Chapter Seven - The Morons’ Club Telephone Company

All winter, Fiedelbaum could not let go of the telephone company idea. He began to collect supplies; scrounging supplies was the more accurate term. Although his father made the best ice cream products for miles around, Waldheim was a small market, and there wasn’t much money to spread around, so his allowance wasn’t lucrative. His muscles had the tone of the unexercised and weren’t any good at shoveling grain to make a few extra dollars. In fairness, helping his father make ice cream revels wasn’t conducive to building muscles.

During the winter, he obtained permission from the lineman to attach his line to the existing telephone poles. “Make sure your lines are high enough, so horses and machinery don’t get tangled in it,” was all he said.

When he saw some batteries in the corner of the office, Fiedelbaum asked where he could get batteries. “You have to go to Saskatoon to get them,” Mr. Epp said. “The batteries in the corner may have some juice left in them but are likely dead. If they are of any use, you can have them. It saves me the time of taking them to the dump.”

“I’ll take them all,” Fiedelbaum said. The cylindrical batteries were a foot long and heavy enough to use his toboggan to bring them home. He snuck them into his bedroom and placed them with his messy accumulation of radio and electronic spare parts.

When Poobah came to visit, the clutter in Fiedelbaum’s room surprised him. Despite Poobah’s bad habits, his bedroom in Saskatoon never reached this level of disorder. When Poobah’s Mother had a day off, she would throw out things that disturbed her and rearrange the others. For Poobah, the system worked. There was no effort required of him, and he had become accustomed to his Mother’s standards, even though most weeks he ended up looking for stuff his Mom ‘misplaced.’ “You have a healthy mess going here,” he told Fiedelbaum.

“Well, my Mom and sister have been ordered not to touch my stuff. If they need to clean, they must shuffle in the middle of the room,” Fiedelbaum replied.

Noticing the batteries, Poobah asked, “What are you doing with the batteries?”

“We need them to set up our telephone line,” he said.

“There are quite a few. It must have cost a tidy sum,” Poobah said.

“They’re dead. The lineman gave them to me,” Fiedelbaum said. “I only need to charge them.”

“How are you going to do it?”

“I’m glad you asked. I was going to charge a few today. You want to help?”

Poobah was game.

“Here put this on,” Fiedelbaum said, handing him an old pair of glasses and an old bedsheet. “You don’t want acid in your eyes or on your clothes.”

“Whose old glasses are these?” Poobah asked.

“They are my Dad’s old reading glasses.”

Poobah put them on. “They’re as good as telescopes. Your Dad must always read the fine print.”

Fiedelbaum then handed him a hammer and nail. “Don’t hit the nail too hard. You don’t want to split the battery, or we’ll have acid all over the place. Then my Mom will be mad, and I’ll tell her it was your fault. You need to make two small holes in the top.”

Fiedelbaum dressed in similar attire. They each placed a battery on the desk. They tapped the nail with the hammer until it entered the battery container and then repeated the procedure.

Upon completion of the task, Poobah took off the glasses. “These things are giving me a headache.”

Fiedelbaum went to the kitchen and returned with two slices of lemon. He hooked up the batteries to a small light. It was quite evident to Poobah the battery cells were dead. “Here,” Fiedelbaum said, “we’re going to let our little lights shine.” Fiedelbaum broke into song, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.”

It was a song sung by the kids in Sunday School. Poobah didn’t like it then either.

As Fiedelbaum continued singing, he squeezed a small amount of lemon juice onto the top of the battery. With the nail, he encouraged the juice to enter the holes. He patiently repeated the process several times. Poobah followed suit. Gradually the filament in the light bulb began to glow. “You have to prime the pump,” Fiedelbaum said. “The acid in the lemon is enough to renew the process.” They continued with several more lemon pieces.

Fiedelbaum placed the two batteries on the desk. On a sheet of paper, he wrote in large letters, “Don’t touch the batteries. This means YOU!”

“You never know when your mother or sister enters the room with a dusting rag,” Fiedelbaum explained.

“How are you going to use the batteries?” Poobah asked.

“We need them to power the telegraph keys,” Fiedelbaum replied. “I picked up a used one from the railroad station, and I was given another one at the telephone office.”

