Tag: Golden Valley

Burning Trash

Among my household chores were taking out the garbage and burning the trash. The garbage was table scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. Usually, it was wrapped in newspaper. Back then, everyone got at least one daily paper delivered to their doorstep. For several years, we got both the morning and evening papers, both the Minneapolis Star and the Tribune, as well as our village’s weekly , the Golden Valley Sun. People used to use yesterday’s newspapers for all sorts of things; many of the things we use paper towels for now. The rest would get stacked in a dry spot and tied with twine into bundles to be recycled at the elementary school’s paper sale. The ‘trash’ was all of the stuff that we threw away that would burn. Now some people had a different standard for that than we did, and would only burn paper, wood and cardboard. We liked to keep more out of the dump and have more fun. We burned our plastic, too. I know now that that probably wasn’t the best choice for the environment, or for my potential health. When one is nine or ten, one is not necessarily taking the long look. Plastic was fun to burn, because I could hang a molten piece on the end of a stick and watch the flaming plastic drip and hiss as it fell to the ground.

I enjoyed watching the fire. I would stay by it until it was safely done burning. My mom, B.J., wasn’t quite so attentive. There was a swamp behind our yard, then a steep hill with four rows of mature American Elm trees on it. The trees divided the hill into three sled paths in the winter. B.J. managed, on three different occasions, to let the trash fire get out of control and set the swamp on fire. Once, the fire was so bad, and the grass was so dry, that it burned all the way up the hill and part of the Moffat’s fence caught fire. When these fires occurred, all of the neighbors would get out their hoses and connect them to ours and Shermans’ in order to reach the swamp to contain the fire. One time, someone called the Golden Valley Fire Dept. They showed up in three cars, no tank truck, no hoses, no gear. They proceeded to tell us to hook our hoses together to put out the fire. We all told them to please go away! We had already done that. If they couldn’t offer any real help, just get out of the way!

We used a wire basket trash burner. The only image I could find of one for this post was from a vintage salvage company in the Midwest that finds antiques for movie sets. Ours had wider spaces between the wires. The top ‘flaps’ would not function after the first couple of weeks of use, being weakened by flame and corrosion.

When I think about it now, it was quite remarkable how frequently B.J. burned the swamp compared to how rarely she burned the trash. She did note how lush and vibrant all of the wildflowers and reeds came back after a fire.

Bubble blowing class

For a few summers when I was little, the six of us would pack up a pile of gear and supplies into the back of my mom’s ’59 Pontiac station wagon for a week or more of family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake near St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Just about everyone in Epiphany Episcopalian Church of New Hope, Minnesota, went. Epiphany was the third of the four churches my parents started, which is pretty unusual for a functioning agnostic and a Buddhist atheist.

There were all sorts of classes and activities for various age and skill levels; crafts, hiking, archery, fishing, swimming, etc. We all ate together. We had campfire together, then the children went to bed. There weren’t any beds. We were in sleeping bags on the old wood and canvas cots we brought from home. We did not necessarily go right to sleep. The parents stayed up for some late night conversation and libations. Did I mention it was an Episcopalian camp? Sometimes, we would mix it up and kids would “trade families” staying overnight in friends’ tents. We learned about how to do graffiti on the canvas by writing on it with toothpaste. The toothpaste would bleach it. Also, if you pressed on the canvas when it was raining, it would leak at that spot; a useful skill to annoy a bullying, sleeping, older brother.

There was a wood-fired sauna near the lake. We could get real heated up, working our way up to the top bench, then run down into the lake for a good shock to the system. This was on the “men’s” end of the beach. It was only designated this way for the moonlit skinny dipping. Some of the men would go full Finnish style in the sauna on those occasions. The women and girls were on the other end of the beach (about 50 yards away). My mom pointed out how, at that distance, in the moonlight it looked like everyone was wearing swimsuits, you know, with their tan lines. Sure, mom.

The stated topic was bubble blowing. Since we are finally at the lake …

Every year I had swim lessons I was in the beginner class, leaning over in knee deep water, blowing bubbles, turning my head, taking a breath and blowing more bubbles. I could never get out of bubble blowing class, because I could never float without moving my hands. My feet sank! I am now 64 years old. I still cannot float without moving. My feet still sink. I have heavy feet! I could never pass the test to go out to the floating raft to play and dive off with the rest of the kids my age. It got to the point where when it came time for bubble blowing class, I ran up the hill to our tent and hid under my cot, crying. It was no better when I went to Camp Manitou, the YMCA day camp. As part of their program we had swim lessons in the YMCA in downtown Minneapolis. We had to swim naked! They said that was so they could see who did it if anyone peed in the pool. It was not the best experience for this boy at nine years old, who could only blow bubbles and doggy paddle.

This was ridiculous! I lived in Minnesota, which is Sioux for “Land of Lakes” and I couldn’t swim! Finally, in 1966, the Golden Valley Country Club built a pool. My folks were very active there. In fact, my dad, Charlie, was president for a couple of years. The pool was open 9am to 9pm, 7 days. I basically lived at the pool. I was 11. I taught myself how to swim by mimicking the old folks who were swimming laps morning and evening. They were members of the “Mile-a-Week Club.” I also watched the swim team practice and tried out the other strokes. The pool opened the end of May. By the end of June I joined the swim team and the Mile-a-Week Club. I was the only child in the club. I still could not float unless I was moving. By the end of July, I was swimming two miles a day. A mile is 71 lengths of a 25 yard pool. I was never a speedster, but I could beat anyone on the team for distance. Also, whenever the coach wanted to demonstrate the form of a stroke, he would have me do it. He would use me at meets to compete in the long events above my age class where there were few or no entrants from other clubs. I was always entered in my maximum allowed events, so even though I wasn’t super fast, I racked up a lot of points for being there and finishing. Sometimes it made the difference between winning and losing a meet.

When I was 13 or 14, our family bought a lake place on Loveless Lake in Polk County, Wisconsin. Once a summer, I would swim around it, about 3 miles, with my sister, Sue Ann, guarding me on our waterbike.

The other day I swam four lengths of the pool. By the end, I was going so slowly my feet were sinking.  It’s hell to get old.