Walking Home — An Adventure in and of Itself

To much energy for my good

One of the joys of being in school was the friendships that were made. Hopefully, I can get into some of the earlier friendships as well. The names will not be mentioned, but the adventures will be. I need to put a little context here before I get into the meat of this story.

In past articles, I alluded to how much we had to work on the farm, but it was not as strict as it may have appeared. My dad suffered with arthritis much of his adult life, so any help to assist him was welcomed. He was quite strict, but with us two boys, how could it be any different? We both had minds of our own — probably genetic, after hearing stories of Dad with his brothers.

My dad’s father was very strict with him and his brothers, and they got out of there as soon as they were old enough to do so. Times sure were different with that generation. I guess that’s why, for that time, this was called the Greatest Generation — they were pretty tough. I remember talking to an older man we had gotten to know who served in World War II. He was in the infantry. He said they would go on 20-mile hikes with 70-pound backpacks. He told me about a time when he got home on leave, and his mother cooked up a chicken, and he ate the whole thing plus an entire pie in one sitting.

It was different back then. There was so much national pride, unlike today, with much of the population.

Back to what I started to mention — even though my brother and I had to help on the farm, we had lots of freedom. We could head to the woods with my dad’s guns and go squirrel hunting, and this was before the age of sixteen. We learned responsibility and accountability. If we goofed up in school and got the meter stick on the back in junior high, we also got it when we got home. No amount of explaining took away from the teacher’s word.

Now, really back to what I was going to write about.

It was a late spring day while school was still in session. I was a freshman, about fifteen years old. We had an early let-out day, maybe about an hour before normal, but the buses were still on the regular schedule. I had a friend whose first name started with a J, so I’ll refer to him as J, who was coming home with me that day. I talked him into walking home from Spring Green with me.

We followed the railroad tracks and did a lot of talking. We finally made it to the second bridge over the river and went down to soak our feet, just as the bus drove past. My stepmother taught school at Muscoda, so she would not have been home. I wonder what Dad thought when my brother told him we hadn’t ridden the bus? Once we made it back, I think I told him, and it was no big deal.

After we ate supper — as that is what it was called on farms — we decided to go for another walk. A couple of miles across our creek bottom is a hill that has a bald spot on it. We wondered what it would be like to walk over there and see what it looked like from that spot. We crossed the creek on a fallen tree and made it there in about three-quarters of an hour. It was a steep climb, and you could see quite a way from there.

We started back using a slightly different route. We walked down the road, and after crossing the bridge over Otter Creek, we cut through the pasture. It was getting harder to see. All of a sudden, we noticed lights in the sky heading toward us. We had a lot of thoughts about what it could be. As it went over us, we realized it was an Air Force transport plane — they had been flying over in the past. They flew very low, and we later heard they were transferring missile components to a Western state.

We finally made it back with stories to tell. Just another day in the life of a fifteen-year-old.