2004: Rowdy boys don't stop Pam

by Berry Tramel Modified: May 9, 2009 at 11:02 pm •  Published: May 10, 2008

Pam grew up in a quiet home in Henryetta, with only a sister for a sibling and nary a sports fan around.

So she wasn't ready when her young family turned into Wide World of Sports. First one, then two and finally three sons. The thrill of victory. The agony of a wrecked house.

"I thought I'd have all girls," Pam says. "I never dreamed I'd have a bunch of boys."

Welcome to a brave new world.

The two older boys, carousing, knocked a hole in the garage wall. All three boys broke an iron bed frame wrestling around.

"Very rowdy," Pam said. What was that old Jeff Foxworthy joke? If it ain't broke, it ain't ours?

"Applied to us perfectly."

Pam fretted over the fights. "She was afraid they were going to kill each other," said her husband, Dennis. "She was afraid they didn't like each other."

On the family's cross-country sports trips, the boys would drive her so crazy, Pam retreated to the middle seat of the 1988 Ford conversion van, with one boy up front with Dennis, one next to Pam and the other in the back.

Pam had hoped for a girl with her final childbirth, but the baby checked in at over 10 pounds and, sure enough, Boy No. 3. "What are we going to do with another boy?" Dennis asked as Pam lay in the delivery room.

Said Pam, "We're going to love him.

"Many times since, I've said I'm so glad I didn't get to choose what we had. Think of the blessing I would have missed out on."

So Pam and Dennis went about the business of raising their boys in Lincoln County, and the gal who grew up without sports found herself in Ballgame Central. At school, her boys played football, basketball, baseball and track, and at home they turned the house into an Olympiad.

Whiffle ball in the back yard, basketball in the front yard and anything goes in the parlor.

But a funny thing happened. That kind of life grew on Pam. Soon enough, she realized that boys will be boys and that rowdy brothers can bond.

Pam and Dennis fed their boys a steady diet of Bibles and biscuits. Cheesy potatoes from Pam's kitchen and both testaments from the Baptist Church, and who can argue with the results? Her lads are strapping in body and spirit.

by Berry Tramel
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