Northern Wisconsin

Boy Scouting was a significant influence in my early years. My Boy Scout troop went camping every month, regardless of weather, and in Wisconsin that's a significant challenge during the winter months. We backpacked into most places we went, carrying our tents, food, warm clothing, etc. There were many memorable camping trips while I was a Scout, but one that was particularly memorable was a week-long canoe trip in northern Wisconsin with our Explorer Post, actually two weeks for me because I went a week early to take Voyageur training so that I could lead the group that I would take out the following week.

Northern Wisconsin has striking natural beauty, which alone made the trip memorable, but what was truly special for me was that my dad was the adult advisor on the trip that I led (left photo, back row, right side).

The trip began in the upper peninsula of Michigan in Thousand Island Lake and ended near Boulder Junction, WI after 8 portages and 2 carry-overs. We saw numerous bald eagles, deer, porcupines, and there were ten times that number that saw us, but we didn't see them. We camped one night at a site on Palmer Lake that had been raided by black bears the night before and there was packaging and food scattered all over the campsite. The trip was physically demanding with breathtaking vistas throughout that made a lasting impression on both Dad and I.

We returned to this area of northern Wisconsin several times in the following years for family vacations, finding several good campsites and fishing spots that we returned to year after year. To this day, loon calls stir the same feelings in me that I experienced on that trip. When Dad retired, he persuaded Mom to move to Vilas County (a move she made out of love for him and not the appeal of northern Wisconsin winters), where they lived until he passed away.

The natural beauty and wildness is what drew Dad to this area, and also to vacations in Colorado where his mom was born in the mountains outside of Eagle in 1895 and where he spent some of his high school years after his family moved back there from Minnesota. Dad left us too early, but I'm thankful that he spent the last years of his life in the Wisconsin northwoods that he loved.

Fun n' Games (Part 2)

When we went out for recess at our elementary school, most often we played in the "Battlefield." Who knows how it got the name, but it was a large grassy ballfield at the bottom of a very steep hill, below the paved playground. We would play softball there...sometimes choosing sides, but most often playing either work-up or 500. In both of those games it was an individual hitter against the other players and in each case players could work their way up or earn their way to the hitting position. Since recess was a short time period, it was a perfect way to get some action without having to choose sides and wait for balls and strikes like a regular game.


Winter was when the Battlefield hill turned to ice from all the kids sliding on it. Not many sleds with runners, and some saucers; mostly scraps of cardboard and plastic. They were faster and of course, that's what turned the slope to ice. A few kids, Davy included, would try to go down the icy hill standing up and sliding only on the soles of their shoes. It was a must that you have leather soled shoes to do this, so you can imagine how much the moms enjoyed seeing their kids come home with soggy, beat-up shoes from sliding down the Battlefield hill. Speaking of moms and teachers, when I look at this activity from my perspective now as a parent and adult, I am certain that parents of today would raise hell and teachers would fear for their jobs if such things as sliding down a sheet of ice standing up were allowed to occur at on school property.


I had a friend named Butch (yeah, guys had nicknames like that once) who I'll always remember with a bloody face. He was the kind of kid that always wound up with the bloody face if there was one among us that was to be so afflicted (the designated bloody face). More than one of his bloody faces occurred on a slick Battlefield hill. Today, the school, the teacher, the City, and passers-by would all be sued if poor Johnny was bloodied through such activity.


So, what's the point of the story? I started this out thinking there might be a point to be made about life choices related to outdoor, sports-related activity and indoor, media-centered entertainment. But, now I'm not sure there is a point to be made. We had a B&W TV by the time I was 5, and I remember Saturday morning cartoons and westerns very well. Our kids had a lot more media options to explore, but they also spent a great deal of their free time outdoors in their elementary years. What is important is that kids do what their friends do and it's called socialization. I remember playing work-up and 500 with the kids, but I think they did it to humor the old man. So instead, just think of this as a story about what the old man did as a kid with his friends.

Fun n' Games

This is one of those stories that should start out, "Well, in my day..." There's something that has been on my mind for some time that is kind of fascinating and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It has to do with kids' playtime and playthings.

