An 'Old Salt' in the making

It is 1951, we are still in Neue Muehle, my sister is no longer my class teacher BUT roles have changed. Now I am her Tormentor. It is the big summer break from school - six weeks holiday during the best part of the year - summer! Gisela, my sister, has no such luxuries as a long summer break. In those days teachers worked during the break to create lesson plans, assignments and various other stuff they had to attend to.
I however, was free to pursue whatever took my fancy - water was the operative thing.
Gisela would come home for lunch to ensure I was fed - Mum was working full time in a Konsum - the then equivalent of a supermarket, if you can call 500 items on the shelf a supermarket. Besides, variety was not on the menu then, one brand per category (they call it home brands now) like flour, sugar, rice, margarine (butter was a luxury not approved by the commies), bread, and so on.
Well, one day Gisela came home and I was nowhere to be seen. She thought that quite odd, or rather disturbing, since I have always been keen on my food and being fed on time.
Having a tendency to be a panic merchant she ran around the village to locate me! Eventually it occurred to her to look across the river - there I was, intrepid as ever paddling my newly fashioned boat across the 'wide' expanse of the Staabe, as that part of the river is called near where we lived. The river wasn't really that wide, but for a boy of nine it might as well have been the ocean. My 'boat' was in reality Mum's wash trough, made of wood and just large enough to contain me.

Boat No. 1 - gaining experience

There was, however, one very minor problem with the design of the boat. The wooden trough, being designed for washing clothes, had a plug hole with a plug inserted from the top! It was designed to have water in it - not under it. Thus, as I paddled along the ruddy plug would either leak or pop out altogether, either way filling my fine vessel with water and reducing free board all the time.
Once Gisela saw me, in what she thought was an absolutely perilous state, she let out one of those female panic screeches that could be heard from here to eternity.
Don't know what the panic was all about - very simple problem to solve: put plug back in, put your heel on the darned thing and bail the boat out as best you can - continue paddling.
Well, when I got back ashore I got two swift slaps around the ear holes, a verbal bollocking and a stern promise to tell mum how naughty I had been.
When Mum came home she got the whole horrid story from Gisela, how I had caused her to nearly have a heart attack and the potential of me drowning. I have seldom seen mum laugh so heartily!
"Gisela, he is a water rat, he won't drown. Besides he can swim! But you, boy, never, never ever use my wash trough as a boat again, you hear me?" Hey, what can you reply but "Yes mum".
Till next day, when out came the trough and the river adventure continued. I hadn't fashioned these 'racing paddles' out of scraps of wood I 'acquired' for nothing. Just made sure the plug was most securely in place next time.