Eleven Miles to Oshkosh

by Jim Guhl

  “You mean like a gravestone rubbing?” He smiled.

  “Yes, sir. And here’s your Hoot Owl.”

  He took it, looked at it, and tossed it in the general direction of the trash can. I said nothing.

  “Would you like something with my name on it, son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wait here.”

  I took a deep breath of air like when I’ve been underwater in the river too long. Holy smokes! Kazmynski could have booted me off his driveway or even called the cops. He didn’t even get mad—yet.

  He came back out on the porch with a football and a black marker. I held my breath as he wrote his name on the side and handed me the ball. It was the real thing, with the NFL insignia stamped into the side and everything.

  “Thanks.” I could barely squeak out the word.

  “No sweat, kid. It’s a practice ball.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  Leroy Kazmynski walked through his front door and closed it with a thud.

  Somehow, I must have finished delivering the rest of my Hoot Owls but I don’t remember a single thing except that I got an autographed football from Leroy Kazmynski and a smile from Opal’s mom.

  9

  Gym class had never been my favorite, but in the fall of 1972 it was worse than usual. We were learning the fundamentals of football and that meant getting assigned to a position on the field. Mr. Reckler started with the biggest and tallest kids and worked his way down. By the time he got to me, it was like he was staring at the worthless prize that just fell out of a Cracker Jack box. He only had one thing to say.

  “Get on the line and block someone.”

  Things went downhill from there. On a good day I lined up across from someone fifty pounds bigger than me. On a bad day, I blocked Thor Knudson, who probably should have been listed as his own species, a cousin to the mountain gorilla.

  Before I wised up, the plays went like this. The center hiked the ball to the quarterback. Knudson gave me a two-handed shove. I flew backward and landed flat on my back and banged my head into the ground. It didn’t take long before I learned to dive left or right at the snap of the ball before he could touch me. Reckler yelled at me every play.

  “Block him, you yellow-belly!”

  As a matter of survival I ignored him.

  The second thing I hated about gym class was getting my lunch money stolen. When it happened, it was while I was in the showers. After the third theft, I quit showering altogether. That’s when Larry Buskin took the direct approach and started looking for me between Randy Schnell’s house and the school instead. Usually, it went something like this.

  “Hey Minnow, how’s it going?”

  “Good.”

  “Can I borrow a dollar?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not very friendly.”

  I would cover my head with one arm and my stomach with the other before Larry punched me hard in the ribs and ripped the lunch money out of my pocket.

  My answer to all of that was to sneak into school by a different route every day. It was either that or wait for Mark to show up and walk in with him. Like I said before, Mark was tough and he could have been a good bodyguard when it came to getting past Larry Buskin. The only problem was that he was almost always tardy. Mark just didn’t care if he was on time or not. Even when the school gave him a note from the principal to get signed by his dad, he didn’t care. The bottom line for me? Three days a week I snuck through Larry Buskin’s ambush. Two days a week I got punched hard in the ribs. One day a week I lost my lunch money. I could live without lunch once in a while, but let me tell you, those twice-a-week punches from Larry Buskin couldn’t go on forever.

  It was the last Friday in September, and I had taken another punch to the ribs from Larry Buskin, even though I had saved my lunch money by hiding it in my shoe. After school, my head hung low and I didn’t even feel like riding my bicycle, much less ride it fast. As I crept past the sailboats in the harbor and the fancy mansions on Wisconsin Avenue, I didn’t even look at them. One way or another, I had to do something about Larry Buskin.

  Instead of taking a right turn on the bridge to the island, I rode through downtown Neenah, past the red-brick mill and the taverns and across the tracks. I locked my bike to the light post outside Emerald Gardens. For the third time in a row, the same man sat on the concrete step out front, but this time he wore a blue sweatshirt and drank from a flat bottle that was still inside the brown paper bag. He nodded his head without saying anything as I went inside, walked down the dark, smelly hallway, and knocked on the door to apartment 118.

  Grandpa Asa and I had vanilla ice cream, of course, but this time we sprinkled wild hickory nuts and maple syrup on top. The only sound was that of our spoons clanking and when we finished, I put both bowls in the sink.

  “Grandpa,” I said. “Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Suppose there was a big kid who was trying to get the lunch money from a smaller kid and the smaller kid wouldn’t let him and the big kid kept punching him in the ribs and sometimes getting the money anyhow.”

  “Go on.”

  “And suppose the smaller kid had taken about as much crap as he was going to take but he knew he would get his butt whipped if he fought the bigger guy. Do you know what I’m saying, Grandpa?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you suppose the smaller kid should do?”

  “Fight him.”

  “And get his butt whipped?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean, maybe? The smaller kid would need a dozen rabbits’ feet in his pocket to win a fight like that. The odds against him would be a million to one.”

  “So he needs to get lucky, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you familiar with the concept of making your own luck?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you familiar with a product called Eaglewing steel-toed boots with a reinforced shank?”

  “I think so. Don’t the mill workers wear them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What good would new shoes do?”

  “Well, a kid isn’t allowed to bring a weapon to school, but I don’t think they can tell him what kind of shoes to wear, can they?”

