Summer: Another Crazy Brother Story

We stepped out of school, my crazy brother Ted and I, a giant load of completed papers and work books under our arms and something in mind-- as always. The sun blazed gloriously on our upturned faces. The sun had never felt so good. School was over for the year, and we were heading home for the ceremonial burning.

A few friends joined us around the burn barrel in our backyard, and we heaved the paperwork in. It thudded as it hit bottom, ashes pluming upward like thousands of tiny phoenixes. My brother leaned into the barrel and lit a match. We whooped and hollered. It wasn’t that we didn’t care about our work, but it was done! We gazed, mesmerized, at the fire, leaping from sheaf to sheaf, devouring, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Our minds were ablaze, already living the glories of June, July, and August. Not a moment of it would be wasted.

June meant the stream running below our house was still swollen from the spring rain and snow melt. It only took moments to trade school clothes out for shorts and T-shirts, and we were on our way to the wood factory just down the road. There, my brother boldly haggled for two discarded wood pallets from a yard worker. Earlier, in preparation for this project, we had smuggled home a total of eight empty milk bags from the milk dispenser in the kitchen of our school. It was a cooler unit that held two rectangle milk bags, perhaps three or four gallons each, with a rubber spout. The kitchen lady lifted a stainless steel handle to fill the milk jugs for each class. Four inflated milk bags, the rubber tube tied off, plus a wooden pallet and you had yourself a raft! The air bags fit perfectly between the slats of a wooden pallet.

It took the afternoon to build two rafts and part of the evening to scavenge for the rafting poles we would need for maneuvering them down the stream. We planned our maiden voyage for the next day when we would have more time.

The morning of the first full day of summer dawned, and Ted and I rushed through breakfast. Mom often let us take a sandwich along for the day during vacation. The only hard and fast rule was: be home by dinner time. Sure, there were chores to do, but large expanses of time were filled with what we liked best: play outside. With a family of eight siblings and friends from equally big families only a bike ride away, there was never a lack of initiative and plans in the making.

In summer we practically lived in our swimsuits and that morning was no exception. The pallets rubbed on our bare legs and arms as we dragged them through the yard and up the dirt track which ran parallel to the swollen creek. A bunch of friends tagged along. The main action in the neighborhood usually took place around our house, and that was mostly because of my brother. He was funny and wild, fun to be with, and a loyal friend. He was ten that summer and I was nine.

Our dad had put up a fence along the creek, so the little kids in the area wouldn’t fall in unattended. But the day we planned to ride our rafts, the water ran, almost to the top of the fence and clear up the pasture field. The water churned, brown with silt, as it raced toward the culvert under the highway well beyond our house.

It was hot and humid in our little valley that day. We alternated between dragging the pallet rafts and carrying them, a kid on each corner. Dust, kicked up from the road, clung to our sweat, but we doggedly persevered. After a mile or so, we took the trail down to the creek where we planned to set sail. Part of the inspiration for this glorious expedition came from a book by Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer. We had pored over his book Kon-Tiki, the story of his incredible voyage across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa raft. If only we could have such wonderful adventures!

Both our friends and we were more than relieved to plunk the hefty rafts down in the long grass on the edge of the water. Now for the discussion: Who was going to come along on the ride? We never wished to be selfish in our pursuits, and opened the invitation to anyone who wished to join, especially those who had helped carry the clunkers upstream.

By then there were six or seven kids tagging along for the fun. They eyed the water warily, then looked back at Ted. The roaring of the current hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm in the slightest. Ever the optimist, fear and anxiety were far from his concern.

His offer of a ride-of-a-lifetime was silently turned down, and the potential ship mates quickly became passive spectators. Honestly, at that point I wasn’t sure if the rafts would even float. They had been so heavy to carry, I thought to myself.

Ted and I waded into the water, pulling along the pallets. A friend passed me the pole. I was kneeling on mine. It floated, but barely. This was going to be a wet endeavor no matter how you looked at it.

Ted’s raft was right beside mine as he gave a mighty push off the bottom with his long slender pole.

“Stand up on it,” he shouted above the tumult. “Let’s go!”

I stood.

At that moment, he was Thor Heyerdahl himself in the midst of a storm on the Pacific.

The current bit, then swept us up in its arms, rolling, rocking, careening. The pallets submerged, water racing across the slats, swirling up over our ankles, sometimes over our knees. We had thrown our destiny in with the raging river.

Ted was in the lead, but when he glanced back at me, his face was alight with excitement. It literally glowed. This was truly living.

Dragging the cumbersome rafts upstream had seemed forever. But now the mile flew in a whirlwind of action. In a moment we bolted by our house. Another blink, and we were shooting beyond our pasture. Another second, and...

I heard the roar before I saw it. We were nearing the highway. Usually by midsummer we kids could wade and play in the huge culvert that took the water under the highway and into a neighbor’s lake on the other side. It was a rich neighbor with swans and paths and nice trees and wildlife. A place we were not supposed to trespass.

Now I was scared. Really scared.

It was the first week of June, and the stream had flooded above the culvert. Where the culvert was, water funneled downwards in a deafening rush. The culvert was completely full and our frail barques, with us teetering on board, were headed for doom.

Ted turned back for a split second and yelled, “Swim to safety!” He was using his carefully carved sapling to madly pole toward a grassy bank, but the current wasn’t letting him go.

All at once, he jumped ship and started swimming. I followed suit in a horrible panic. The torrent snatched the vacant rafts, the poles, the floating milk bags. It devoured them alive.

Swimming for our lives, we neither saw them being sucked into the culvert, nor saw the wooden splinters spitting out of the other end. Ted and I gulped for air, grasping at clumps of long grass, water still tugging at our ankles. We heaved ourselves onto the bank and lay on the soggy grass panting. All of a sudden, Ted sat up, and grinned at me. “That was something,” he said. “We made it.”

Once again.

Another summer day. We joked as we jogged along, heading back to find our friends. This adventure would indeed captivate an audience. Along with his other talents, my brother had a special knack for storytelling. This one was sure to be a doozy. All in a summer’s day, I supposed.