The Class of 1962 Reunion

Across the Fence #410

The 50^th reunion of the Westby High School class of 1962 is now history. In five years those of us who are still above ground will gather again and visit together. From here on out, our reunions will be more of a celebration of life. If I’m still kickin’, rockin’, and writin’ when the next reunion rolls around, I’ll be 73, the same age as my mother when she died. The average age of my four grandparents was 69. Uff da!

We found that confronting your mortality is part of reaching a 50^th class reunion. Ten of our 79 classmates didn’t make it. We remembered them at the beginning of the evening by lighting a candle for each of them as their name was read.

38 of us did show up out of the remaining 69 class members. It was nice to see everyone and there were only a couple of people that I wouldn’t have recognized if we had met on the street. Let’s face it; we all change physically after 50 years. As anyone who has attended a 50^th reunion knows, it’s nice to reach this stage of life because no one tries to put on airs or tries to be something they aren’t. We are who we are. As one classmate said, “Maybe because we are all older and basically in the same boat, we are pretty much at peace with who we are and where we are, so we can let down and just appreciate each other more.” 

That sentiment was very evident during the evening as we talked, laughed, and enjoyed catching up on what everyone was doing. At this stage, that included telling about grandchildren and, in several cases, great grandchildren.

I had only attended three other reunions. Lets just say that high school was not the high point of my life. I never felt like I belonged. Looking back, it was my own fault. I was very shy and lacked confidence at that point in my life. The thought of getting up in front of a class and speaking shot fear into my heart and weakened my knees. I envied those classmates who seemed to have all the qualities I felt I lacked. The wisdom of years has taught me that I was not alone. 

I’ve discovered over the years that many of my fellow students had the same insecurities that I had at that age. Now that we’re older, we even dare to admit that high school was a difficult time. Several of us talked about that during the reunion.

When some of my classmates found out that I write a weekly newspaper column and have several books, one said, “You must have been paying attention in English class.” I said that I thought I had until I came across an old report card one day. Miss Schoville gave me a C in English. I wonder if that had anything to do with that unflattering picture of a teacher that she always accused me of drawing? Probably not. Looking back, my high school years are like a photo that’s out of focus or underdeveloped. I know it’s there but nothing stands out. 

I mentioned that while going through my senior annual to refresh my memory before the reunion, I came across a picture of the student council. I was surprised to see myself in the photo. I don’t even remember being on the council. If there was an election, I couldn’t imagine anyone voting for me back then. Its no wonder so many people never attend a high school reunion. They felt like they were on the outside looking in during high school, and those feelings are hard to shake.

But now it’s been 50 years and a lot of water has tumbled over the rocks and traveled on down the stream. Many of us have even managed to break out of the shell we were trapped in during our high school years. What a different experience we could have had if we had been able to crack that shell open while we were still in school. This guy who used to be terrified to speak in front of his high school class, now enjoys public speaking and has given numerous speeches and presentations over the years. If you’ve had the same fear, take heart, it can be confronted and conquered. 

Several of us marveled that we’re still alive when looking back on some of the foolhardy things teenagers do when they think they’re immortal. We remembered the time when four of us were heading back to Westby on a country road one evening. The driver admitted that he was doing close to 90 miles an hour when we came over the crest of a hill with a slight curve at the bottom. The car went airborne and began fishtailing when it landed. My friend managed to bring the car under control. If he had lost control we’d have rolled and flipped several times. There were no seatbelts in that car in ’62. I think four more candles would have been lit at the reunion if we had crashed.

That was the summer of ’62. We had survived high school and were ready to take the next step on the ladder of life. Some of us wouldn’t see each other again for 50 years. It was nice to renew those old friendships. We’ll keep climbing that ladder together. 

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The Ghosts of Summer

Across the Fence #409

The ghosts of summer glide slowly past my window, as I sit in the comfort of our home and look out upon the darkness of the night. I can’t see them, but I know they linger out there in the dark, before they take flight, leaving only the full September moon, suspended in a cloudless sky, to light their way as they journey south.

