Lynn's Comments: Tootie Arbuckle babysat for my brother and me. She lived next door and I thought she was cool because she had the preserved fetus of a calf in a jar on her bedside table. She also had chickens and frogs on which she would perform experiments. She fed the chickens coloured grain to see if they would lay coloured eggs and she found out that frogs ate each other as readily as they ate flies. She showed us how dragonfly larvae chewed up tadpoles, and helped us boil a dead raccoon to get the bones for science class. Tootie was from a tough family and was made of solid stuff. Nonetheless, Alan and I gave her a run for her money when she babysat.
It was important for us to know our sitters' soft spots, what buttons to push, where we could get her down. It's no wonder that our folks had a hard time finding people hardy enough to suffer through an evening with "the Ridgway kids" but Tootie tried. She was strong and she needed the money. I remember her asking my parents exactly where they would be and when they'd be home and looking at us as if to say "try anything and you're toast!"
One evening after the folks had gone to their place of reprieve, Alan and I started our reign of terror. Tootie tried to get the upper hand but gave up and went to the phone.
"Are you calling our dad?" (Our dad was a notorious softie.)
"No" she said "I'm calling MINE!"
Within minutes, George Arbuckle, a short, stocky man with a very short fuse, came in the kitchen door and slammed it shut. He worked in the shipyards and took "no guff from nobody". He cruised around us, slapping his fist into the palm of his hand and soon had the two of us cowering in our beds with the threat of a pounding as security.
The next morning, my folks said that Tootie's report had been favorable, that we had been "as good as gold" and from now on Tootie would be our regular sitter. I don't think they ever found out about Mr. Arbuckle's influence on our behavior and we never again pushed his daughter that far!
