The Rocking Chair Caper

Way back in about 1974 or 1975, I was a supervisor of an off-highway truck assembly line at Caterpillar in Decatur, Illinois. My day usually ended about 4:00 in the afternoon. I had a large family of six children at the time, one of which was my very young son, Paul Jr. On this particular day as I entered the house, I was greeted with the news that my young son Paul had been rescued by the Decatur Fire Department. He had somehow managed to get his head stuck between the front rungs of our old wooden rocking chair in the living room. After frantic attempts to get Paul unstuck, there apparently was no other option than to call the Decatur Fire Department.

Once the firemen saw the problem, they immediately set to work to free my son's head, but all attempts seemed futile. Then one of them said to my wife, "I think we will have to cut the rung out to free his head." That would have ruined the chair. Then another of the firefighters said, "Wait, I have an idea." He rushed out to the fire truck and returned with a can of STP. He smeared it on the sides of young Paul's head and in short order he was free from the rocking chair with no damage to the chair or to Paul's head. I was happy to hear the news, so I laughed and went about my business.

The following morning, I went to work at Caterpillar. I was immediately greeted by the jeers of some of my assembly staff who had read the accounts of the rocking chair caper in the local morning newspaper. One asked me, "Paul, how in the heck did you get your head stuck in the rocking chair?" I knew immediately that he and several others thought it was my head that was stuck in the rocker, so my attempts to tell them otherwise fell on deaf ears. "I tried to explain, "That was my two-year-old son Paul. He has the same name as me."

"Yeah, yeah, a likely story," one of my assemblers said. Whether they ever believed me or not, I was never sure. But it caused quite a laugh to start that day.