During 1956 and 57, I
spent my summer mornings and afternoons riding with my grandfather on his
tractor as he worked the farm. During
the harvest season, I would ride on the hay wagon and help stack bales of hay
as they came off the baler until the stacks became too high for me to lift;
usually two bales high was all that I could handle. If I wasn’t on the wagon, I would walk along
the hay baler figuring out what all the different moving parts did to make the
bales. I certainly got lots of exercise.
One summer afternoon in 1963, my
scout troop participated in a scout-show event in Placerville, the seat of
government for El Dorado County, California.
That particular year, President Kennedy had honored the Marine Corps’
achievement of hiking 50-miles in 24-hours.
He then challenged the youth of the country to get physically fit. Since “Physically Strong” is part of the
Scout Oath, our troop chose the theme of “physical fitness” for the event. We
conducted a few fitness events at the show.
Among them were scaling a wall-like barrier and fitness competitions
such as push-ups and sit-ups, et cetera.
Naturally, in the months
prior to the scout-show all scouts participated in physical fitness efforts so
we could perform better than those other scouts who would accept the challenges
of the tests. With the help of our adult
leaders, we also had to build the wall-like barrier and then practicing to
become strong enough to get over it.
Now this bit of wall was
made using 2x4’s for the frame and its supports, which were designed to make
the barrier stable and not fall over when scouts were attempting to climb over
the top. Attached to the frame were a
mix of 4-inch and 6-inch wide by ½-inch thick planks. One of the planks was of the
tongue-and-groove type, which resulted in a very thin “lip” or overhang between
the two adjoining planks about 3-feet up from the bottom of the wall. The whole apparatus was about 6-feet wide and
7-feet tall. The wall’s design required
the younger (meaning shorter) scouts to jump high and grab the top of the wall
and then pull themselves up and swing their legs over the top and drop down the
other side, thus building leg and upper body strength. We provided a small ramp for the really short
scouts to use until their leg muscles improved in strength. On the back side we also placed a 4-inch
thick mattress on the ground to cushion the landings or falls from the top of
the wall.
Once the wall was
finished, we all gathered outside to test ourselves against the wall. Scouts would repeatedly take turns scaling
the wall, while I stood at the side of the landing area to assist in breaking
the fall of anyone who had trouble.
Eventually, someone noticed that I was not taking a turn. In all truthfulness, I had planned not to go
over the wall and display just how weak my upper body really was. Not only was I the Senior Patrol Leader, but
also the oldest boy in the troop and I was very self-conscious. However, once it was noticed, they all
insisted I also go over the wall.
Consequently, I did some
quick thinking and decided to give my arms a break. So, I moved back from the wall and ran
towards it gaining momentum and then jumped up and forward, placing my right
foot on that little “lip” of space on the plank and lifting myself upwards with
my leg only, grabbing the wall top with both hands while swinging my legs over
the top, thus clearing the wall sideways by several inches, when my momentum
promptly pulled my hands from the top and I fell to the mattress landing hard
on my hands and knees. No one was on
that side of the wall and when I did not reappear immediately, the scoutmaster
and several boys came around to see why.
Even with the bad landing I was okay; just a bit stunned. Once they saw I was okay, everyone expressed
their enjoyment of my “flying” over the wall and then they all tried to do
it. I felt that I had proven that I
could do it, so I never did it again.
(That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.) Now back to the scout-show.
The sit-up area was one
of our most popular events and many scouts from other troops took-up the
challenge to see how many they could do.
In the end, Lyle Radtke from our troop took top honors. Late in the morning, he came to the booth and
accomplished 100 sit-ups, the most up to that time. Lyle returned about an hour later and saw
that some other scout had done 150. This
did not sit well with him, so he decided to “raise the bar” so high that no one
else could cross it. In about
20-minutes, Lyle completed another 300 sit-ups.
These were no bent-knee sit-ups, but full prone, hands behind your head
and sit up and bending until your elbows touched your knees style sit-ups. I watched him accomplish this feat. It was like watching a pendulum. He would flip forward and then flop back,
flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop a complete cycle taking about
two-seconds. He only began to slow down
the pace as he approached the 290 count.
After he reached 300, he got up and walked away while we wrote his name
and count on the butcher-paper display.
When I saw him in school the next day, he could not stand up straight as
his abdominal muscles kept him bent over more than just slightly.
Also in 1963, the Lake
Tahoe basin was experiencing a strong Indian Summer phenomena. That year it did not snow or even get cold
until well into January of 1964. In
fact, I have a photograph of our family standing in front of the tree in our
backyard on Christmas day while wearing cutoffs and t-shirts. In any case, this particular day changed
everything for me. It was November 22nd
and I was in high school biology class taking an exam when another teacher, Al
Hildinger, opened the door and yelled out that President Kennedy had been
shot. It was an hour or so later when we
heard that he was dead. The biology
teacher made us all retake a different test the next day because according to
him we all did extremely poorly on the first one the day before.
Some of my favorite
summer afternoons were going to local parks, children’s museums, swimming
pools, and touristy places like Disney World with my family. All those memories are special to me and all
are equally my favorite although perhaps each for slightly different reasons.
I suppose that since this
group is about how we developed into the persons we are today and it also is
about our sexual orientation, I should include something about sex as the
weekly topic title just screams out for writing about those delicious summer days
when romance developed. So here is a bit
of a teaser. One summer afternoon, my
wife and I were traveling from Lake Tahoe towards the coast when we decided to
pull off the highway and take a small, dirt, forest road into the trees, lay
out a blanket and get busy. Once
decided, we actually did it.
This past week, I had
three wonderful days celebrating my new status of being old enough to be a senior
citizen on every restaurant menu. I am
very grateful for those three days.
© 17 June 2013
About the Author
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale
and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to
turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.
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