Adventures with Mom – Earth and Midnight

Wisconsin Ivy League Adventures

My mom and I met a handful of times in the same area of Wisconsin for our Adventure Weekends. We usually stayed at the same cheap motel in the tiny town of Oxford because it was almost exactly halfway between us. We’d always end up driving around the area and exploring the towns, attractions, and countryside within about a forty-mile radius of the motel.

Whoever was in charge of naming roads out there must have had a sick sense of humor. You’d find Evergreen Lane right near Evergreen Road and Evergreen Court. 18th Road was not far from 18th Lane, 18th Drive, and 18th Avenue. Elk Road was by Elk Court and Elk Lane. And those are just a few examples. It’s a good thing we were on vacation and weren’t in a time crunch.

Here are some of the adventures we enjoyed there:

We found a miniature horse farm and got out to take pictures and feed them grass through the fence. Another time, it was a herd of cows.

I had read online that during one of our visits, you’d be able to see the crane migration at dawn in a certain area. We got up super early and drove out to the area described online, but we didn’t see a big flock or other cars congregated in that area. At least we tried.

I had also seen a bison farm advertised online. We tried to find it a couple times before we ended up coming upon it accidentally in a new location. Man, did those bison bolt when I got out of the car, and those things can run!

We visited a native plant farm, walked through their display garden, and bought some seeds.

Once, we walked from our motel to a tiny local library, where we found a table heaped with magazines they were giving away for free. We each took a little stack and spent the evening paging through our finds.

We stopped at a few garage sales we saw along the road. One of the homeowners had chickens. At the time, my mom was considering getting backyard chickens, and the owner talked to us for a long time about raising them.

We ate at a couple mom & pop restaurants.

We ate picnics in a park across from a farm field, where we watched a pair of sandhill cranes feeding.

We walked along the boardwalk by a lake, lounged on a wooden porch-style swing, and crossed a curved bridge with petunias dripping from the railings.

After a couple attempts, we finally found a trail leading to the top of a hill that we had heard about. We hiked to the top and viewed the sunset from a cluster of giant boulders, then scurried back down through the woods before the light faded so we wouldn’t get lost.

We went to a local art fair in a city park.

We shopped at a flea market.

We stopped at antique stores and thrift stores, plus other shops that caught our attention: a garden center, a greenhouse, a global gift shop, a gift shop that supported local artists.

We made a pilgrimage to an Amish bakery in the middle of nowhere.

We visited a bunch of tiny, old-fashioned main streets. The town of Princeton’s main street included a small public garden with benches, a curved walking path, hanging baskets, antique-style garden art, and a cafe table and chairs under a gazebo [Megow Park].

One of the most surreal encounters (in my opinion) was walking from an ice cream shop to the city park in downtown Green Lake and passing a guy playing an upright piano on the front porch of a house. I’m not used to hearing live piano music, with its natural volume and resonance, played outside in public.

This is also the area where we found the Rubber Chicken Fling [see story here].

It was at one of the thrift shops in this area that I bought a two-disc CD set called Lifetime of Romance. I got it because I recognized and liked some of the songs: Etta James singing “At Last,” The Righteous Brothers’ cover of “Unchained Melody,” and Patsy Cline’s version of “Crazy.” I’m not sure if my definition of “romance” involves failed relationships, but at least you could argue that it deals with the topic of love. Bafflingly, the opening song on the second disc is Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife.” In case you aren’t familiar with the song, it’s about a serial killer. I still don’t understand how that song choice got rationalized into the compilation.

Anyway, this album introduced me to the song “Stranger on the Shore” performed by clarinetist Acker Bilk. Whenever I hear it now, it’s always infused with memories of these long weekends in Wisconsin. To me, this song embodies the feeling of Those Lazy Days of Summer, a Sunday drive with the windows down, green fields sprawling for miles, heavy air, nowhere you need to be, wanting it to last forever.

A Horse of Another Color

About 10 years ago, my mom moved to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. In one of my early visits, we tried some of the tourist activities in her area. One of them was horseback riding. Our trail guide wanted to match us up with appropriate horses, so she asked each of us in turn, “Have you ever ridden a horse before?” My mom had owned a few horses while she was growing up and was an adept rider. The guide presented her a docile-looking white mare. “This is Snowflake.” My mom mounted her horse, and then it was my turn. “Have you ever ridden a horse before?” “Yes, once, 20 years ago.” I didn’t mention the sobbing in terror part as my horse started descending a ravine. The guide led a young, alert horse toward me and introduced us. “This is Rebel.” Okay, wait a minute. You’re giving the completely inexperienced rider a horse with a behavior problem? That’s an interesting strategy.