Growing up in the frozen north of Wisconsin, you might think that a lot of my play memories would be of indoor activities, at least in the winter, but that's not true. My clearest memories are almost exclusively outdoors, winter and summer. Even at 4-5 years old, what I remember is playing with friends outdoors, which at that age involved pedal-driven toys, Cowboys and Indians, and secret clubs that met in dirty spaces under big front porches.

Once I was in elementary school, the playtime I remember was recess (morning, after lunch, and afternoon), and immediately after school. These were the times that naturally brought us together with friends and so most of the play was group activity. Once I was mostly past the allure of playground equipment, I remember first playing marbles...there were cat's eyes, steelies, aggies, and puries (although we pronounced them "peeries"). Those of you who wonder where my competitive nature comes from (Barb?), pay attention here. This is where my first memories of stress occur. You build your collection of marbles by risking your stuff against the other guys' (sorry gals, I don't remember a lot of little girl competitors). My prized marbles were the steelies, followed by aggies and puries, with the common cat's eyes being the everyday playing piece that contributed to your collection only in terms of boosting the size of your marble bag. When you risked an aggie, purie or especially a steelie, you wanted to feel sure that the odds were in your favor or the potential reward was worth the risk.

So what was the risk? Well, generally playing marbles meant that you were shooting your marble at someone else's in turn. Whoever hit the other player's marble, won that marble...simple as that. I remember only two types of games that we played, although there may have been variations. In one of the games, the classic game that you see portrayed most often, you drew a circle and shot at marbles in the middle, keeping those that you shot out of the circle. Most often we played more of a free form game, mano y mano (marblos y marblos) where you just toss your marbles on the ground and take turns shooting one marble at the other. Unlike golf, though, you didn't want to "lag" your shot up close to its target because if you missed, that left an easy shot for your opponent. I remember being a successful marble player, but I'm sure there were days when I came home in a blue funk, having lost one or more of my prized steelies, aggires, or puries.

OK, so this has gotten long for a blog piece, so I'll continue with more of little Davy's playtime fun in the next post, concluding with a response to the essential question, "Why are you telling me this anyway?"

Wow this is great

Thanks for putting this blog together, Joe. I don't remember being quite so heroic with the bat, but if you remember it that way who am I to change history?

When I was 6 we lived in a 2-story cottage on Lake Mendota in Madison, WI. I loved that place because in the back yard was the largest lake in the Madison chain-of-lakes and across the road in the front was a huge swamp (or at least that was what we called it...these days I think it is called a riparian wetland). We built a tree house in the swamp and played "Swamp Fox" (for you young'uns that was an old Walt Disney adventure about a Revolutionary War hero, Francis Marion...kind of like Robin Hood).

One of the most most fascinating features of the swamp was actually along the path we used to walk to elementary school (2nd grade). It was a large box culvert but I didn't know what that was at the time. To us it was "Frankensteins Cave." I remember well that we truly believed a monster lived inside, on the other side of a bottomless hole that only he could cross, because from time to time there would be boots, snakes, pieces of clothing, and other "evidence" lying in front of the mouth of the cave that he had tossed out instead of eating. Sometime before I actually designed these things as a Civil Engineer I learned the harsh reality that all these discarded items are actually washed into the storm sewer and carried away to where the box culvert empties into a drainage channel.

So why did your initial post remind me of this? At this cottage, we once heard noises in the attic. When my Dad went to investigate, he found flying squirrels (no moose, though). Of course, we were in a lake cottage, so he used a fishing net to round them up. That is why my first thoughts were of a fishing net and why you kids will look for a fishing net when some wild critter invades your home some day.

The Bat

I remember a time when Mom and Dad were downstairs and the three of us kids were up in their bed trying to go to sleep.  We started to hear a high pitched squeak in the room and turned on the light and there was a bat circling overhead.  The door was closed so the bat couldn't leave.  We started screaming for Dad and he came running upstairs and evacuated us from the room.   Then, he went and got a fishing net and heroically charged into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.  After five minutes of crashing and banging, he emerged with the bat in the net.  We all went down to the front porch where he laid the bat on the ground so we could inspect it.   It wasn't as scary now that Dad had the situation under control.

Our Hero!!!