“Do you want to help set up the new Morons’ Club Telephone Company telephone line?” Fiedelbaum continued. “Honey has said he would help. He said he could get the insulators and the wire from his father’s general store at ‘family discount’ prices. We’ll start in the spring.”

“It sounds like fun,” Poobah said. “Sure, I’ll help.”

                                   *****

Time passed slowly for Poobah. It seemed like forever since he dropped into this world from a flying outhouse. At times it troubled him. What was his mother doing? Did she miss him? Was this a stupid dream? He had those kinds of nightmares occasionally. They were ones where he could not escape, even when he struggled to become awake. There wasn’t an obvious way out of this 1946 predicament, either. Perhaps he needed to utter a prayer at one of the weekly prayer meetings. He was getting tired of attending and pretending to go through the motions. During the frequent church services, he would daydream of home, his mother, and his bed.

During the winter, boys had practiced their hockey skills by slapping the round frozen horse droppings strewn across the street. It seemed every hockey player worth his salt had horse dropping stains on the blade of their stick. As the spring sun turned the road to mud and slush and softened the horse manure pucks, the boys set aside their hockey sticks. Furthermore, the rink’s wooden boards and the strengthening sun conspired to turn the rink ice to slush ending the hockey season. Finally, spring had arrived.

Fiedelbaum was anxious to get his project underway. With Honey’s ability to raise funds and the help of the ‘family discount,’ insulators and rolls of stovepipe wire were purchased. Fiedelbaum was never adept at raising extra cash. A scrawny kid was never the first one chosen to do physical labor, and the scheme to extract lead from car batteries with Two-Ton failed miserably due to lack of markets for lead in a small town. Hunting gophers for their tails was beneath him. He had too many great ideas to lower himself to redeem tails for a nickel at the town office.

As Honey’s house was across the street from Fiedelbaum’s, it was the site for the first expansion of the Morons’ Club Telephone Company idea. Poobah helped Honey bring the supplies to Fiedelbaum’s house. They brought a spool of wire, a hammer, a bunch of nails, insulators, and some hockey tape.

They began in Fiedelbaum’s room, attaching the battery to the key with wire. Then they rolled out the stovepipe wire, connecting it to the key, before rolling it out the window.

“We’ve got to keep the wire from grounding out under the window,” explained Fiedelbaum. “Get the hockey tape.” Together they wrapped the portion of wire which would touch the window sill with tape.

The wire was then rolled out to the nearby telephone pole. Together, Poobah and Honey raised the ladder against the pole. Fiedelbaum took an insulator, hammer, and nail and climbed to the top of the ladder. “You got to make it high enough,” warned Honey, “so when your uncle drives down the street with his steam engine and threshing machine, he doesn’t catch the wire.” Fiedelbaum went to the top of the ladder with his accomplices holding down the base. He placed the nail into the centre hole of the insulator, and with a few taps of the hammer, it was snug to the telephone pole.

“Those are good porcelain insulators,” Fiedelbaum said as he came down from the ladder.

“They’re the same as the farmers use,” Honey replied, “to put an electric fence around a field to keep the animals inside.”

It was Honey’s turn to ascend the ladder. Carrying the roll of stovepipe wire, he looped the wire around the insulator to secure it, making sure the line to the window was taut.

They repeated the process across the street at the pole in front of Honey’s house, making sure the wire was tight and high above the street. From there, it was short work to bring the cable through the window and into Honey’ s bedroom. Fiedelbaum went home to get the extra key and battery while Honey and Poobah wrapped the wire under the window with hockey tape. Together they primed the battery with lemon juice and attached the key and the battery to the wire.

“This is going to be great,” Honey declared. “We are going to have our private line. No sisters and parents will be on it.”

“No Low German on the party line either,” Poobah offered.

Fiedelbaum laughed, “This line will be like the sausage with two ends!”    It was time for business. “It’s time to practice the Morse Code,” Fiedelbaum said as he pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. “See,” he said, “a series of short beeps and long beeps represents each letter. It’s like your telephone. If it rings one long and two short, you know it is for somebody else on the party line. If it rings two long, you know it is for you. It’s the same in Morse code. The most common letters used are the easiest. Like the letter E, it is one short beep. T is one long beep. A long beep is three times as long as a short beep. The less often used letters are more complicated. A Q is two long, one short, one long.”

“How can you tell when one letter stops, and another begins?” groaned Poobah.