There’s a chill in the air. Overnight I’ve gone from t-shirt and shorts to sweatshirt and long pants. The early chill is the point man, reminding us that the main force will soon be arriving. Where did summer go? Did the early chill drive summer out, leaving only the ghostly memories behind? I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, streaks of yellow and gold had replaced the deep shades of green among the trees. The brilliance of wildflowers had faded and left behind withered remnants of what had been. The countryside is in a state of transition from summer to fall. All this happened in the blink of an eye. How did summer disappear so fast? It seems like it just arrived yesterday. But I blinked and it was gone.

Now I see only the ghostly images of the summer that was. Before I blinked, birds of all kinds descended on our bird feeders. They drank and bathed in the water of our birdbath on a daily basis. There was always activity. Now all is quiet. The birds have been flocking together, preparing for the long journey south. The feeder hangs unused, waiting for the winter birds to arrive.  

Once again I’ve heard the wonderful honking of the geese as they pass overhead. I’ll never tire of that sound. Each year, that haunting sound ignites a restlessness, deep within my being. Apparitions from my evolutionary past rise to the surface and I want to take wing and follow them. Maybe we’re meant to head south for the winter, instead of burrowing into our northern shelters and riding out the long winter that awaits us. That chill in the air reminds me that summer is lying on it’s deathbed and very soon, only the ghosts of summer will linger in our memory. 

The summers seem to pass so quickly, leaving only ghostly images behind: The countryside turning many shades of green and filling out; the smell of new-mown hay; the sound of water gurgling over the rocks in a stream as you try to outsmart a trout; corn fields turning green and reaching more than knee-high by the 4^th of July; fireworks filling the air; the sound of a bat making contact with a baseball; the feel of the cool grass as you stretch out on it in the cool shade of a maple tree; the wonderful sound of a windmill pumping water on a hot day, if you can find one to listen to; the soothing sound of the breeze as it ripples through the leaves of the trees; the sight of cows as they make their way along a cow path, heading toward the pasture; a field of oats waving in the breeze like waves on an ocean; driving along a country road with a canopy of green over you, soothing you with welcome shade on a hot, humid day; bugs that envelop and “bug” you the minute you step outside; smearing yourself with Absorbine Jr. so you can venture outside; the sound of crickets and tree frogs serenading you with their nightly concerts; fireflies lighting up the dark country nights; watching the glowing embers in the bottom of the firepit on a quiet evening; watching dark thunderclouds coming across the prairie; watching lightning dance across the sky in the distance and light up a dark night; sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee, listening to the sounds of silence, the wind gently moving the leaves of the trees, and birds announcing the beginning of a new day; the sound of rain gently beating on the roof; the sound of a thunderstorm as the lightning flashes, thunder crashes, and the rain beats against the windows; and the sound of birds singing in the trees after the storm has passed, as they celebrate the many moods of summer.

We all have our own ghostly images of summer, etched in our memories. Just as we all grow older and eventually leave this life, summer has moved on, making way for a new season in our lives. The chill of fall has arrived and now the ghosts of summer are all we are left with. They are not to be feared, but ones we can embrace as we remember the summer that was. It just seems to me that the summers disappear faster the older I get. It’s gone in that blink of an eye that I mentioned. 

Now we begin the days of fall; that all too brief period of time, when the countryside is alive with color, and we love to spend the days outside. I wish fall could last as long as winter seems to be with us, but it passes much too quickly. We barely have time to say our goodbyes to the ghosts of summer before the ghosts of fall arrive.

Take some time to sit back, reflect on the summer that was, and enjoy the ghosts of summer that you encounter.  

