The Summer of '72

The Summer of ‘72

  My 12-year-old self tightened the laces on my dusty PF Flyers. I kicked the Ozark rocks stained red from the clay and there rose a cloud of dust that lingered in the air. I thought it could be smoke as hot as it was. I looked down the steeply sloped gravel driveway that brought travelers up, past the weathered barn, to the cozy house at the top of the hill. Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They had moved here from Indiana after their retirements, and fancied watching the rest of their lives pass by from that Ozark perch. Our previous visits had been eye-opening for four suburban raised boys. The half-mile rides in the back of Grandpa’s pickup in the morning to fetch the mail. Exploring the fascinating four acres with all manner of critters that we had never encountered before. Using a real outhouse, a scary distance from the house. Bathing in the “crik”, and the half-mile walk back to the house up this very driveway, leaving us sweaty and coated with a new layer of Missouri’s dry dust. This time our visit to the farm just wasn’t the same.

  I looked down that hill and hesitated. A skinny kid with glasses, the only running I had ever done was around the bases at the local Little League field. That summer there was a fire of frustration in my belly, and I’m quite certain that without the 1972 Olympics, I would never have contemplated running up or down that hill. As our stay began to feel more and more like confinement, I found solace in one of the things being aired on one of only two television channels. Day after day of watching the Olympics avidly had hatched a plot in my mind. If I were to become an Olympic athlete, my parents would be proud and lavish me with attention. Being far away from home without my parents, I had twelve-year-old issues that I’ll never quite understand, but the scheme seemed solid. I asked myself, how would I become an Olympic athlete? After a reasonable elimination of all manners of skilled sport, I arrived at the inevitable conclusion. Run.

  I took a stride down the hill, then another. The gravel proved slippery, and I had to lean back to keep from hurtling down the steep drive. One foot after the other, I awkwardly ran down the drive, propelled more from gravity than any internal fortitude. The ground leveled out as I approached the end of the drive where you could go left, or right, on a long gravel road. To the right lay fearful mysteries and rumors and we NEVER walked the road that way. To the left lay the creek, then later the blacktop, which led to the nearest town. As I shuffled myself to flat ground I simply looped around at the bottom of the hill and headed back up. No good to overdo it on the first day, was my thinking. I swung my arms hard hoping they would aid my ailing legs. Gravity pushed hard against my shoulders and my knees began to quiver. I eased to a walk, sweat running down my face, gasping for air. Disgusted at myself, I looked up realizing that I had only made it a quarter of the way up the drive. I was furious at myself, at least I thought I was, as I willed my body to run on. I could not. Hot tears left dirty trails on my face. Why did Dad leave us here? Where is Mom? The rocky driveway mocked me, offering no answers.

  Over the next weeks I took to running like a personal challenge. I did not know that my efforts were like an internal furnace, fueled by angst but also burning away the anger. I would run down the hill, turn left, and go farther each day. Inevitably I would return to that steeply rising driveway and bow to its will, breaking into a subservient walk.

  Dad called yesterday. He talked with Grandma for some time. I heard her fill him in on each of us four boys, then she stretched the phone cord so that she could continue the call from the kitchen. I snuck near the door so that I could listen better. I heard her mention treatments, then “When is she leaving Hinsdale?” I don’t know why, maybe I had heard it once before, but I knew Hinsdale was a sanitorium. I ran from the house and down the drive, not stopping until I had reached the creek. I was well read for a twelve-year-old kid, but that only made my questions more potent. Why was she there? When would she come back? What…had we done? My twelve-year-old tears provided no answers.

  The next day my brothers and I all donned swim trunks, with only sneakers to accessorize the look. A towel over my shoulder and a bar of soap in my hand, the walk to the creek seemed unusually slow. Finally arriving, we took to bathing on the left side of the road, as we had been instructed. There was a gentle gravel runoff, almost a beach that eased into a clear sandy bottomed pool that was our bathtub. Two culvert drain pipes ran under the road connecting the two sides. From the first we had been told not to swim on the right side of the road. The crumbling embankment and steeper drop to the water, the pools murky depth, and lack of easy entrance and exit all were logical factors in this rule. I recollect that my youthful frustrations led me to be a literal pain in the ass for my kind grandparents, and that day was no different. I left my two young brothers with my older brother, and I crossed the road.

  I scoffed at the warnings about this side of the road. I eased into the cool water and bobbed to the center of the small pool. My shoes could touch the rocky bottom and the water was just under my chin. I smiled self-satisfied at my disobedience. Crossing the road and peering down at me, my older brother responsibly yelled his disapproval, but I knew he wanted to flaunt his irresponsibility like me. I mocked him with a Cheshire grin and a low moan of satisfaction.

  Suddenly, ten inches from my face, a patterned head, bigger than my closed fist, rose from the water. Two beady black eyes stared mercilessly at me, a forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. The water moccasin had slid from its nest under the crumbling concrete overhang next to a culvert. I held my breath. With a roar my big brother protectively tossed a large stone at the serpents’ head but missed the mark. The snake disappearing under the water right in front of me ignited my terror. I left that pool running, which my brother later described as somewhat biblical, and tore off down the road towards the farm. My sneakers sloshed water across the dusty road that was absorbed almost as fast as I was running. I hit the hill thinking about that snake, but you know what, when I reached the top of that hill, all I could think about was that I had accomplished the unthinkable. I had run up that hill. I didn’t know it then, but I do know it now, that running up that hill gave me a little invincibility. If I could do that, then maybe Dad would come get us, and Mom would get better. And they did.

  I bend over at the waist, back aching like it does in the morning, and I tighten the laces of my Nike running shoes. At 64 I think about that 12-year-old and though he never made it to the Olympics, how he helped others overcome their personal “hills” throughout the years. I think how when that gun sounds, once again, I’m going to run. Somewhere along that run, I’ll find that invincibility once again.

THE END