  “No.”

  “If I was your friend, I would get a pair of those boots and then I wouldn’t wait to get punched in the ribs before using them.”

  “You mean I should kick him?”

  “I’m still talking about the hypothetical kid,” said Grandpa. “I didn’t say nothing about you.”

  “Sure . . . but should the hypothetical kid kick the other kid?”

  “Does he want to win?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then an Eaglewing to the shins is his best option. A direct hit from the steel toe should drop the guy. After that he can break his nose.”

  “What if he misses the shins?”

  “Then he’ll get creamed.”

  “Oh.”

  “And your friend better practice first so he gets the feel of aiming and what it means to kick as hard as he can, because that’s what it will take.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to tell your friend to do all that?”

  “Yeah, but there’s just one small problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He can’t afford Eaglewing steel-toed boots.”

  “What size shoes does he wear?”

  “Four.”

  “Well, you stop here tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll have a pair of those size 4 Eaglewings that you can give to your friend. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I just stood there looking at my grandpa Asa. My brain was all mixed up just thinking about it all.

  “If I was you,” said Grandpa, “I would tell that hypothetical kid to not tell anybody about the Eaglewings.”

  “Okay, I’ll let him know.”

  “N
ow, let’s take a walk to my pickup truck out back. I’ve rounded up some supplies for the Menasha homecoming game and I think you should take a look.”

  10

  I switched to riding the bus. I said I would never do it, but I did. I stashed Ike in the garage and started riding the stupid bus to school.

  I know, I know. It was just like me to run away again, right? Well, if that’s what you want to believe, you go right ahead, and you’re at least partly right. I did have enough of getting punched in the ribs and collecting bruises of every color and losing my lunch money on top of everything. And when Grandpa Asa found out that size 4 Eaglewings with steel toes had to be ordered special, and it pushed the timetable for me fighting Larry Buskin out by at least three weeks, maybe I did say enough was enough. So fine—go ahead and give me one more patch with the letter C on it. But if it was you who was getting pounded in the ribs and skipping lunch, then I dare you to say you wouldn’t have switched to riding the bus too.

  Okay, fine—there was one other reason for parking Eisenhower in the garage and switching to riding the school bus. I got to sit by Opal Parsons for ten minutes every morning. Okay? Are you satisfied now? Well, all right then . . . now you know.

  It was the Friday night before duck hunting opener and Grandpa Asa said he wanted to see for himself whether or not I could heft the Model 12. Besides that, neither one of us had said anything to Mom yet about our hunting plans. I was waiting in the garage when Asa drove over.

  “You been practicing?” he asked.

  “Every morning.”

  “Let’s see you handle the gun.”

  I brought the shotgun out of the corner and pulled it from the leather case. Before lifting it I took three long, deep breaths of air to prime my lungs with oxygen.

  “Pretend there’s a duck directly overhead,” said Asa. “Pick up the shotgun, point it nice and steady for five seconds, and bring it back down.”

  I grabbed the Winchester, and my fingers were a steel vise. (That’s a metaphor I learned from Mrs. Borger.) I scrunched up my whole face and didn’t even grunt as I hoisted it vertical and steady as the flagpole at the VFW. I counted to five and brought it back down. Rock solid. My best one ever.

  “Pretty impressive,” said Grandpa Asa. “Now, do it again on a duck coming in from north to south. Swing the gun around and track that greenhead nice and steady, right across the sky.”

  I did it. It wasn’t perfect, but pretty good. Asa clenched his jaw and nodded like a true believer.

  “What are the three big rules of gun safety?” he asked.

  “Be sure of your target. Treat every gun as if it was loaded. Always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.”

  “Okay, let’s go hunting. Now we’ve just got to notify your mom.”

  “She might freak out,” I said.

  “We’ll see.”

  We both walked into the house through the kitchen door. As usual, Mom was puffing on a Lucky and watching television in the living room. I heard the theme song from Petticoat Junction as we stepped in the room and stared at her.

  “What?” She flicked an ash onto a dinner plate.

  “Grandpa’s taking me duck hunting on Lake Poygan tomorrow,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said with a backhanded wave of her left hand. “Make your own lunches.” Her eyes left us and found the TV screen again.

  Asa and I walked back into the kitchen.

  “That was easy,” he said.

  We arrived at my dad’s uncle Kermit’s boathouse at 4:15 a.m. Like most of my relatives, Kermit was already dead. Dad had inherited the duck shack on Lake Poygan, so I didn’t really know who owned it anymore. Maybe Mom, I supposed.

  I unlocked the doors and started loading decoys, life jackets, our extra gear, and lunches into the skiff. I tossed a blanket in there in case Asa wanted to sleep. Then I took a brush cutter out behind the shack and snipped a bunch of willow branches and tossed them in the skiff too.