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Our Grandson's Journey Has Begun

Across the Fence #408

During the Labor Day weekend, our grandson, Sean, became the fifth generation of our family to spend time on this farm near Westby. His mother, Amy, visited her grandparents here, his grandfather, Howard (that’s me), grew up here and now lives on a small corner of the farm, his great grandparents, Hans and Anna Sherpe, lived here, and his great, great grandmother, Inga Sherpe lived here. 

While they were visiting, Amy sat and rocked Sean in the same old rocking chair that my Grandma Inga rocked me in. I suspect she also rocked my father in that same rocker when he was young. My mother and Linda rocked Erik and Amy in it when they were young. There’s a lot of history in that old rocker. It was made by the Wisconsin Chair Company in Port Washington, Wisconsin between 1888 and 1910. It has a lot of creaks and groans but it can still rock and roll. Not bad for being over 100 years old.

While they were here, Sean got to experience some good country air here in Sherpeland. I carried him outside and we walked along the cornfield. He was very attentive to the sound and motion of the corn leaves blowing in the wind. Walking along the edge of the grove of trees next to our house also kept his attention. His head was going back and forth like a booblehead doll, as he seemed mesmerized by all the flittering leaves. 

When he gets older we’ll take him on hikes around the back forty. Tim, Sweeney – our Grand dog, and I took a hike down by the pond behind our house. As we approached the brush and trees near the pond, two deer took flight with their white tails waving goodbye to us, as they bounded across the hay field before disappearing into the safety of the corn. I hope Sean will have the thrill of seeing a similar sight when he gets older.

I’m glad that Tim and Amy are already taking him on walks on the nature trails near their home. An appreciation of nature should be an important part of everyone’s education, especially now, when urban living provides less opportunity for many people to experience the natural world. We still have plenty of wild areas here in the Driftless Area to explore. I hope development doesn’t destroy the unspoiled beauty of this place so Sean will have the fun of exploring it as he grows older.

The Saturday after Labor Day, Sean will be three months old. Those first three months sure went fast. He’s experienced his first summer, although most of it was spent inside. It was the first of many firsts for him. Today, while older kids went back to school, he spent his first day in Day Care. Amy had to return to work after three months maternity leave and I’m sure it was a hard day for her as she experienced what all parents do as their child goes on to the next stage in their life. It’s hard, whether it’s the first day of Day Care, the first day of school, or leaving home for college. It’s not easy being a parent, but raising a child is one of the most important things you’ll ever do. 

As I looked at our little grandchild, saw his smile, watched his hands always moving and his feet kicking, and thought of how dependent he is now for everything, I hoped that I would be around to see him grow into an independent young man. I also wondered what kind of world we are going to leave for him. 

As I looked at him I wondered, ‘How could anyone harm or beat a child?’ You hear about it all the time on the news. I have no tolerance for that. I suspect alcohol or drugs are often involved when a child is harmed. 

Parenting is a big job and yet there are no schools where a person can go to study and come out four or five years later with a bachelor’s degree in parenting. You need a degree for most jobs these days, but any fool can become a parent. That’s a scary thought when you consider what an important job it is. 

When we watch how Amy cares for and interacts with Sean, we see someone who has already become a wonderful mother. I like to think she learned that from how her mother raised and treated her and Erik. Sean is in good hands. His whole life is before him and anything is possible. 

In a recent column I mentioned a classmate who said, “Don’t forget to take some time for what’s TRULY important.” My friend Tom in Madison wrote back and said, “So what is Truly important? I’d say it’s how a person values other people and other creatures.” Tom hit the nail on the head with that statement. 

Everything boils down to how we treat other people and all creatures around us. I hope our grandson can grow up with those words as the core of his values. If he does, he will be a success in life no matter what he does for a living.

Isn’t it interesting what thoughts go through your mind when holding a grandchild and wanting the best world possible for them? I wish him all the best on his journey through life.

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Where Has the Time Gone?

Across the Fence #407

Two recent deaths and an upcoming reunion have made me reflect on the passing of time. Where has it gone?