Rebel treated the ride as a lunch buffet. As she waded through the thicket at the edges of the forest, I spent the whole ride redirecting her toward the path, tugging on the reins as her head dropped toward the ferns as heavily as a bucket of water, urging her to move and follow the rest of the horse train. The method to counteract many of her behavioral issues seemed the same. “Kick her!” the guides yelled from the front of the line. “Harder!” I wanted to go horseback riding because I liked animals. I had no desire to kick a horse in the stomach.

Over the years, I went on a couple other rides. I got used to the guides handing off a horse with a word of warning. “She’s slow,” they’d caution, or “She’s lazy.” Or it would be the opposite- a sprightly horse would get antsy being stuck behind an older, slower-paced model, and try to cut in line. As I struggled to get my horses under control, I’d jealously watch as other riders placidly gazed at the scenery and joked with the trail guides.

On a later trail ride in Wisconsin, also with my mom, I was unexpectedly assigned a well-behaved horse. Finally! I would get to experience a trail ride how it was meant to be! I was ready for a fun and relaxing time. I wasn’t expecting… boredom. Sitting on a horse who plodded forward in a straight line struck me as dull and uninspired. I was so used to being busy the entire time, working to keep the horse in line, on the trail, in check. Here, nothing was happening. It was like being on a walk in the woods, except that I wasn’t even walking; I wasn’t doing anything. All those years, I thought I was getting the short end of the stick, when it turns out that I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Horsing Around

When I was nine, my family and another family drove to Colorado together for a summer vacation. One day, a handful of us went horseback riding. We arrived at a classic stable catered to tourists. After we paid, we were directed toward the barn. The man working there lounged against a fence, sizing up the horses in the pen, probably deciding which horse to match up with each rider. My mom crossed her arms over the fence and peered out at the herd. I could hear the murmur of talk between the two of them. At some point, Mom requested a certain horse for herself. She had been horse crazy as a kid, owned a few of them during her formative years, was adept at riding, and could spot good physical traits in the animals. She was also a feminist. When the employee told her, “I only give that horse to men,” that sealed it: Mom was determined to get that horse. I don’t know exactly how the discussion went, but she eventually got her way.

One by one, everybody was assigned a horse. When the youngest kid in our group was placed on his saddle, he instantly burst into tears. Like me, it was his first time horseback riding. Eventually everyone calmed down mounted a horse, including the guide, who led us across the street. Once safely on the other side of the street, my horse veered away from the group and began walking down a slope into a ditch. In the mountains of Colorado, this roadside ditch looked more like a ravine. Afraid, I yelled out what was happening. “She won’t go down there,” the guide told me lackadaisically. That seemed to be the cue for my horse to plow straight down into the ditch. We hadn’t even gotten to the trail yet, and already two of us had started bawling. Thankfully, the guide steered his horse over to mine, grabbed the reins, and pulled us to back onto the path.

I assumed the guide would lead our group along the path during the ride, but when we reached the trailhead, he said, “The horses know the way,” and trotted back toward the barn. I wondered if this was normal or if he had sadistic hopes that we’d get lost, or that my mom’s horse would buck her off, or that her horse would set off in an uncontrollable gallop into the woods, plunging down the mountain with Mom still in the saddle. During the ride, Mom’s horse was in front of mine in line, and he did act up, stopping and refusing to budge, or backing up into mine. My most vivid memory is during one of these spells, my mom reached out and snapped a branch off of a pine tree, then repeatedly whapped her horse on the rump with it to try and get him to move. I wondered if she felt a sense of angry victory as our group sauntered back to the barn, or if she wished she had chosen another horse.

On this vacation, my mom “made” my brother and I keep a journal for the first time, thinking that we’d appreciate looking back on it years later. Here is the entire description of the trail ride from my Colorado journal: “My horse’s name was Ribbon.”

