SAMUEL G. TOOMA, AUTHOR
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CHAPTER 6. VIGNETTES1/20/2021 Chapter 6 of my memoirs is a compilation of very short stories of events that happened to me during my life. Most of them are humorous because they are events which I would rather forget, but my children and grandchildren just will not let me forget. They are stories which I have told them numerous times and will I probably will tell in the future. The 2 stories I post today are entitled "Dropped Off Into the Woods", and "The Fart And Burp Chart". I hope you enjoy them.
The following stories are short accounts of little things that have happened in my life. They are the most often-requested stories by my 2 daughters and my 6 grandchildren. Most are humorous in some way, at least to us. Some bring back memories that give us warm feelings of our lives together; and in some cases, memories that I would like to forget. They are included here primarily for my family’s enjoyment, but I hope any others reading them will enjoy them as well. DROPPED OFF INTO THE WOODS (1960). In the spring of 1960, I was a freshman at the University of Rhode Island (URI), and I had accepted an invitation to join Sigma Nu fraternity. One evening during spring break, I was at the frat house watching TV. Several fraternity brothers came into the room where I was. I said hi to them and continued to watch TV. Suddenly, they jumped me and dragged me outside where they blindfolded me and threw me into a truck. We drove for about 15 minutes. When the truck stopped, they pulled me out onto a dirt road and took off my blindfold. They then said, “Good luck” and drove off. I looked around and saw that I was on a dirt road, in the woods, at about 9:00 at night. It was very, very dark. All kinds of strange noises emanated from the woods, and I was scared. The truck had gone off in one direction. I wondered if I should start walking in that direction as well. Something told me to go the other way. They may be trying to fool me. So, I went in the opposite direction. I had only been walking for a minute or two when I heard a large truck motor by. I picked up my pace and soon came to a state highway. I had made the right decision. I immediately started to hitchhike in the direction I thought was right. Unbelievingly, the first vehicle that came by, an 18-wheeler, stopped to give me a ride. The driver asked me where I was trying to go, and I told him the university. He said that he was going right by there and would drop me off. Again, I had made the right decision. Five minutes later, he dropped me off only a few minutes from the fraternity house. When I went inside the house, I saw that the TV was still playing, so I sat down to watch. A few minutes later, the guys who had abducted me walked in. When they saw me sitting there, they couldn’t believe their eyes. I had beaten them back! This is one of Stephanie’s favorite stories. Whenever I tell this story, she bursts into uncontrollable laughter. THE FART AND BURP CHART (1959). During my freshman year at URI, I lived in a university dormitory. My roommate was one of my best friends in high school, Eddie Anderson. Although we were very close friends, we had our little disagreements. Eddie was constantly complaining about how often I would burp. Well, I would fire back at him that he farted more than I burped. This battle went on and on, and we finally decided to develop a “Fart and Burp Chart” and settle this issue once and for all. Every time I heard him fart or every time he heard me burp, we would enter that onto our chart. After a week, we would count up the incidences and see who did what the most. The problem was that when we were making the chart, we couldn’t agree on how to spell fart. I said it was spelled “Fot”, and he said it was spelled “Faht”. My reasoning was how we New Englanders say fart. We drop the “r” and say “Fot”. I can’t for the life of me remember Eddie’s argument, but I am sure that it didn’t make any more sense than mine. We asked several of the other dorm residents how fart was spelled, and it was amazing how many didn’t know how to spell it. I mean, we were only 18 years old at the time. You are probably wondering who won the contest. Well, after about 3 days, Eddie ripped the chart down from the back of our room door. The score was something like 62 Eddie farts to 2 Sam burps. I would catch him in the mornings when he would just get up, and he would run up a string of farts. He maintained that it wasn’t fair because he wasn’t fully awake in the mornings. How did we ever graduate to our sophomore year?
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May 2021
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