SIDE BOARDS (Biography)

We moved to a home my parents had built at 736 Ridge St. in St. Paul from 730 Curfew Ave. when I was 1½ years old in late 1932.  My brother, who was 4 years and 10 months my senior, and I shared a bedroom.  We had twin beds.  They had maple headboards with posts on the sides, and posts for a footboard.  The difference between our beds was that I had solid oak sideboards held onto the bedposts by leather straps looped around the posts and screwed together because my mother was afraid I would fall out of bed.  I hated them, I think from the beginning, and I used to pester my mother to remove them.  She finally told me that they could be removed when I was five.  So on the morning of my fifth birthday, I got a screwdriver and maybe some pliers, and with great joy removed the sideboards.  I struggled to carry the boards down to the basement where my mother was doing some laundry.  They were very heavy for a five-year old so maybe I made some noise.  At any rate, my mother saw me and shrieked, “What are you doing?”  I replied that she promised I could remove the sideboards when I was five, and this was my fifth birthday.  She obviously didn’t like it but finally she said, “All right, but, if you fall out of bed, they go right back on.”  I always remembered later in life that she kept her promise even if she had regrets.  Not all parents keep their word.  Oh, and I never fell out of bed.