Bending the Truth

For my eighth birthday, I got my ears pierced. I had noticed that a lot of beautiful, sophisticated, and cool people in the public eye had their ears pierced, and, I didn’t realize it until afterward, but I must have thought that the earring gun shooting through my earlobe would set off magic shockwaves that would turn me into the kind of person I admired- someone who looked like a supermodel, who suddenly had fashion sense and personality, who could paint and play the guitar and rescue injured animals. How disappointing, then, to find that it was just me, only with gold stud earrings.

The part of the day I remember most, though, had to do with grey area. I had been looking forward to this day for weeks. It was going to happen at the mall, at Claire’s Boutique. The initial piercing had to be done with boring ball-shaped earrings, so I had also picked out these tiny gold scallop seashell earrings, which had to be special ordered. My mom drove me to the mall on the big day, and after the piercing and purchasing, I was carrying the bag with my new seashell earrings. About five or ten steps from Claire’s, the bag slipped out of my hand, and I stepped on the earrings, bending the posts. I started crying, feeling like a huge baby, crying in public over a piece of metal. As far as I could see, we either ate the cost and forgot about the earrings, or else my clumsiness would result in me or my parents having to buy another set of earrings, which seemed too expensive. Here was the dilemma I looked to my mom to solve. The world stopped, my mom and I standing, facing each other in the middle of the hallway, two rocks in a river, other shoppers flowing smoothly past us. After thinking for a minute, my mom said, “Well, we’ll go back and tell them that you dropped the bag and that someone stepped on them.” What a brilliant solution! That was the day I consciously learned that between Lies and The Whole Truth lived a spectrum of many shades, a bedrock of layers, a multi-faceted gem of truth. Even though the technique could just as easily be used against me, on that day, we were able to tilt the truth to our advantage, granting a child’s birthday wishes.

Adventure on the Rocks

On another meetup in Wisconsin, my mom and I hiked a trail that led to a waterfall. The trail crisscrossed a river a few times, which led us to snake across by stepping on precariously balanced stones protruding from the water. I made it to the end, and as I turned to start the trek back, I slipped on a wet rock. When I fell, my face hit another rock, busting the skin near my eyebrow. Another hiker happened to see the fall and was luckily carrying a bandage. My mom did a good job of matching up both sides of the cut so that it healed fairly smoothly. I guess that’s when you know you’ve had a real adventure: when you have the scars to prove it.

The worst part was that the waterfall was about two and a half feet tall and not worth the drama.

Nowadays, I select shoes based heavily on the non-slip quality of their soles. Also, in times of stress, it helps to frame whatever I’m experiencing as an adventure.

Irish Dance and a Voice

On another adventure, my mom and I checked into a hotel room for the night. The room even had a balcony overlooking a lawn that led to a small lake, although we didn’t expect to use it since temperatures were predicted to dip into the 30s that night.

Settling into the room, we went out onto the balcony to get a better view of the sunset. As the pink streaks faded and the air turned cooler, we decided to go back inside, only to discover that the door had locked behind us. We were on the second floor, a concrete pad beneath us. Since it was so cold, none of the guests had their windows open. We were on the back side of the hotel, facing nothing but nature.

We yelled out phrases like, “Help! We’re stuck on the balcony! Call the front desk! Room one eleven!” [or whatever it was]. We tried yelling in unison. We yelled until we got tired, and then waited. The peaceful sound of the evening breeze was the only reply.

Our balcony came equipped with set of plastic tables and chairs. We got the idea to bang furniture against the railings. On my first swing, a piece of my chair cracked off. Not only was that furniture was too delicate for batting practice, it didn’t make any spectacular sounds.

My mom threatened to jump off the balcony. I talked her into holding off because I could just picture her hitting the concrete and breaking a leg. Plus, as the younger generation, I felt it should be my duty to volunteer for the more physically risky stunts, and I didn’t want to break my leg. “I’d rather have a broken leg and be alive,” she argued. Yes, but were we really to that point yet? She threatened to run and blast through the glass balcony door. I pointed out that the running start she’d get was about two feet long, and didn’t really seem adequate for anything other than dislocating a shoulder or acquiring some nasty bruises. “I’m not spending the night up here,” she pronounced.

I suggested, “You know how, in Irish dance, when everybody’s doing the same steps at the same time, it’s really loud?” We counted out a rhythm and held onto the railing, jumping in tandem. When our legs got tired, we stopped and waited. We were met with a tranquil silence.

