After winterizing the house, we proceeded with the farm buildings and the outhouse. There was not much one could do to insulate the latter. Tar paper gave some protection, but on many mornings, after a blizzard had swept the seats with snow, you cleaned the seat with your glove, dropped your trousers, and planted your hams on the icy boards. We never used chamber pots unless we were ill. The smaller children, afraid of the dark, had to be accompanied to the outhouse by parents or older children holding flashlights.
By autumn we had cut the winter’s hay. Much of it Dad mowed with a scythe, sweeping practiced swathes through stands of timothy and clover. He cut marsh grass also, mixed with domestic grass. Marsh grass blades were like razors. Cattle loved their seeded heads. Dad also bought two tons of alfalfa from Kula, who always had a surplus. And my uncle gave us hay for helping him harvest his. I loved riding on the horse-drawn wagon, stacking hay as it was pitched up. We fashioned large mounds near the barn, covering it with tarps. Stacked properly, these formed their own watershed, the rain seldom permeating more than an inch or two. For bedding we bought oat straw from Kula.
The most demanding autumn chore was gathering firewood. After the first heavy snow, in early November, the woods would be impassable.
Starting in midsummer we spent hours in our woodlands cutting, trimming, and piling poplar, birch, and pitch pine. The largest trees were about six inches in diameter. Most were smaller. Poplars, the softest of the woods, grew almost as fast as grass. White birch were slower, and oaks and maples slower still. A mix of birch, poplar, and pine produced the hottest fires.
We piled trimmed branches to dry for spring burning. We dragged the trees to the road and loaded them on a stoneboat; then, using my uncle’s horses, we drew the wood home. Each year Dad sawed some forty cords. We were piling the last chunks into ricks during the first snowstorm.
Dad built our saw rig from a Model T engine with a large circular saw blade. The engine had to be throttled. A movable six-foot rack attached to the motor by leather strips fed logs to the saw. By pressing his thigh against the rack and guiding the log, Dad worked efficiently, estimating lengths suitable for the fireboxes. When released, the rack fell back, caught by the thongs. Some of the sawdust we sprinkled over the henhouse floor. The rest we used for burying ice. In the spring, the sawdust mulched the garden.
My sister and I piled the wood into ricks. I split the larger chunks, cross-piling them as rick ends. The object was to keep the rick as even as possible. If chunks held stubborn knots, you tried to find a place for the knot to fit snugly so as not to weaken the wood piled above it. The first ricks we stored under a quasi-shed, a corrugated tin roof mounted on poplar logs embedded in the ground. At least some of the wood would stay dry. We sorted pieces, reserving the largest blocks for the living room heater.
Dance Hall
At least twice a month we played music at Sam’s Tavern, a roadhouse on the outskirts of Eagle River. Yet another of the low-timbered structures indigenous to the area, Sam’s flourished outside the city limits, immune to raids from law enforcement officers. During Prohibition, the owner, Sam Capich, carried on a lucrative bootleg business there, or so it was rumored.
Capich was a short, rotund Czech in his late thirties who wore his black hair slicked. Generous-minded patrons said he deserved to be rich because he had an insane wife living at the back of the tavern. Occasionally we heard her screaming. Barring illness, Capich was behind his bar from 10 A.M. until 2:30 or 3:00 A.M. He seldom said much, smoked endless cigars, and showed his fondness for my dad by sending him rounds of beer between musical sets.
When we arrived at 9 P.M., a few patrons were gathered near the dance floor, waiting. Dad and Charlie had a beer at the bar, while I drank soda pop. We were scheduled to play until 1 A.M. Of the $30 we received as wages, Dad gave me $7. We wore slacks and plaid wool shirts. Our tunes, played on fiddle, accordion, mandolin, and guitar, were always the same—folk songs and popular songs from Dad’s youth. He’d say that people liked the “old” music best. When we were ready to perform, Capich disconnected the loudspeakers, limiting the jukebox music to the bar area. The hall, paneled with knotty pine, was oblong, with an upright piano at the far end.
