And yet again? Will it never end??

I just LOVED getting together with my cousin, Diane Foster, and my brother Mickey in Platte. Mickey was two years younger than I and Diane was in between. It was a simpler time if one forgets about the Korean War (or police action as the exalted leaders would rather call it). This period in my life ran from about 1948 through 1957 0r thereabouts.
During this time I aged from seven to sixteen and then there were more important things to do in the Summertime like work and save for college; and it was farther to travel; and Grandpa Jobe and Grandma Leola were "getting on" as they say.
We had free rein of the entire town which was quite tiny by anyone's standards, but to us it was a magical, mystical wonderland. No worries. No jobs other than helping our Grandma in her fantastic half-acre vegetable and flower garden. At one time she was in THREE garden clubs in Platte though I don't know how come there were so many women in that small town that they really needed so many clubs. Possibly many of the same ladies (NO MEN ALLOWED!!!) were overlappers and each club took on a specific type of gardening. Not sure, but our Grandma had the best of everything in her garden. I loved being there in August to help (?) pick the red ripe huge strawberries. Some of them even made it into the basket and into the house!
Our Grandpa was rather odd about food we thought. He actually put SUGAR on his sliced tomatos. I found out later that some other folks did this, too, but it seemed weird at the time when we ate ours warm from the bushes and only put salt on then if we could sneak the shaker outdoors.
One day Mickey glanced over at me and Diane as we were picking tomato bugs off the bushes. Grandma was way ahead of her time ecologically. No "darn poisons" for her garden---just hard work and plenty of nice warm free vitanin D from the sunshine. Mickey waited until Grandma had her back turned, winked at me and tossed a tomatoat Diane. He really had a good arm for a young boy and it hit her smack on her forehead. It was a nice ripe and perfectly juicy tomato that dripped like blood down her surprised face. She was too astonished to hollar, but soon she hurled one back at him. Not to miss the fun, I threw one at Mickey, too and it took on the aspects of a real war. No Koreans here,but enemies none the less.
We, of course, only threw when Grandma wasn't looking which was most of the time as she was a real nose to the grindstone gardening machine. We also took care not to make any sounds or she would catch on and stop the fun. It wasn't long, however, for the fickle finger of fate to catch us. Grandma was right between Diane and me when I made a particularly hard throw of a tomato I had squeezed enough to soften it perfectly without breaking the skin. Grandma picked the wrong time to stand up facing me and got hit dead center on her sweaty forehead. Deathly silence prevailed for what seemed an eternity. No one moved and no one breathed until all h--l broke loose. It seemed impossible that an old lady Grandma could run as fast as a ten year old boy, but she sure did!! Even faster, because she caught up to me before I even exited the tomato patch. She grabbed the collar of my shirt and threw me down like a ragdoll onto the ground. Standing over me she reached into the large pocket that extended clear across her apron and mashed tomato after tomato into my face until I thought I would never breathe again. Diane and Mickey looked on in delight; thankful that THEY had not been the ones to hit Grandma. She either tired or ran out of tomatos and breathing hard, said; "Hitting a person with a tomato is NOT what nice boys do. Is It?" I didn't know the term rhetorical question at that time, but realizing she really didn't want an answer, I kept my mouth shut. This was also to keep smashed tomato from running down my throat. They sure taste different when mashed up on your face than they do when eaten from your hand with a little salt.
Grandma raised her colorful apron and wiped her face then told me very coldly to get up and go wash off at the hose and get back to my job. I spent the next several hours picking tomato bugs, getting sunburned by all that great vitamin D, and praying that Grandpa wouldn't also get into the punishment act when he came home and Grandma told him. I could almost feel that stingbat coming.