There are times when I drive to the north part of town to do some shopping. On occasion I like to take the time to drive through the old neighborhood and reminisce with a trip down memory lane. I have so many fond memories of growing up north of town and of the days that I spent at Hammer School.
There are times when I am driving east on Hammer Road when good memories come to me as I pass the football field. For a time, my dad kept his horses at the Joe Jeuve farm, which sat on top of the hill about where the field house is now. When I was a kid, the road was gravel, but I would ride my bike past there when I went to hang out with my friend Jim Foley. He lived a couple of places east of the tracks so I would ride past the Jeuve farm on the way there and back.
Now, Joe had a herd of Holstein cows that he milked and he also had one huge bull that was very territorial and whenever I rode down that dip I would pick up as much speed as possible because the bull would run to the fence and beller at me whenever I rode past it. As a kid, I really didn’t have much fear. That bull, however, put enough fear in me to make up for it.
One day I rode over to Jim’s to play and hang out for the day and eventually I headed home after my dad called. As I approached the hill, I looked down and then I spotted it, my worst nightmare; the cows were all on the road. They had busted through the fence. Right in the middle of the road was the bull, which actually looked larger than life to me, and seeing it sent a chill went up my spine. I turned around, put my tail between my legs and rode back to Jim’s and called my dad to come rescue me. I felt a little embarrassed, but that was a lot better than trying to maneuver through all of those cows and one ornery bull. I can still visualize that bull with a ring in his nose and what seemed like fire coming out of his nostrils.
There were times when I’d be at Jim’s and we would play in the hayloft and swing from the rafters from a rope, landing in a pile of loose hay. I guess that we were doing some kind of a Tarzan imitation. Life was good, as long as we didn’t bust open any bales of hay or straw. Once that happened and Jim’s dad, Art, found out we’d be kicked out of the hayloft for the day.
The old saying, “Kids will be kids” rang true for us because we were always finding ways to entertain ourselves and staying, for the most part, out of trouble. The Foleys raised sheep that they kept in a pen. Besides ewes, that pen also held a big Ram that, as near as I could tell, didn’t particularly like us kids. We would go into the pen and tease that ram until he chased us. You’d better clear that fence in a single bound or he would ram you in the backside and help you over the fence. Antagonizing that old ram would entertain us for a while until we got yelled at and then we’d move on to something else.
Sometimes Jim and I would ride our bikes over to our friend Pat Smith’s house, which was a little north and east of the State Highway Department on Highway 65. Pat had a horse and his dad also had some pigs. One day, when the pigs were partially grown ,we went over to Pat’s and he told us that he had been entertaining himself by wrestling those pigs. He then proceeded to demonstrate. Now Pat wasn’t all that big of a kid, so, when he latched on to one of those pigs, it dragged him through the mud, thistles and dirt. Although it didn’t look like it, he finally prevailed and was proud of that. I don’t believe that his mom was too happy that he’d gotten all muddy and had also torn his shirt while wrestling pigs.
When we went back to school, we gave him a nickname. We started calling him “piggy,” which stuck with him for a while. Pat didn’t really seem to mind the new nickname, or if he did, he never let on. Once we moved from country school to Southwest the nickname was forgotten.
Those are just a few of the many fond memories that I have of country school growing up north of town.
Until next time: Get out and enjoy taking a walk on a trail or visit one of our many are parks and don’t forget our beautiful State Park. Our area has a lot of beauty and I can’t think of a better way to enjoy it.
Please show your support for the troops that area serving our country so that we may enjoy the many freedoms that we have.