“There is a space of silence equal to three short beeps between letters and a space of seven short beeps between words,” explained Fiedelbaum. “You have to develop an ear for it. Otherwise, it’s only a bunch of beeps.”

They took turns practicing letters and spaces.

“Okay, let’s see if this works,” Fiedelbaum said. “I’ll type something at my house, and you see if you can figure out what I’m tapping in my room. It will be a famous saying. Don’t worry, I’ll leave extra time for the spaces, so you have time to find the letter and write it down.” Fiedelbaum ran to his house.

Shortly after came the first part of the message, a short beep followed by two long beeps. Honey and Poobah looked down the list of letters.

“It’s a W,” Poobah said. Honey wrote it down. Next came four short beeps. “An H,” Poobah said, pointing to the letter on the sheet. Again, Honey dutifully wrote it down.

Fiedelbaum left ample time between letters and words, so the boys at the other end found the translation easy. Suddenly, Fiedelbaum was knocking at the window. “Did you get it?” he asked. Honey opened the window.

“Well, we got something,” Honey said. “It sounds like a Bible verse.”

“Good, now we can sleep in on Sunday mornings, and they can telegraph the sermon to us,” Poobah said, smiling.

“But you wouldn’t do the translation,” Fiedelbaum said. “For you, the beeps would only lullaby you back to sleep.”

“Why was this message important?” Poobah asked.

“It is the first message Samuel Morse wrote over the telegraph line which stretched thirty miles from Baltimore to Washington,” Fiedelbaum said. “What was the message you wrote down?”

“The message I got was, ‘What hath God wrought?’ ” Honey replied.

“It’s the message Morse wrote,” Fiedelbaum stated. “But our telephone worked. Do you want to practice?”

“You bet,” Poobah and Honey chorused. “This could be fun.”

“I’ll go home and key you a message, so you’ll know I’m ready.” Fiedelbaum left in a hurry.

“Setup was quick,” was Fiedelbaum’s first message.

“Yes,” came the reply. Honey told Poobah to keep messages to as few letters as possible.

The keying was slow. Sometimes it was so slow the boys lost their train of thought in the middle of the sentence and then had to make corrections. They began hollering across the street, window to window when they were aware of a mistake. “Forget the last one. I’m starting over again.”  

Eventually, they started talking about girls. It was easier to keep focused. But Morse code wasn’t the medium to get into too much detail. Fiedelbaum asked Honey, “What about Ilene?”

Honey keyed, “Nice.” If Fiedelbaum were in the room with him, he would have expanded his description, and his feelings for her in the usual guy talk. Morse code was a medium far too stiff. ‘Nice’ happened to be only four letters and was as descriptive as his imagination would allow within the limitations of Morse code.

Thinking of his predicament, caught in a world of the past, Poobah keyed, “Girls too old, except Mary. Two-Ton robs cradle.”

“Gee, it’s taking you forever to key,” Honey complained. “It’s my turn.” Honey keyed Fiedelbaum, “No Adventist girls. Looking for Mennonites?” The message took Honey a long time to key, too long. Fiedelbaum’s mother called him for supper. He yelled through his window to Honey, “See you after supper.” Honey ignored Fiedelbaum and finished keying the last few letters.

The boys soon realized Morse Code had its place, where you knew there was somebody at the other end and far away. Too often, the dispatch ended up beeping in an empty room. Despite the telephone’s disadvantages, it still was better than Morse code. If you had a message, it was easier to walk across the street than key the communication or charge the batteries with lemon juice.

The three Morons soon experimented with the earphones Fiedelbaum and Two-Ton had clipped to the telephone line when they called Mary. The experiment was successful, and because you didn’t need to use the key, the batteries were unnecessary. Perhaps the other members of the Morons would be interested.

After a meeting of the Morons’ club at school, Fiedelbaum had convinced several members to enlist in the new telephone service. However, he wasn’t persuasive enough to get other Morons to help with the grunt work of running the wire to each home. “Homework,” said one. “Girls,” said another. The excuses weren’t worth the penny for their thoughts.

The Morons’ Club Telephone Company got some financial help for the wire and insulators from their fellow Morons. Fiedelbaum, Poobah, and Honey started stringing up the cable the next Sunday afternoon. They attached the new wire to the poles running between their houses and started making their way from pole to pole.