The first death was that of Phyllis Diller on August 20th. It surprised me when I heard she was 95. In my mind I still pictured her as the wise-cracking comedian, trading one-liners with Bob Hope during his USO Christmas show when they stopped at Pleiku, Vietnam in 1966. Then I realized it was 46 years ago, but sometimes it seems like yesterday. 46 years! No wonder she was 95 years old when she died.

The second death was astronaut Neil Armstrong on August 25th. Again it surprised me to hear that he was 82 years old. I hadn’t seen any recent photos of him or heard much about him for a long time. In my mind he was still that image of an Apollo 11 astronaut climbing down the ladder and becoming the first man to set foot on the moon, and announcing to the world, “That was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I remember being glued to the small black and white TV screen in our apartment in Madison. It was July 20, 1969. The Vietnam War was dominating the news and this gave the world something positive to think about. I remember thinking that it was nice to know the human race was capable of doing more than just trying to kill each other. That moon landing doesn’t seem that long ago either, but it’s been 43 years. No wonder Neil Armstong was 82 years old when he died.

The third event that makes me wonder where the time has gone is my upcoming high school reunion in a few days. It will mark 50 years since the class of 1962 graduated from Westby High School. It can’t be? Where did the time go? I remember when my parents had their 50^th class reunions. I remember thinking, ‘They won’t be having much of a class reunion. They can’t have that many classmates who are still alive!’

Well, hello to the reality of life. Here we are, the class of 1962, ready to celebrate our 50^th reunion. Where did the time go? I don’t feel old enough to be staring down the barrel of my 50^th reunion, at least not mentally. Physically, it’s a different story. Arthritic joints make it hard to move the old body like it used to. I’m hoping I’m not the only balding, overweight, arthritic, old geezer at our reunion. I haven’t seen some of my classmates since we graduated. In my mind I still see them as 18-years old. In reality, I’ll walk into the room, looking for all the old familiar faces, and to my surprise, I’ll see nothing but old people.  Where are my classmates? I’ll tell Linda, “We must be in the wrong Legion building. I’ve never seen these people before.” They’ll be looking at me too and trying to figure out who the old duffer is. They’ll be thinking ‘Maybe he’s an old vet who wandered into the Legion, not realizing there’s a reunion going on.’

It reminds me of a true story that happened to one of my classmates. A friend of his from work died and he went to the visitation in La Crosse. When he arrived there was a long line waiting to go into the funeral home. He didn’t see anyone he knew, but this was a man he had worked with, so he didn’t know any of his family. After standing in line for over half an hour he finally got up to the casket to pay his respects and didn’t recognize the person in the casket. That’s when he realized he was at the wrong funeral home. He did the only thing a person could do under the circumstances. He offered his condolences to the family and then quickly left the building. Class reunions are a little like that. There will be a lot of strangers in the place.

Out of our graduating class of 79 people we’ve lost 10 classmates. Their deaths didn’t make the national news, like Phyllis Diller and Neil Armstrong, but they were all important to those of us who knew them. We never know when the roll will be called that has our name on it.

Last year, we lost our classmate, Ardy Sloane. It’s always shocking to lose someone your age. It’s even more shocking when it comes suddenly and unexpectedly. Our upcoming reunion made me think of her this week. She was looking forward to this 50^th reunion. We said the two of us would probably be the only ones who weren’t retired. Now I might be the only person still working full-time.

  

Ardy was an English and Journalism teacher in Central City, Iowa. She stayed in touch by sending e-mail comments about things I’d written in my columns. I enjoyed receiving them and miss her many observations about life. After reading a story about taking time, she wrote: “You are so right...taking time for what’s important is TRULY important. This old world seems to be spinning too fast... where has all the time gone since we graduated?”

I don’t know. I guess we left it between 1962 and 2012. As we continue our journey, don’t forget to take some time for what’s TRULY important.

