Looking back at the good old days

The chubby little rodent has spoken, and we are facing another six weeks of winter. As a non-rodent, I feel confident that most of the nation does not have spring in February. The middle of March has brought some vicious winter blizzards in the past, so the chances of this happening are fairly good. 

I have mentioned before of the time that I spent shoveling my way to farmers to pick up cans of milk. I have also mentioned that I probably shoveled more snow in 1965 than I have in the rest of my life. It seems to me that our climate has changed, especially in recent years. We had a recent cold spell, and folks were complaining about it and my response was you don’t have to shovel cold, so just throw on warmer clothes.

As a kid I actually embraced the thought of a snowstorm. Tis was before I worked for Conger Creamery and had to drive in it. Mt friend, Dwight Stevens and I would take my folks’ ’54 Oldsmobile and drive the gravel roads looking for snow drifts to run through. We were armed with a couple of snow shovels and a coffee can full of sand in the trunk. We did get stuck a time or two and had to shovel out and I believe there was only one time that we had to walk to a farmhouse and ask a farmer to pull us out when we slipped in the ditch. We considered this entertainment, I guess we were living a little bit on the edge.

We always seemed to seek out new adventures wherever that took us. I can remember one moonlit winter night when we took to the roads north of Twin Lakes pulling a toboggan, while we took turns riding on it while being pulled by Pat Smith’s family Jeep Wagoneer. Other than myself and Pat, there were two other friends, Dwight Stevens, and Kenny Ofstedal. After we had had our fill of sledding, we decided to drive to this nearby farm place where this girl that Dwight liked lived and just shine the headlights on the house. I really don’t know who thought that this was a good idea. The Farmer came running out of the house with what looked an awful lot like a shotgun so we got out of there as fast as we could. That’s when Pat decided that it would be a good idea to turn off a gravel road and turn the lights off while still driving with the moon as our headlights. It was working until the moon disappeared behind some clouds and everything went black. Pat kept driving and the next thing you knew, we were in the ditch upside down. Pat had a grip on the wheel and still had his foot on the gas trying to drive out. Unfortunately, we were upside down and I yelled at him to turn it off. He let go of the wheel and immediately fell on his head. I am pretty sure that he had been in denial and thought that we could drive out. We then walked to a nearby farm place where this guy had a wrecker, and he came to pull us out. He didn’t want any money and even helped us start the Jeep and get on our way. We drove it to my dad’s gas station and were there bright, and early Sunday morning trying to get the roof pushed back up. Needless to say, that wasn’t working so we all consoled Pat as he drove home anticipating the consequences of facing his dad. When Pat left it was almost as if we were at a funeral. In the end, his dad was not as hard on him as he expected, and we had learned a valuable lesson – at least until the next time.

Until the next time: When we were in our youth, we sometimes did dumb things, but they weren’t meant to harm anyone else. We stayed active and kept busy by creating new adventures that were not always the safest, but we survived. Pat and Kenny are no longer with us but their memory lingers.

Please show your support for our troops who are now deployed. These service men and women are making that sacrifice so that we may have the many freedoms that we enjoy today.