By 10:00 the floor was crowded. Among the regulars were Vic Barnes and his wife, Rosie. They were in their late twenties and poor. Rosie was slender, tall, somewhat horse-faced, with masses of brunette curls piled on her head, set off with flapper bangs. She wore much makeup. By 11:00 Vic was dead drunk. Rosie then had a good time, mainly with Ira Castleton, a fiftyish bachelor with a reputation as a lecher, who rarely missed a dance. Occasionally, Rosie would disappear from Castleton and trip out to the cars with another man. When Castleton found her, he would drag her off to his place, leaving Vic to fend for himself On one outrageous evening, an Indian “had” Rosie behind the piano. A cluster of people gathered to observe. I got a glimpse before Dad drew me away
Playing at Sam’s Tavern produced dilemmas in my life. First, there was my religiosity. I was superintendent of the Lutheran Sunday school; prayed with fervent regularity and was thinking of the ministry as a career. Pitted against all this were my strong sexual impulses. My prudishness won out. I saw the town as a Sodom or Gomorrah, and I appointed myself guarantor of my mother’s interests. Dad was not to flirt with other women, and he must not drink too much. When he seemed about to hoist the telling glass of whiskey or beer, I nagged him. He was patient, and I don’t recall his ever being drunk.
My own libido, on its silver chain, threatened to break loose as some handsome youth or maiden waltzed by Was I doing the Devil’s work? Whenever I expressed my doubts, Dad said we were not responsible—people chose their lives, and we had no business criticizing them. We were there to make the best music we could.
We played for Capich until I was a junior in high school, when he closed his dance hall, pleading poor receipts, too many fights, hassles from the sheriff and his mad wife’s cancer.
Fights
To stifle the numerous quarrels Margie and I had that summer, my mother would declare, “Just wait till you get to high school. Those guys are tough. They’ll knock your block off.”
My worst quarrel with Margie occurred a week before high school, the week after the county fair. To play pig family we formed a circle of kitchen chairs on the grass. Our conflict was over which of us would play the sow. Margie felt that a male should always play the boar, lingering at the back of the pen digging up roots while the lucky sow lay on her side squirting forth piglets. For a convincing porcine look, we wore Dad’s heavy winter coats.
I would, for once, be the sow! I grabbed the coat my sister preferred, put it on, and flopped down in birth throes. I loved the delicious sensation of birthing. Squirt. Squirt. Squirt. When I turned to lick the piglets, Margie kicked at me and yelled. I fought back, spraining her hand. She announced she would drown herself in the lake.
I called her bluff, waved good-bye, and took the coats and chairs back into the house. Half an hour later, I began to worry, filling in time with some desultory hoeing in the flower garden. I started for the lake, near panic. No signs near shore of her shoes or clothes, no footprints, no evidence of a drowned person in the water. If she had indeed jumped, she had drifted into the cranberry marsh, out of sight.
I returned home. As I passed a hayrick, crying, Margie jumped out laughing. “Served you right,” she said. I felt both angry and relieved.
From this point on, we played few childhood games. Within a few days her menstrual cycles began. Mom was in the Rhinelander Hospital having her goiter removed. Dad sent Margie to Aunt Kate to explain the facts of life and chose the occasion for my own sex education—or at least he tried. He explained “monthlies” and said it was time I “fucked” a girl. I should cross the road and take Maxine Kula into a woods and “do it.” I was shocked. The paradox of women as both citadels of purity—this is how I saw my mother, and how my father conditioned me to see her—and licentious whores was painful.
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nbsp; In high school, since I was only twelve, I needed to employ my wits in complex ways. Whenever older boys threatened, I diverted hostility through a trick Osmo Makinnen taught me: Play subservient. Flatter your threatener by asking for information; for instance, what wrench does he use for loosening the lug nuts on his car? What is the largest pike he’s ever hooked? What gym shoes are best? The questions were legion; the skill came in thinking of them fast enough to deflect, hostilities. Even if a gang threatened, the ploy worked: Regale the leader with a question. I never once had to defend myself physically throughout four years of high school.
Halloween
Possibilities for Halloween were always limited, and trick or treat was not then the national ritual it has become. There were very few other neighborhood families to plague. Older boys attended dances in town. There wasn’t even a good graveyard nearby to liven things up.
