Tough, Fearless and Proactive

Main characters: C.M. Treppendahl (Grandpa Trep), Marshall Treppendahl (age 10)
Approximate date: 1934

Introduction. My father was the youngest of five children and the fourth boy.  His father was a Dane who had come to Woodville, MS at age 22 pretty much penniless.  By the time Dad was 10 years old, Grandpa Trep was one of the more successful businessmen in Woodville and was greatly liked and respected to boot.

Dealing with a competitor.

Among Grandpa’s enterprises was a grocery store.  A competitor opened a new grocery store in Woodville not far from my grandfather’s store. The new grocery store offered the personal delivery of groceries to its customers in town.  The deliveries were done by young men on bicycles.  For some reason, this really irked my father that someone had the audacity to open a store and try to outcompete his father.  So Dad took it upon himself to do something about it.

Dad grabbed his single shot 22 rifle and climbed up on top of the water tower that was right on Main Street across from the Courthouse Square.  It was not long before he spotted the other grocer’s delivery boy toddling along on his bicycle with its baskets bulging with groceries.  My father was always a crack shot.  He took careful aim and pow!  The young fellow crashed the bike and grabbed the calf of his wounded leg.   It was a Saturday and everyone was in town.  Dozens of people gathered around the young man and tried to figure out what happened.  The different witnesses put their accounts together and determined that the delivery boy had been shot with a rifle and it most likely came from the top of the water tower.  In short order, the Chief of Police was on the scene and learned that there was a boy on top of the water tower who was the culprit.  With everyone watching, the Chief climbed up the tower’s steps.  When he got near the top, he found himself looking down the barrel of a 22-rifle held by Mr. Treppendahl’s young son Marshall.  The Chief scurried back down the ladder and went and got my grandfather.  (The store was 100 yards from the tower.)

Grandpa walked out to the middle of the street (all car traffic was blocked off), put his hands on his hips, looked up at the water tank and said in his heavily Danish accented English “Sonny! Come down immediately!”   And Dad scrambled down and stood before his father in front of the hundreds of people gathered around.  Grandpa took the rifle and gave it to the Chief.  He said nothing; he grabbed Dad’s ear and lifted him up on his tip toes. They then began a slow walk around the courthouse square.  Dad said it was the most painful and humiliating experience of his life. All these people – many that he knew – were jeering at him and making the shame shame sign with their hands.  When they completed walking the entire square, Grandpa released Dad and sent him home.  He then went to the doctor’s office and paid for the medical expenses and then paid the young man something for his pain and suffering.  And that was the end of it.  

Now, you would think that this would have been something that Dad was greatly ashamed of and would hope none of his descendants would ever find out about. Not so. This was a story Dad told all of his children about on several occasions. From his perspective, he was just being proactive in dealing with a perceived problem. He seemed rather proud of himself when he relayed this story to us. So what message was he trying to send us?

Battling red wasps. 

One of my father’s favorite games as a boy was to kill red wasps with a homemade wasp swatter.  He and his buddies would make their wasp weapons by taking the top of a gallon-sized tin can and firmly attaching it to a 2’ long sturdy stick.  They would then each get a chaw of tobacco and some rocks and go hunting for wasp nests in briar patches.  When they found a big nest, they would pelt it with the rocks and then kill the wasps with their swatters when the wasps attacked them.  Once all the wasps were dispatched, they would count up the dead wasps while putting tobacco juice on the stings of the ones they missed.  The boy with the most number of dead wasps and the fewest stings won the game.

Dad also told us the wasp game story a number of times. Even so, neither Rob, me, nor our friends ever took up that game.

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