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Flies Are Here To Stay

Across the Fence #406

I was speaking at a conference recently when a couple of pesky flies kept buzzing around my head. I told the group my next column would be about flies. It’s that time of year when houseflies are most abundant. I’ve often wondered what the purpose of a fly is? The only answer I can come up with is to irritate us.

  

Luckily for us, predators, parasites, fly swatters, fly paper, bug zappers, rolled-up newspapers, and other fly killers, greatly reduce the fly population, or they would probably take over the earth. Next time you see a spider, don’t be so hasty to squish it or knock down its intricate fly-trapping web. They love flies! Nobody has ever said to me, “I love flies.” I think only spiders and another fly could love a fly.

Flies of one kind or another have been around for a long time. The oldest fly fossil, a limoniid crane fly, is some 225 million years old. True houseflies are believed to have evolved in the beginning of the Cenozoic era, about 65 million years ago. I’d bet that the human species has been trying to kill flies since they could first grasp a stick and try to smash them. It doesn’t look like killing a few flies is going to make them extinct real soon. I read that there are more than 100,000 different species of flies! Who’s got the time to sit around and count them? Most of us just swat the pesky critters and are happy to get rid of them.

   

Flies were an everyday part of our lives on the farm. We could predict an approaching storm by their behavior. Flies have great vision, quick reflexes, and are great weather prognosticators. When I was young, we didn’t need the Weather Channel to see if a storm was approaching, we just looked at the kitchen screen door at our farm. “Looks like it’s gonna’ rain. The screen door’s covered with flies.” They seemed to know a storm was coming and they would be safer and dryer if they could get inside the house.

Somehow they always managed to get in the house no matter what we did. We had screens on the windows and doors, but they didn’t fit very tight, allowing flies to find a way into the house. Plus, every time we opened the door, flies would enter too. I can’t blame them; they probably smelled the good food that Ma was cooking inside!

When I was growing up, a fly swatter was an essential part of our house. Fly paper ribbons hanging from the kitchen ceiling were also a fixture. Do you remember using them? Younger people may not be familiar with fly paper. I haven’t seen one hanging around for a long time. It wasn’t the most appetizing sight to have those coiled strips full of buzzing flies stuck to them, but it was better than having the flies parading through our food while we were trying to eat. The flies loved Ma’s cooking as much as we did.

The old two-holer during the summer, was also a favorite gathering place for flies. Spiders knew it was a great source of food too. There were plenty of spider webs decorating every corner with an abundance of trapped flies, that had been searching for a meal. Now they waited to become a meal. Man’s irritation is a spiders delight. I remember always checking the hole before sitting down in case a spider had spun a web across the hole. A trip to the outhouse was always an adventure.

We had an overabundance of flies in the barn. Needless to say, manure and flies go hand in hand, and there was no shortage of either around the barn!

Every person who’s milked a cow during hot summer days knows the irritation and perils of flies buzzing around cows. There’s nothing like the stinging slap of a cow’s tail alongside your face, as she tries to swat the flies away. We won’t even talk about the fun of getting a soggy, you-know-what-soaked tail across the face! Now I see most cows have had their tails clipped. That would have kept the tail from whipping you across the face, but how does a cow without a tail swat at the flies that are constantly buzzing around them?

When I think of flies in the barn I’m also reminded of the use of DDT to control them. Each morning and evening after we brought the cows in from the pasture and put them in the barn, we used a hand-pump sprayer and went down the line, spraying each cow. The mist from the DDT spray would hang like fog in the air. Soon, hundreds of dying flies covered the barn floor and we’d sweep them into the gutter. If only we had known about the health hazards of breathing in all that DDT. I can still “taste” that spray when I think about it.

It’s a wonder we’ve lived this long, growing up with filthy flies that shared our food, breathing in poisonous DDT, being smacked upside the head by soggy cow’s tails, and dealing with outhouse-dwelling spiders!

It just goes to show, you’ve gotta’ be darn tough to share this world with pesky, irritating flies and survive. Now, if you’ll kindly pass me the flyswatter, here comes another one.

