My father was born in Rhode Island in 1915. Like most youth of his time, he was always tinkering with automobiles alongside his father, brother and friends. These vehicles were somewhat different from today’s vehicles. If you have ever watched Walt Disney’s movies “The Shaggy Dog,” “The Absentminded Professor” or “Flubber,” you are familiar with the cars of my father’s childhood. These cars needed to be driven to be acceptable. My father and a friend even took a camping trip from Rhode Island to Yellowstone National Park in a Model T Ford they had modified into what they named “the race car.” The proof is in a photograph of one of them feeding a bear beside their picnic table with a distant sign in the background reading “Do Not Feed the Bears.”

“Little Rhody” is the smallest state and is only 48 miles long by 37 miles wide. Growing up in such a small state, my father soon learned every highway and byway on his test drives. Years after his teen years and after he had married and started a family, my mother saw an ad in the newspaper for school desks. Somebody had purchased an old one room schoolhouse and wanted to sell the contents. These desks were oak, one-piece affairs with a drawer under the chair and an ink well in the desk part. Being school desks, they were the perfect size for my brother and me to each have one to study at. After calling the number in the ad, my mother made payment arrangements for two desks. The owners were unable to be present when my parents were available to pick the desks, so it was arranged for them to just stop by the schoolhouse and pick them up. (Back then you could safely leave your property unlocked.) Knowing she is “directionally challenged,” Mom wrote the directions to the schoolhouse down in minute detail.

On the day assigned to pick up the desks, my parents headed out with my father driving. Being familiar with the state, my father knew exactly where the schoolhouse was located. In no time they were at their destination. They went around to the back door and tried opening it. The doorknob turned but the door would not open. Knowing old wooden doors often swell with humidity and stuck, my father grasped the doorknob with both hands and gave the door a mighty shove with his shoulder. The door burst open-right into an occupied bedroom. Oops! Wrong one room schoolhouse!

After profuse apologies, my parents headed back to the car and followed my mother’s detailed directions.