“How come Poobah and I have to carry the ladder all the time?” Honey complained. The ladder bit into their shoulders.

“Because you are younger, stronger, and athletic,” Fiedelbaum smirked. “Besides, you seem to have an aptitude for being ladder-laden persons, and by the way, the ladder looks good on you.”

Honey laughed, “I think we’re the stupid subjects of a Morontator.”

The job was tedious. Up and down the ladder, the boys climbed hammering the insulator to the pole, stretching the wire and looping it around the insulator tightly so the cable couldn’t slide off.

Two-Ton and Poobah were the first to receive the alternate telephone service as Two-Ton’s house was only a block away. Others on the same side of town were next. The work was completed on different Sundays as the boys had time. Red Dawg had wanted a line up to his house, but he lived on the other side of the railroad tracks.

“How are we going to get this wire over the tracks without the train taking it out every Friday when it comes to town?” Honey asked. “We can’t put the wire under the tracks as that would ground the signal.”

“We need to raise the wire high enough,” Fiedelbaum replied.

“There aren’t any poles which would get the wire high enough,” Honey said.

“There is a telephone pole close to the train station, and then on the other side of the tracks is the United Grain Growers grain elevator.” For Fiedelbaum, if there was a will, there was always a way.

“Are you saying we need to take the wires over the elevator?” Honey gasped.

“Not the elevator, Moron,” Fiedelbaum chided. “We’ll only take it over the elevator annex.”

“How are we going to do this?” Honey smirked. “You can hardly throw a ball. What are you going to do with a roll of wire?”

“Well, you’re the athlete,” Fiedelbaum pointed out. “You figure it out.”

“The annex is close to seventy feet high,” Poobah said. “Nobody here is going to get it over. It’s crazy! Let Red Dawg wish he had the telephone line.”

“It’s perfectly Moronic,” was Fiedelbaum’s reply. “See, there is a ladder on the side of the annex. We’ll climb it.”

“What do you mean, we?” Honey protested. “I’m not going up there. I’m afraid of heights. If a guy falls from seventy feet, he’ll create a six-foot crater, and all we will need to do is fill in the hole.”

Fiedelbaum turned to Poobah. “You want to be a hero, Poobah?”

“If I fell from seventy feet, I’d be dead before I was born,” Poobah said. “I don’t need this complication in my life right now.”

“You mean dead before you’ve lived,” Honey corrected. “I have those same feelings.”

“Both,” Poobah said. Poobah’s comment received no further discussion.

Fiedelbaum sighed, “I guess the guy with no muscles, the unathletic one needs to go. I’m not afraid.”

“You’re going to get into trouble. What are the station master and the elevator agent going to say?” Honey cautioned.

“You forgot. It’s Sunday. They have an afternoon nap to keep them busy.” Fiedelbaum was determined. “Help me rig a harness for the wire roll.”

“Well, what will your Dad think? He works on Sunday, and the confectionery is across the street. He’s going to see you climbing the annex,” Honey objected.

“Look, if this is bothering you so much, you should do the climbing,” Fiedelbaum snapped.

“I’m not going up there,” Honey said, “This is stupid and dangerous.”

“Well, I guess it’s me then, isn’t it?” Fiedelbaum’s pride was taking over. “Besides, Dad never stands and looks out the front windows. He’ll be in the back working with the chocolate Easter molds, making a batch of soft ice- cream or making revels. He’s got lots to do. Another thing, the railroad station, is in his sightline and blocks his view from the window.”

They found a piece of rope near the elevator, placed it through the centre of the wire roll, and looped it over Fiedelbaum’s head. Fiedelbaum put his right hand through the rope so he could use both hands, climbing the ladder and still control the release of the wire from the roll. They walked to the ladder. The first rung was six feet above the ground to discourage foolish boys. “Give me a boost so I can get to the first rung,” Fiedelbaum ordered.

“Climb on my shoulders,” Honey said as he knelt. Poobah helped Fiedelbaum climb up. Fiedelbaum’s shoes ground into Honey’s collar bone as he got into position. Slowly Honey rose to his feet, lifting Fiedelbaum to the first rung. Fiedelbaum placed his foot on it and began his ascent.

Honey and Poobah retreated to the station platform across the tracks. “Fiedelbaum is going be one sore boy in the morning. He is going to use every muscle in his body for this climb, and he doesn’t have many,” Honey said.

