the farm that spring day and as I was taking pot shots at birds, I saw him driving his John Deere along the lane heading for the barnyard. I quickly got another paperclip, formed the “S” shape, and “loaded it up” on the taunt “high-caliber” rubber band. I “aimed” and waited for John to get closer. Just as he got about to the pump and was about 100 feet or so from me, I pulled back  and stretched the rubber band as far as I could, then let go of the paper clip. It was a classic “lucky shot”! I’m not sure where it hit him, but I saw arms and legs rapidly flailing about in a blur and the tractor going off to the side! He grabbed the wheel and frantically tried to straighten it out before it hit one of our cars parked nearby! He then looked around up in the air for the source! I fell on the floor rolling with laughter! He NEVER did know what hit him! The moral: NEVER MESS WITH A TEEN-AGER THAT’S ½ GERMAN AND ½ IRISH!!!!!