The Jollys and I started the evening playing pinochle rummy. We ate popcorn and raisin-filled cookies. At 9:00 we went to Hiram Ewald’s. He was twenty and had quit high school, preferring to stay home, as an only son, to work the family farm. They sold milk. His dad told us to be careful; if we got our butts shot full of rock salt, he wouldn’t pick it out.
We decided on two pranks—to tip over the outhouses at the school and to fling rocks at Jorgensen, the Danish bachelor. He lived alone, a victim, so it was said, of mustard gas in the trenches.
Our first action was safe, since the school was closed and there was no caretaker. The second was not so safe, since Jorgensen had a reputation for waiting with a shotgun.
We tipped the outhouses, smeared the school windows with soap, and then focused on Jorgensen. For our protection, we piled some scrap lumber over a small pit. If he blasted away, we could scurry there and hide. George, we decided, would attract Jorgensen’s attention while we circled around in back and stoned his house. A dark moon made our progress easier. We crept near, shouting a medley of coyote calls, obscenities, and owl hoots and then hurling a shower of stones. Suddenly, the front door burst open, and Jorgensen emerged. There was an explosive flash.
As we scurried to our shelter, Jorgensen fired twice more and then returned to his house. The Jollys were for persisting in tipping over his outhouse. Since we’d approach from the rear, he wouldn’t see us until he was too late. Hiram and I were for letting well enough alone. The old guy obviously meant business.
We settled into our bunker, cramped together. Hiram had a cigarette. We talked dirty. Hiram suggested we feel one another’s erections, inside our pants. His felt like a milk bottle. We worked our way out of the bunker and stood listening; then we let out a few whoops in Jorgensen’s direction and headed on up the road.
Gym
I dreaded gym class, so I delayed the perfunctory physical examination for weeks, hoping I would contract a disease rare enough to excuse me from class. Not only was I inexperienced at games, but I dreaded showing myself nude to strangers. The ball we had played at the Sundsteen elementary school was for kids. Even then, I could rarely catch a ball, and my balance was terrible—I had never ridden a bicycle. The only thing I did well was sprint over the rough terrain of those gravel country roads.
The principal, Mr. Kracht, known for his violent temper as “The Bull of the Woods,” demanded to know why I was not attending gym. He was unimpressed when I said I lacked money for clothes. His ultimatum: “Attend on Monday! I will personally see you do!”
While the other students suited up, I stalled, removing my shirt as carefully as if it were glued to burn scabs. The locker door hid my lower body from view, and I faced the wall, preferring to show the world my rear rather than my privates. Once in the gym, I stood about with my arms awkwardly folded, intimidated by the prowess and agility of the other boys, especially those from town. When it came time to choose up sides for games, I was always chosen last. I avoided showers until the gym teacher threatened to strip and scrub me himself “We don’t want you stinking in class,” he said. Again, I lingered, disrobing slowly, waiting for the other boys to finish. Draping my towel in front of me, I’d make my way to the end shower, face the wall, and bathe. Weeks elapsed before I was able to linger and enjoy the hot spray, a treat indeed considering our primitive bathing conditions at home.
Eventually, one of the flashiest town boys, Augie La Renzie, took an interest in me. I helped him with Latin declensions. He was curly-haired, funny, incredibly agile, and popular with both girls and boys. In his freshman year he made varsity basketball. During free periods, we would meet at the gym, where he gave me pointers on basketball. I was soon fairly adept at free throws. Augie also gave me health advice: Never wear someone else’s jock strap; keep the venison out of your teeth; stop using brilliantine. He grew up to marry the county judge’s daughter and became a World War II ace and a commercial pilot.
Esther Austin
The subject I did poorest in, math, was taught by my favorite teacher, Esther Austin. She was a short brunette in her thirties, unmarried, the daughter of the county superintendent of schools. Her standards for thoroughness and neatness were high, and she sought out students for special attention, especially those with adjustment problems. I was one of her favorites, although I did not know it then. My almost pathological shyness struck her—she was working on a masters degree in psychology at the University of Wisconsin. After algebra one day, she asked me if I would like to compete for the regional oratory competition. I harbored fantasies of being a lawyer or a teacher and knew that speaking skills mattered. And the grade school teacher had said I had a gift for public speaking.
