Monday morning I received an e-mail message from a former country school teacher advising it was going to be a nice day and I should schedule a reporting and photography trip that would allow me to be outside. It was a suggestion I wanted to accept.
I remembered my childhood when I took my red chair and went to watch nearby construction projects. I could sit on that chair by the hour and entertain myself watching men work. I watched projects like the blacktopping of Highway 14, extension of a bridge, construction of the Courtland Canal, and replacement of a section of natural gas line.
From that email, I concluded the retired teacher enjoyed the “school hikes” as much as I did. As a grade school pupil, I didn’t realize the teachers enjoyed the opportunity to be outside as they strictly enforced recess time. I thought their preferred place and activity was cracking the classroom whip. I considered the teachers, even the one fresh out of college, to be “old people” who, on hiking days went the extra mile for their pupils. I didn’t want to discourage them from letting their pupils go on hikes but I questioned if such “old people” should participate in a strenuous hike and worried what would happen if they weren’t able to make it back to school.
Since receiving the email, I have been thinking about where we went and what we saw on the hikes. I may not remember them all but I remember at least most of them and what we did.
This week would have been a little late for a hike as the spring term of the country school was usually over by April 20. Fall term began after Labor Day. Regardless of what grade I was in, I contracted Senioritis with the arrival of April and wanted to be forever done with school.
I eagerly anticipated the last day of school picnic and the arrival of summer vacation for school got in the way of more important things like helping my parents. If I didn’t do my chores, I feared we might not have enough to eat.
When school took up on a spring day like we had Monday, the teacher would encourage her students with a promised treat. If we worked hard that morning and got our lessons completed, after dinner she would lead us on a hike. I’m sure we were all perfect students and applied ourselves because we were eager to escape the classroom.
But the teacher never led us on a hike. We were so eager to get outside and our little legs were so filled with energy that most of us ran ahead of the teacher. She was constantly calling out instructions and telling us to wait.
Hikes took us to interesting places like a prairie dog town, rock quarry, Republican River, abandoned farmstead, sand pit, severely eroded field and the newly constructed Courtland Canal. It wasn’t called a hike, but once we went to a nearby farm to attend a farm sale. At that sale, when the auction moved to the livestock, I watched an excited goat jump on the roof of the hog house, scamper up to the peak and leap off. Free of the pen, the goat took off without looking back. After that when I roamed the countryside with my pony, I would see that white goat standing on a high place guarding his freedom and keeping watch.
As a youngster, I didn’t wait for the teacher to lead a hike. On pleasant Sunday afternoons, I couldn’t sit still I had to go for a hike. I was much like the little dog who called at the newspaper’s front window last Wednesday.
His human accomplice said she had never had a dog with so much energy. If he didn’t get to go on at least a three mile walk every day, he was an energetic terror running about the house.
He stood like a perfect gentleman at the newspaper window while I visited with his walking mate. But when they left it was obvious he was glad to again be underway for there were smells to smell and sights to see.
I’m much like that. After having been shut in during the winter, it is good to be outside. Instead of taking the most direct route with my bicycle, I’ve been going around extra blocks just to see what I can see, smell the fresh air, and feel the sunshine.
The first garden plants are now in the ground, and I am dreaming about where I might plant more. In the spring I never remember the need to weed and water on a hot summer day.
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