Slowly but surely, Fiedelbaum made his way up the elevator annex. His pockets filled with insulators and nails; his hammer strapped to his waist by his belt. He let the roll of wire unwind bit by bit as he ascended. Halfway up, his arms began to ache, and his legs burned. Locking his arm around a rung, he stopped to look at his surroundings. Honey and Poobah were sitting on the edge of the station platform, their heads in their hands. The Sunday streets were quiet as usual. People visited or napped as the Mennonites observed their day of rest. His father, the only Seventh Day Adventist businessman in town, used this day to catch up on his revel making and chocolate molding so he’d have enough to sell during the coming week.

Fiedelbaum resumed his seemingly endless climb. As he neared the top, he realized he would face a major obstacle to gaining access to the roof. The annex roof had a foot-wide overhang so that the rain wouldn’t run down the walls. The approach to the top now filled him with dread. He was no longer the self-confident boy he had been below in front of his friends and felt every bit the moron for not heeding their warning. But backing out now was not in the cards. His tradition had taught him to pray when he was in a tough situation. He prayed hard. “God, help your moron out of this situation. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m scared.” He felt foolish praying this prayer because the most obvious answer was to turn back. Turning back would take care of his fear and bring him to the ground safely. It was a predicament of his own making, and it was only his pride that kept him going upwards to the overhang. He had heard sermons of pride coming before a downfall, and this fall was in the neighborhood of seventy feet. Red Dawg didn’t need the telephone line. He wasn’t even out here helping.

The last few rungs were difficult. Gravity’s pull on the wire dug into Fiedelbaum’s shoulder, making him lean backward. Finally, he reached the overhang and wedged himself underneath. His feet were on the second last rung, while he clung to the top rung with one hand. With his other hand, he groped for the ladder on the roof. The rough texture of cedar shingles greeted his desperate fingers. Returning his hand to the top rung, he leaned back to look on the roof. Leaning back brought back the fear. He began shaking. The roof ladder was there, but he would need to stand upright to reach it. Fiedelbaum returned to the safety of wedging himself beneath the overhang to think.

Two problems needed solutions. Fiedelbaum needed something to hang onto between the top rung and the ladder on the roof. He also needed to deal with the spool of wire. The reel hooking onto the overhang while he climbed onto the roof edge would be dangerous. His resources were limited: nails and insulators. Ahh! Nails could be the answer! He lowered himself one rung, then hooked a leg onto the one above for balance. Retrieving the longest nail from his pocket and the hammer from his belt, he pounded the nail into the rafter until it provided a solid hook for the spool. Carefully he removed the reel from the rope and placed it over the nail. He checked its firmness. He knew if the wire fell to the ground, there wouldn’t be a willingness to repeat the ordeal.

He selected a second nail, hammered it into the roof for a handhold. Placing both feet onto the second last rung and hanging onto the nail with his left hand, he could steady himself while standing up. With his right hand, he reached for the bottom rung of the roof ladder. As he grabbed the rung, he released his left hand to join the right on the roof ladder. Using all the strength of his mighty pecs and biceps, as he would later describe the effort to his friends below, he dragged himself onto the roof.

The pitch of the roof was steeper than he had expected. Hanging onto the ladder with his legs, he reached down to remove the spool of wire off the nail. Images of falling headlong down from the annex filled his thoughts. For a moment, fear paralyzed him. He caught a glimpse of his friends below walking in nervous circles, holding their heads. The fingers of his left hand touched the spool’s rim. The fingers pulled the spool weight off the nail. Fiedelbaum slid the spool up the roof until the lower part of the spool opening caught the nail. With a lunge, he grabbed the centre of the reel and pulled it off the nail.

The lunge caused the boys below to scream in terror. The pacing intensified as they could scarcely look up at the drama above.

Fiedelbaum pulled the wire close to his body and with his free hand, reached back to the ladder to pull himself up to its safety. He felt weak; his heart raced and refused to settle down. He placed his feet on the lower rung while he sat on the second. He took another nail and insulator and drove it into the roof near the ladder and hooked the wire on it. He then sat for a long time, with his head in his hands. Fear overcame him and froze him to the ladder. He thought of the need to complete the job and then the task of getting off the roof. The precariousness of his situation paralyzed him in the seating position. He thought of praying again, but he had ignored the previous obvious answer. All he could realistically expect from a new request of the Creator would be a thunderbolt. He sat there for a long time, waiting for lightning and the low rumble of thunder. None came.