Three times a week, during lunch hour, I would sit in Miss Austin’s classroom rehearsing my oration, “Europe and the Jews,” procured from a forensics bureau. Miss Austin mouthed the phrases while I recited them. She struggled to convince me that oratory does not mean shouting.
I brought Miss Austin flowers and fruit. I told her secrets I wouldn’t have told my own mother. Years later, I discovered she had kept an ongoing “behavior journal,” actually awarding points for my victories over shyness. She had set up special opportunities in class for me to gain self-confidence and she gave positive marks for those weeks when I confided in her less than I had earlier—evidence that I was maturing. She recorded whatever I told her of my feelings, my family, and other students. She encouraged me to think of girls. We had three-person committees who occasionally conducted class, having worked out in advance some difficult algebraic problem. She always appointed me to serve with girls.
One summer I worked for her father installing new insulation in the Austin attic. Mr. Austin got me a job cutting lawns and trimming bushes at the Ellis mansion, a huge lumber baron’s home being converted into a hospital. Once I had graduated and was in Madison at the university, I realized the extent of Miss Austin’s devotion. She hired me to type her master’s thesis, When the draft arrived, I was stunned to see that I was one of three former students observed and analyzed in her meticulous journals. Her behavioral study was greatly influenced by the progressive ideas of John Dewey and Alexander Meiklejohn. Setups of the sort she designed for us in her classes could be used to modify behavior and plot maturity.
Years later, whenever I visited Eagle River, I saw her. She never married, and she kept her body vigorous by daily summer swims in Eagle Lake. In her seventies, she fell senile. The last time I saw her, she did not know me. She remained in a time warp of reveries supervising interminable high school cafeteria lunchroom hours. When she was found wandering a few blocks from her home, thoroughly lost, the court appointed her friend the Congregational minister as her guardian. He sent her to a nursing home, where she lived for ten years before dying.
Culture
Dorothy Canfield stood for culture; Myron Goldgruber did not. Canfield taught Latin and English literature, was a former actress, resembled Marlene Dietrich, and loved emoting. She took all the parts of Romeo and Juliet during two weeks of classes. To most of us, her hamming was sheer artistry. She painted her face in a
florid manner to emphasize her high cheekbones and smeared kohl around her eyes. She wore enormous topaz bracelets, rings, and a scimitar of brass around her neck. She wore gypsy blouses, usually white trimmed in delicate flowers, and colorful wool skirts bought from Indians on a trip through the Southwest. Only six students took her Latin I, which was more of a club than a class.
Goldgruber, the manual arts instructor, was a bitter contrast. One chose either his biology or his woodworking classes. I chose the latter, thinking that my farm experience would help and that I might acquire more useful skills. Moreover, I feared science.
I was a disaster. Goldgruber ridiculed my birdhouse built of birch branches, on which I had spent hours trimming, tacking with finishing nails, cutting an entry hole, and even drawing a window on colored paper. He held the flimsy creation up before the class and said, “A girl must have made this.” His voice was latent with rage. He held it between his palms and crushed it. “Now, Robert,” he declared, dumping the mess on my desk, “have your mother build you a real birdhouse! No bird would live in this one!” Flushed with disgrace, I never returned to his class. I tried to soothe myself by saying that birdhouses have nothing to do with art. I would be an artist! My hunger was enormous. Ignorance floated in my mind like so much jetsam.
My awareness of classical music came unexpectedly. Another freshman, John Roesch, whose family were aristocratic Germans and whose father lost a lucrative business in Chicago during the 1920s, lived on Cranberry Lake. He seemed to have read everything; and he recited Shelley and Keats. His primary enthusiasm was for Richard Wagner. His mother was a professional musician, and he had trained for tenor roles. He loaned me an album, “Great Moments from the Ring Cycle,” which I kept for a month, playing it daily on our wind-up Victrola. The album included synopses of the operas, the text of the arias, and notes on the singers. I loved “The Ride of the Valkyries.”
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