Before I was born, my parents agreed that if I were a boy my mother would name me, if a girl, my father would choose my name. The name given me is more common in the south or in New England than it is around these parts, but probably less frequently used even in those places than it once was.

Had I been a boy, my given name would have been William after my mother’s favorite brother, killed in an accident when he was 18. Sensing her feeling about the name, dad suggested that I be named “Billie.”

My mother played fair. He named me and thereafter called me “Cuss,” unless he was annoyed with me when he called me by the name he had given me.

My mother’s sister-in-law was expecting also in November of the year I was born. My aunt had two sons and was looking forward to having a daughter. The expectant women were looking forward to the increase in their families. They had long discussions about how my cousin would arrive in

November and then his family would come in January to bring my cousin to visit me.

Well, as Robbie Burns put it, &uot;The best laid plans of mice and men.&uot; Ahead of schedule for the first and probably the only time in my life, I made my entrance into the world early in December and my more sensible cousin waited until January.

His father, my mother’s elder brother, inquired if it would upset her if his third son were named after their younger brother, William. She rather liked the idea since both the first and last name would coincide with the names of her beloved brother.

Like my mother and my uncle Will, my cousin and I were much together.

My uncle’s farm was only a short drive from Nebraska City. They usually visited us during the weekend. During summer vacations Bill generally visited our house for some days and later in the summer I visited his.

We were generally in trouble, not that we were looking for trouble. We just had interesting ideas on how to spend our time.

He always had a collection of Boy Scout magazines. He learned from one of them how to make invisible ink. As I recall, it involved using lemon juice. Since at that period of my life I was determined to become a private detective, I was delighted to learn how to write with invisible ink.

Neither his parents nor mine were delighted, though, when following directions from one of his magazines, we made parachutes and fastening them to a few plump hens threw them out of an upstairs window. It didn’t hurt the hens at all. But, alas, we couldn’t say the same.

They were equally annoyed when we decided one hot summer night to have a torchlight parade. Naturally we didn’t share the plan with them. We picked an armload of cattails, dipped them in kerosene, lighted them and ran around chanting threatening war cries.

My father, a volunteer fireman, didn’t address me as “Cuss” for a good two months after that.

Even when we weren’t together, our lives were not uneventful.

I was four years old when I managed to start my father’s motorcycle and take the little boy next door down a hill. A hill so steep that had the motorcycle not hit a property stake it well might have been our last ride.

Billy was about the same age when he managed to put his family’s Model T Ford into operation.

Unfortunately while he knew how to start it, he didn’t know how to stop it.

His mother, sensing the difficulty, ran out to tell him how to stop the car. She said, though, in a slightly aggrieved way, that every time she got close enough to impart information he seemed to aim the vehicle at her.

Finally she called to him to just keep riding around, he was bound to run out of gas sooner or later. And he did.

Then there was the glorious Fourth of July when Billy went to town with his two older brothers to buy firecrackers. Billy stayed in the horse-drawn wagon while they made the purchase.

Unfortunately the older brothers were a bit on the impatient side. They couldn’t wait to get back to the farm to try out the firecrackers. The horses, not particularly patriotic, took to their hooves and set off at a dead gallop.

Billy, clinging to the seat as best he could, jounced from side to side. His mother, catching a glimpse of his face, said that he had such a look of wistful desperation that if he hadn’t survived the adventure, that look would have been for her a sorrowful memory for the rest of her life.

That his life was saved was due to a quick-thinking tramp who had just been visiting my uncle in search of a job.

The entrance to the farm consisted of two high hills, the valley between them was bridged by a few planks over a creek.

The tramp made a quick leap to grab the reins before the frantic horses hit the unrailed plank. All ended well. My uncle who had been disinclined to hire the tramp immediately found that he was desperately in need of a hired man.

My family had its faults, but it was never boring.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)