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Tobacco Harvest Was Hard Work

Across the Fence #205

Tobacco used to be king in Vernon County where we live. Dairy farming was the main source of income on most farms, but the tobacco crop helped pay the taxes and in many cases paid off the mortgage. Today it’d be hard to find a tobacco plant in the whole county. 

The countryside is filled with tobacco sheds that stand empty and are deteriorating from lack of use and maintenance. Those old shed were starting to fill up this time of year when I was young.

My father was a dairy farmer, but he was also well known as a tobacco farmer, just as his father and grandfather had been. I know he actually enjoyed raising tobacco and was proud of the quality of the tobacco he produced. We raised 12 acres for many years while I was growing up. It was big, heavy tobacco. We had a huge field west of the barn that looked like a sea of tobacco when it was full grown in August. It seemed even bigger when we were young and had to cut and pile those long rows.

People who have raised tobacco know, it’s a labor-intensive crop. Harvesting was the toughest time. Dad always hired a crew to help with the harvest. He’d place an ad in the paper advertising for experienced help. Novices need not apply. There was no time to teach them what to do and he didn’t want someone who didn’t know what they were doing, damaging the leaves. Hired help got the standard rate of a dollar an hour. They also got a noon and evening meal, plus coffee mid-morning and afternoon. As many of you know, coffee was more like the main meal we eat today. Eventually they eliminated the evening meal. I never gave it any thought at the time, but Ma must have been cooking and baking constantly from before sunup to after sundown. People loved to work at our place because they knew they would get some great meals.

Dad made sure they earned those meals. People who had worked for him before knew they’d be putting in some long, hard days, but many came back every year. How many of you would work that hard today for a dollar an hour? As I’ve heard said many times, “It helps to have a weak mind and a strong back if you’re going to work in tobacco.”

For those not familiar with tobacco harvesting, there were several phases, or jobs, all physical. The first job was to remove the suckers that grew on the plant after it was topped. That’s when you broke off the blooming part on top. Many people used a spray to control the suckers, but Dad thought the spray also stunted the growth of the leaves, so we usually removed them by hand. We all hated suckering. Your hands got so black from the tobacco juice that even Lava soap couldn’t get them clean.

The next step was to cut the plants down. This was always done with one eye on the weather. We felt like we’d joined the ranks of the grownups when we got to wield a tomahawk-like tobacco axe with a very thin, extremely sharp blade. Each person took a row, bent over, pushed the plant to the side with one hand, and chopped it off with the axe. The chop, chop, chop sound went quickly down the rows. You didn’t straighten up until you reached the end of the row. If you got careless you could easily plant that axe in your foot or chop a finger off.

After the plants had time to wilt in the hot sun so the leaves wouldn’t be damaged, they were ready to be gathered up and placed in piles. As young kids we usually got stuck with piling and we hated it.

Next came the spearing of the plants onto tobacco laths. We usually had very big tobacco, so five or six plants was the limit per lath or they’d get too crowded and heavy. This job seemed to fall to the older workers who weren’t able to climb in the shed anymore. Spearing still involved a lot of bending up and down. Most people used a spear horse, but I preferred to spear without one because it was faster. With all the bending from the jobs I’ve mentioned, it’s no wonder we were sore and stiff at the end of the day.

The next step was to pick up the speared tobacco and put it on the tobacco rack to be hauled to the shed and hung up to cure. Even though hauling and hanging were the hardest jobs physically, I liked hanging the best. You felt like you’d arrived when you were trusted to climb up in the shed, balance on two wobbly poles, and hang the heavy tobacco. You knew you had done something at the end of the day, when you were so tired you could hardly move.

Of course after the big supper meal, all the hired help went home and we headed for the barn to do chores and milking. While we were in the barn, Ma was in the house cleaning everything up and starting to cook and bake for the next day. Uff da, how did she do it?