It was getting serious. Before progressing to physically dangerous methods, I wanted to try one last effort to attract attention. This time we went all out, jumping and screaming, trying to be as annoying as possible. “HELP! WE’RE TRAPPED!” we screamed as we slammed our feet against the balcony.

Eventually, a man walked onto the lawn. I’ll never forget the way he slowly turned his head diagonally to look up at us, his eyebrows furrowed in an expression of What in the world is going on here, and who is causing this ruckus?

“Oh, thank God!!! Can you please tell the front desk that we’re trapped on our balcony?!!” I pleaded.

Who would’ve thought that the place we’d most need our survival backpacking supplies was at a hotel?

Down A Country Road

While my mom was rearranging items in her car trunk, I noticed a hand saw at the bottom of the pile. “Do you always keep a saw in your trunk?” “Yeah.” “Do you ever use it?” “Sometimes.”

Months later, the two of us were on an adventure drive. She was driving; I was navigating. I directed her onto a back road, and my route quickly stopped matching the picture on the map. It didn’t help that some of the intersections didn’t have street signs, and some of the lines on the map weren’t labeled. As we headed deeper into the forest, the road turned from gravel to dirt to mud, until we were on essentially a logging road. Suddenly, my mom stopped the car. A tree had fallen across the road and both shoulders; there was no way around it. By this point, we were probably 10 to 20 minutes in. Neither of us wanted to turn back.

Thankfully, we were in her car. We both thought of the saw in her trunk.

The tree was thin enough that we were able to saw its trunk into a few pieces and drag it off the road. [I say “we,” but about 90% of the sawing was done by my mom.]

We got back in the car and drove on. At some point, we came upon an older man walking with a cane and a Sheltie he called “Nickels.” My mom couldn’t stand the thought of an old man walking for miles alone in the middle of nowhere, so she pulled up beside him and asked if he wanted a ride. He got in, but we left his dog outside because her legs and the hair on her entire underbelly were covered in mud.

At first, the dog ran alongside of the car as we crawled through the mud, but soon we sped up to 20 or 30 miles per hour, and the dog shrank into a spot in the rearview mirror enthusiastically bounding toward us at full speed. Every now and then, the man would call “Nickles!” out the window, as if the dog needed encouragement. I was thinking, Dude, the dog is going to die if you make it run any faster.

We dropped the man off at a house along that forsaken road. He yelled out “Nickels!” for good measure as he exited the car. We may have waited a minute to make sure the dog wasn’t going to keel over from exertion, then headed toward paved roads and civilization.

Nowadays, if a road starts off gravel, the two of us hold out for the next turn.

Photo: Robert Scruggs House, Cowpens National Battlefield, SC

The WOW in Powwow

My mom used to work at an art center on an Indian reservation. In addition to selling art made by Native Americans, the center offered classes in making birch bark baskets, beaded bracelets, fish decoys, and other traditional crafts. While I was visiting, a young local man came into the shop to browse. A higher than average percentage of people I saw on the rez wore American Eagle Outfitters t-shirts, and he was one of them. It was never a plain AEO shirt with just the brand name or logo; the designs always involved soaring eagles. I wondered if AEO realized the appeal that their shirts might hold to the Native American segment of the market. Anyway, in chatting, the guy told us that he was a fancy dancer [a showy Native American dance]. It was even part of his email address. I wondered how many American white guys would put the word “dancer” in their email address, let alone the word “fancy.” And how many of them would boast to strangers that they danced?

Nearby, an outdoor arena held weekly powwows all summer. I attended a couple with my mom. The emcee would explain the meaning behind each dance, and then a group of dancers would demonstrate. A couple times each night, the emcee would call out “Intertribal!” which meant that everyone, including the audience, was invited to participate. Those of us who didn’t know what we were doing basically did a stilted version of walking in a circle, but there was an elated feeling of camraderie, being a part of the drumming, the singing, alongside others dressed in colorful regalia: jingle shell dancers, grass dancers, fancy dancers, and butterfly dancers. We were lucky that the community was willing to include us. Going to see a powwow by itself could have been cool- watching the spectacle, learning something, and eating fry bread- but there’s nothing like experiencing an event to make an impact.