12-year-old to the rescue

This morning a dispatcher on the police scanner in the newsroom said a toddler has locked himself in the bathroom.

It brought back a memory for me. One of my daughters (can’t remember which one) locked herself in my mom’s bathroom in Lynd when she was about 3 or 4.

I could not get her out and could not convey to the child what to do. So I hopped in the car, drove up the hill to the school and got my 12-year-old son out of class. I told the school secretary, “my daughter is locked in the bathroom and Adrian is the only one who knows how to open that door when it’s locked.”

So Adrian did whatever trick he did to the doorknob and released my crying daughter and saved the day.

He did a lot of that kind of stuff when he was around 12. One icy winter day I was rounding a curve on County Road 4 and Adrian pointed out that I was driving too fast which I was. I slowed down but the truck did a 180 and we went into the the ditch. I got out of the vehicle to walk down the road to the farm house for help and was halfway there when Adrian drove up behind me. He had put the truck into 4-wheel drive and drove it up out of the ditch.