I’m sure glad I don’t have to harvest tobacco anymore. Just the thought of it tires me out!

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Twilight Memories Surround Me

Across the Fence #404

I’m sitting on our back deck again as I write this. The air is fresh and it’s not hot and humid, as most of these summer evenings have been. The wind is rustling the leaves in the cornfield behind the house and clouds sail lazily overhead, highlighted with brilliant yellow and gold from the setting sun. Barn swallows are still darting back and forth across the lawn looking for a snack of bugs before settling down for the night. As daylight begins to give way to the encroaching darkness, I’m surrounded by a symphony of sound as the crickets begin their evening serenade. I’ve said before that this is my favorite time of day.

Maybe that goes back to when I was young, when we could finally relax after the days chores and fieldwork were done. We would relax before heading off to bed, by sitting on the lawn under the big maple tree or lying in the cool grass because it was cooler and more comfortable outside than in the house.

From where I sit I can see the farm where I was born and spent the first nine years of my life. It’s about a mile as the crow flies. I still call it the Hauge place because a Mrs. Hauge owned it and rented it to my folks. The original house and red barn are still standing.

In between that farm and the corner of the back forty where our house sits, is the small farm where my grandparents, Oscar and Julia Hanson, lived after they moved from their farm on Clinton Ridge. The house, garage, and tobacco shed are still there. The barn was falling down and demolished a few years ago, another of those old barns gone from the rural landscape.

Across the road from their farm was Smith School where I spent eight years in that one-room school. It now exists only in the memory of those of us who were students there. It stood on that corner for over 100 years before it got in the way of the new “Uff Da Bahn” highway. Just north of the school was the Iverson farm, where Sandra (Iverson) Peterson, lived when we were in grade school. That farm lives only in my memory too. The buildings are all gone, also a victim of the new road.

I can still picture all of us kids playing hide and seek at night during 4-H meetings or neighborhood get-togethers at their farm and other farms. The nice thing about playing Hide and Seek on a farm is that there are plenty of interesting places to hide. It could be kind of spooky too. It gets really dark in the country and we worried a little about running into a skunk that was out for an evening stroll.

Did you hear that when they tore down the buildings to build the road last year, they found the bones of Little Ole who had hidden in one of the sheds almost 60 years ago? We wondered what ever happened to him. When everyone else had been found, we called, “Ole, Ole, oxen free,” but he never came out. I guess this makes him king of the hide and seekers.

I recently heard of another version of Hide and Seek called “Sardines.” In this game only one person hides and the rest try to find him. When a person finds the hider, they join him. I can see why it’s called Sardines. As more people found the hiding place, it could get mighty cramped quarters. This would have been much more fun than ordinary Hide and Seek, if we could have hid together like a bunch of Sardines with the girls. Darn, why didn’t someone tell us about this version when we were young? In the Sardines version, the last person to find the hiding place was the loser.

Summer evenings were also the time for fireflies, or as some people call them, lightning bugs. We weren’t content to just watch them, we had to try and catch them in glass jars. When we had several of them in a jar, they lit it up like a lantern. I wonder if kids still chase fireflies these days. Maybe there are too many other things to keep them occupied. I hope a few of them still have the curiosity to chase after fireflies. I’ve noticed a lot of fireflies on these warm summer evenings around our place. I hope when our grandson, Sean, gets a little older, we can sit in the dark in the backyard and let him experience the magic of trying to catch fireflies in a glass jar. We’ll also teach him to release them unharmed after observing them for a few minutes. Nature and the creatures that inhabit it, are meant to be observed and appreciated, not destroyed.

Maybe I’ll even tell him how we played Hide and Seek in the darkness of the countryside, and tell him about the Sardine version too. By the way, that part about finding the bones of Ole was just a joke. Never can tell, someone might have thought I was reporting the news and not writing historical fiction.

As I scan the twilight countryside around me and remember, I realize how much of my history and rural roots are out there. It’s a good feeling.

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