Could this week’s weather be any stronger of a teaser that spring is coming?
Warm days in March bring back memories of my youth. And how those warm days usually provoked me to discover sort of mischief and, ultimately, face the music that followed thereafter.
Want proof?
Okay, but remember, you asked!
In May, 1970, about a week before school was dismissed for summer vacation, my fifth-grade teacher at Valparaiso Elementary, Mrs. Evelyn Martin, conceded to a class request that most teachers would have chucked into a garbage can within seconds of its request.
I’ll never know how we pulled it off, but my fellow fifth-grade classmates and the sixth-grade class, as well, convinced Mrs. Martin and our principal, Darrell Rosenquist, that taking us on a field trip to Branched Oak Lake would be a wonderful way to wrap up the school year.
We had lobbied that we only wanted to fish, play games in the sand, enjoy nature, and have a huge picnic. All 50 of us solemnly swore – several times over – that we would not get in the water.
The brass conceded.
Our trip was accompanied by sunshine, blue skies and 80 degrees.
Branched Oak Lake took us away from the rigors of school, including the countless social studies class discussions on the May 4, 1970, deaths of four Kent State, Ohio, students who were shot by members of the National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War.
I was fortunate to witness the birth of Branched Oak Lake. My home was situated three miles north of the lake. Since my family attended the Lutheran Church in Malcolm, and the road that took us straight south from our house to Malcolm would soon be under several feet of the lake’s water, we were forced to take the scenic route and drive around the lake every Sunday. Coming over a hill south of the lake on the drive home from church, I was awarded a weekly view of the lake’s filling progression. The top of the dam was paved with asphalt, so travelers could also watch the lake grow from that vantage point. What started out as nothing more than a large pond in late 1967 had grown to 1,800 acres water by the spring of 1970.
Oh, yes, our field trip!
Despite Mrs. Martin’s cautions, warnings, and threats, about 40 of the 50 fifth and sixth-grade students decided to take off our shoes and wade in the water up to our ankles – followed by our knees, hips, chests, and heads. Most of the boys who jumped in were fully clothed, and of course, the girls were, too.
I can’t claim I was the first to enter the water, but I certainly wasn’t the last. All I needed was a glimmer of an indication that it was permissible, and I got it. One of the sixth-grade girls informed me that she thought the teacher had changed her mind and now believed it was okay to wade in the water. Seconds later, I was trying to impress as many girls as I could with my best imitation of a scuba diver.
And then it happened.
Mrs. Martin came running along the shoreline screaming at the top of her lungs for everyone to get out of the water and onto the bus.
There was dead silence on the yellow school bus as our driver, Mrs. Bonnie Masek, escorted us back to Valparaiso.
By the time we returned to town, the bus reeked of lake water, and the seats were soaked from the boys’ wet blue jean bottoms and the girls’ shorts.
Mrs. Martin’s screaming was downgraded to simple yelling in the classroom the next day, and her final words were: “I can guarantee you this school will never allow another class to take a field trip near water.”
Despite the turmoil, our lake journey taught me this lesson: Getting in trouble was no big deal, IF I was aligned with 40 other guilty parties.
My soaked-to-the-skin trip to Branched Oak wasn’t a total loss. One of my classmates, Mark Masek of Agnew, whose father was the local TV repairman, had caught a large catfish, and he gave it to me. I took the fish home and dumped it in the stock tank.
But not before I named it Gladys in honor of a girl who had sat near me on our bus trip to troubled waters.