The "Peeping Tom" Story

It was an ordinary day. It was early summer and I had just returned from Roots’ Sale in East Petersburg with my Grandpap. He had done it again. This time we came home with 11 guinea pigs from their livestock auction. I had come home other times with white mice, white rats, pigeons, rabbits and now this time with guinea pigs. None of the other “pets” had survived my home. Not because I didn’t take care of them, but they seemed to wear out their welcome. “What did you come home with now?” my Mom asked as she saw the box I was getting out of his Buick sedan trunk. “A couple guinea pigs for my Grandson,” my Grandpap told her. “What are we going to do with them?” she responded. Well, I started the next day on a permanent cage in my backyard for them. It was really neat! I had two halves which were each about 2 feet by 2 feet, joined in the middle with a hole big enough for them to go from one side to the other. One side was totally enclosed for bedding material, while the other side had 1/4” wire mesh on the one side and bottom for the droppings to fall through. The front had a long door to cover both sides and was hinged to open from the top. On the right side of the door I also had the wire mesh so that 2 sides and the bottom were open for ventilation. The top was covered with a heavy rubber material. My Dad helped me build it and it was a really neat cage. We put it on cement blocks so it was easier to feed them and clean it out. Dad bought me a bale of hay and a bale of straw. The hay was for eating and the straw was for bedding. I asked, “how do they know which is which.” But, they did. We also had to buy a BIG bag of rabbit pellets for feed. I guess they couldn’t read the label on that bag, since they eagerly ate them. I also would hook my wagon to the back of my bike and ride 5 or 6 blocks to the Acme Supermarket where they agreed to save lettuce greens for me. I made biweekly trips for the lettuce because they seemed to do nothing but eat. Well, I found out they were doing something else! It seems that 10 of the guinea pigs were females and 1 was a healthy male. By the end of the summer I had to build another cage to hold my new “pets.” It was at this point that my next door neighbor, Bob B. took notice to my new venture. Bob was a kind of strange man. He was married with no children and closer to my Grandpap’s age then to my parent’s age. My parent’s couldn’t figure what fascinated him so much about my guinea pigs, but they let him help me. He set up cages in his garage for his collection of pigs and drove me to the supermarket for the lettuce. He would take me to the local stock yards where we would search through the pens for hay and straw that we could have for free and load it in burlap bags, put it in his Studebaker sedan and return home. He found an outlet for our guinea pigs. Once a month a man would arrive, weigh the young pigs and buy all over a certain weight. We would get $1.00 a pig. I later found out they were for a research laboratory, but I never knew what they did with them. I’m sure you can guess that. After 2 years I had amassed enough money to purchase my first car, a 1953 Henry J (read about it in another story). Shortly after the purchase of my car, my parent’s caught Bob B. peeping in our windows at night. The police suggested to my parents that I give up my business with Bob B. I was 16 now and ready to show the chicks my new Henry J so I had no problem giving up the guinea pig business. Had a good time while it lasted. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.