Poobah turned to Honey. “What’s he doing up there?”

“Well, if it were me, I’d be praying up a storm,” Honey replied.

“A storm would be stupid,” Poobah replied. “Rain would make the roof even more slippery, and lightning would roast you before you hit the ground.”

“Never mind.” Honey was beginning to realize all the church Poobah was attending wasn’t having the desired effect. Putting his hands to his mouth, he shouted, “Fiedelbaum, are you okay?”

There was no reply. Eventually, Fiedelbaum turned and continued the construction of the Morons’ Club Telephone Company’s line to Red Dawg. He set aside his fear. He knew if he gave in to terror and panic, he would never get down to earth. The steep slope allowed him to put the first insulator midway up the roof. He placed another two insulators at the top, one on each side of the peak, to keep the wire off the shingles. He took the roll of cable from the nail and placed it between the rungs of the ladder to keep it from sliding off.

The next step was to tighten the wire. Bracing himself on the ladder, Fiedelbaum pulled as hard as he could and then twisted it around the insulator several times. He checked below. The wire was high enough, so the train wouldn’t clip it when it went through town. Then he strung the wire around the next two insulators, making sure it was taut enough not to touch the roof. He placed the roll back onto his shoulder.

There was no ladder down the other side of the roof. However, there was something to be said for symmetry. Perhaps it would be good to place another insulator halfway down the other side.

Fiedelbaum took one step down the east side of the elevator annex. His well- worn leather soles slipped from beneath him. Twisting, he reached for the last insulator he had installed but missed. His scream roused Honey and Poobah, but they could see nothing and didn’t know where to go or what to do. Gathering speed down the incline, he grabbed at the wire, which was unraveling from the roll. Mustering all the strength in his hands, he bent the wire, creating a handhold which slowed his downward slide. The edges of his shoes dug into the shingles to bring him to a stop. Fiedelbaum’s shaking resumed. His heart seemed to want to pound its way through his chest. To calm himself, he began to sing a hymn softly to himself. “Nearer my God to thee.” Slowly, using the wire as support, he rose to his feet, fastened the insulator to the roof. Then he looped and tightened the wire around the last insulator and climbed back to the peak with the aid of the cable. Having reached safety, he looked at his bleeding hands.

“Are you, all right?” called a concerned Honey from below.

“I have redefined the word moron,” Fiedelbaum yelled back. “Now it only means stupid! I’m coming down.”

Feidelbaum rolled down the wire down the other side. It hit the ground with a thud. Carefully, he proceeded down the ladder, his body still shaking. With the help of the nail, he negotiated his way over the edge of the roof and onto the ladder beneath the ledge. He made his way down as quickly as he could. When he reached the last rung, he let himself drop the remaining six feet to the ground.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Fiedelbaum snapped as soon as he touched the earth. His friends’ questions halted between their tongues and their lips. They shut their mouths without uttering a sound. Together they went to the other side of the elevator, picked up the roll of wire, and attached it to the nearest telephone pole. Conveniently it was the end of the cable, and they wound it around the post. The rest of the job would have to wait until next week.

“You want a revel? I’ll buy you one,” Honey offered.

Fiedelbaum shook his head. The three walked home in silence; Honey and Poobah carried the ladder.

The following weekend, the threesome completed the installation of Clifford’s line. The Morons were now connected. At first, there was great interest, and they dedicated an hour each day to communicate. Gradually, the Morons lost interest. It was hard to sustain some of the topics. Talking of girls, got old when only a few had girlfriends, and teasing those who did quickly became repetitious. Furthermore, when you wanted to speak to a specific Moron, he often wasn’t in his room, and in the end, you had to use the telephone to ask someone to get him to go to his room. You might as well use the regular phone.

For Fiedelbaum, Poobah, and Honey, connecting all the Morons was disappointing. For Fiedelbaum, whose mind harbored great ideas, it was humbling. For Honey, it was the stuff of legend. “It was the day we nearly lost Fiedelbaum,” he liked to say whenever he retold the story. For Poobah, it was a cautionary tale. He developed a fear of heights, swearing off anything above the elevation of six feet, and he would be avoiding all flying outhouses and grain elevators at all costs.