  The duck hunting season would officially open at noon. You might think starting out before 5:00 a.m. was crazy, but to get a good spot on Poygan meant getting out there early—really, really early. There were hundreds of hunters and only a certain number of good spots. Every hunter had to set up in the weeds, because that was the law. Dad and I had always gone to an area of smaller lake weeds only a foot or two tall and concealed the rest of the skiff with willow branches. My plan was to do the same thing again except for one change. I would be sitting in my dad’s seat and Grandpa Asa would be sitting in mine.

  We stood on the small dock in front of the boathouse and looked out on the big lake. Almost everything was black except the stars and the moon and the red lights of a radio tower far away. The air smelled like a swamp. A few small waves hit the rocks on the shore, sounding like a little girl’s clapping hands.

  “The really serious hunters are already out there,” I told Asa. “Can you see those lanterns shining from the cane near the center of the lake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dad told me that the early birds get set up twenty-four hours ahead of time. That means some of those guys have been on the water since noon yesterday.”

  Asa nodded.

  “Let’s get started,” I said, helping Grandpa into the skiff. It wasn’t easy for him with his two bad hips. He made it though, butt first and sliding backward into the stern. I got in the middle, pushed off from the dock, and started rowing.

  It was a little bit scary to be way out there in the darkness, with nothing but some old cedar planks between us and the cold, black water of Lake Poygan. Dad had always told me that those planks were probably sawed by steam-powered mills, most likely in Oshkosh, even before the Great Depression. Same thing with the old wooden duck decoys at our feet, all carved by Uncle Kermit’s dad with tools that had funny names like “drawknives” and “spokeshaves.” Even the lead decoy anchors and their keel weights came from a time when things were made by hand. Uncle Kermit told me once that the weights on our decoys were molded by pouring molten lead into the round, metal shell from the bell off his bicycle handlebars. I took a pause from rowing and we studied the sky. The stars blazed brighter than ever.

  “That Orion’s sort of a show off, isn’t he, Grandpa?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I mean, look at his fancy belt with the three bright stars all in a perfect row. Then hanging from his belt he has his sword and his shield out front. He’s sort of like those TV wrestlers.”

  “I reckon,” said Asa.

  On the other side of the sky, I could see the Big Dipper.

  “Did you know that a person doesn’t need a compass if they can find the Big Dipper in the sky, Grandpa?”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep. The last two stars on the pan side of the dipper point right at the North Star, which is called Polaris. And do you know that Polaris is so far away from earth that the light we see now was sent to us from the star about three hundred years ago?”

  “Imagine that. Where’s that blanket? I think I’ll take a little snooze.”

  I handed Asa the blanket and started rowing again. I don’t know why I got so excited about stuff like the moon and stars. I guess I just really liked everything about duck hunting, and that even included the night sky.

  It took forty minutes or more of pulling on the oars, but I finally got us across the open water and into the shallow weeds. I dropped anchor to keep us from drifting, then poked the willow branches into the muck around the boat. The final step was to hang Asa’s old railroad lantern. I clamped the L-shaped bracket to the edge of the skiff and hung the lantern like a noose hangs on a gallows. When I lit the wick, the small, blue light grew until it finally glowed bright yellow to mark our spot on the lake.

  A sliver of pink started showing itself on the eastern horizon. With Asa snoring peacefully in the other end of the skiff, I pulled my hat down tight over my ears, adjusted my gloves, and lay back to look at the sky again.

  If you were pay
ing attention, you already heard me talking to Opal about the magic that happens very early in the morning on the Poygan Marsh. Here’s a list of the sounds I heard before the sun cracked the edge of the earth.

  Green heron somewhere—kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk

  Small fish jumping—splash

  Big fish jumping—SPLASH!

  Barred owl—hooo-cooks-for-yoooooo!

  Wood duck somewhere—teereeee! teereeee!

  Train whistle far away—(you know the sound)

  Coots playing—splish-dabble-splash

  Geese somewhere—honk-honk-gahonk

  Unseen ducks overhead—wheey-wheey-wheey-wheey

  Motorboat—rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

  Sunrise—“Wow!”

  Like I said before, on opening day of duck season nobody was allowed to shoot before noon, so there was plenty of time to look around, relax, read a book, and just wait out the morning. I looked around for hunters. A few other skiffs were set up in the shallow weeds like us. Other hunters had their heads poking up in the big swamp, and at least one guy was set up right next to the shore.

  Grandpa Asa made a grunting noise and sat upright. “Do you want something to eat?” I asked. “We’ve got sandwiches, chips, pop, apples, and some cookies.”

  “I’ll take a cookie,” he said. I tossed him two.

  I pulled a transistor radio out of my pack and worked the dial until I found the Saturday morning auction program. Just like with the Hoot Owls, the radio auction show was all about people buying and selling stuff they probably didn’t need, but since it was an auction, well that made it sort of fun. People got their competitive juices flowing when somebody outbid them for some stupid thing like a used lawn mower or an old guitar and, of course, they called right back in and bid higher again. Well, the funniest part was that they couldn’t even see the stuff they were buying in the first place. It was good entertainment for an hour for me and Asa.

  As the morning wore on I had plenty of time to read, so I cracked open The Scarlet Letter and plowed through the middle third of it. Holy smokes! All of a sudden I was glad I didn’t live in the 1850s.