Two Weeks

On Christmas Eve several of us were watching "A Christmas Story" in my sister's home. My father was thoroughly enjoying the movie, with his youngest grandson snoozing on his lap. We came to the part of the movie where on a dare, on a "triple dog dare" that is, a boy puts his tongue on a frozen flag pole and is horrified when his tongue instantly sticks firmly to the pole. In the movie, the fire department frees the boy, and he walks into class late with gauze bandages protruding from his mouth. This Christmas Eve we learned that in real life my father's tongue was sore for two weeks after, on a dare, he put his tongue on a frozen flag pole in a schoolyard in Cache Valley, Utah.