Field Mice in Wichita

First, I have a public service announcement. The management, Google, has informed me that in order to continue to find my blog you'll have to create a Google account. I hope that doesn't cause a problem for anyone. Most people use Google anyway. It's more user friendly, and it's easier to find stuff, at least I think so. 

Back to my subject for the day. Although I 've been trying to stick to the story of my uncles during WWII, something in Boyd's last letter reminded me of a story my parents told me about their first house in Wichita. My mother Wenonah wasn't happy with the apartment where they moved first, to say the least. As I mentioned in my post of October 23, 2015, her landlady burned her trash right next to the clothesline where Wenonah hung my diapers, so as soon as they were able - my parents rented a house.

The house was located on the edge of town, and there were a lot of mice living a field nearby, so my parents' problems changed from inconsiderate neighbors to little mice running around the house. My dad got busy setting traps, poison, and plugging all the openings he could find in the floor. That's when he learned that steel wool was better for this than wooden patches or putty, because the mice couldn't chew through it. He must have written to Boyd about his mouse problem for him to joke about scaring them away with a picture from the war. 

Anyway, the story that impressed me most about Don's battle with the mice was how he killed them by hand. He said that the mice had free reign over the house at night and they were still busy when he got up for work in the morning, so while it was still dark outside, he would sneak into the kitchen and turn on the light. This would catch a mouse of two in the middle of the floor. The mice would try and run, but they couldn't get any traction on the linoleum floor, so Don was able to reach down and swat them up against the wall, killing them instantly.