The Winds of Summer

 Summer arrived today hot dry and blustery just the way I like it brings back such great memories of Summer of yesteryears. Crap, am I that much of a cliche to talk about Summers of years past? But I guess it's true that I am. The wonderful sheet of the day will not last at least that's what the weather person says. The wind that is so adorably blowing is the result of a low pressure system moving in which is going to bring down super cold weather from up North. I mean it's not like it's going to freeze water and move us into a new Ice Age put the temperature will drop from the 90s to the 70s and possibly the 60s as the highs for the days, not the lows! Fortunately, this is a relatively fast moving front it will push through in a day or two. The hot weather should be returning by the middle of next week and build up until the weekend again. I guess it's always great to have something to look forward to. In the old days, when I was still able-bodied, my older brother and I were often left to bring the hay in while my dad was at work. We were basically worthless and to try to move one or two loads in until it got so hot we felt that we could no longer stand the Heat and fiddled our bikes are walked to the Twin Bridges canal about a mile away, through the neighbors fields. The Twin Bridges was a meeting place for many of the adolescents and a little older in the community. A place to smoke cigarettes, sneak beers if they were available and keep out the way of big kids- the teenagers. By this time of the year the water had warmed up significantly and those wonderful too throw yourself over the side of the bridge and Plunge into the dark green, semi-swift flow of this deep irrigation canal. Then if you're lucky who come up quick enough to be able to snag one of the beams underneath the bridge on the other side of the bridge and pull yourself up. If you miss the beam then you've got to swim to the beach and walk out of the canal. Either way it was wonderful to be met by the Blustery hot Winds of Summer when they were blowing. We never brought anything as civilized as a towel. Often I would lay just on the rough boarded surface of the bridge itself, which was almost burnable hot . One had to move quickly because the radiant Sun baked everything from the nails in the wooden top of the bridge to the blacktop pavement. If you stepped on the blacktop you could squish the hot asphalt between your toes. About once a week, sometimes more we were able to sleep out at our friend's home are they at ours. At night we would sleep in the house next to theirs, it was still their property and their grandparents lived in that house. We would set up our sleeping bags and I said grew darker we would head out walking all around the neighborhood. Even at 10:00 or 11:00 the blacktop was still hot from the day's Heat. It was a wonderful time for me. I loved hanging around the bridge totally enjoying the hot blustery Winds of Summer.

So Long Brother Dennis

It's weird how something that happens in the past, in the recent past, and totally have an impact on you or me that is. One of the key people in my childhood someone who I think quite highly of even though I have had little contact with him in the last 50 or so years. He's my age. He just turned 70 along with another friend that I have not really kept too much in contact with. These two folks have been very successful in their lives. Honestly, I feel a little intimidated by them feeling that I've done so little with mine. I know this is showing but it's really, how I feel. But anyway, great to text with these two fellows but one of them the brother of my friend Dennis Ward informed me that he passed away in late February. I can't believe I did not know this. Really no reason why I should especially with the pandemic/Covid pandemic. I kind of thought I was keeping up in contact Dennis.

Dennis Ward. Dennis is one of the big kids in the ecclesiastical grouping that I grew up in called a “Ward”. He was six or seven years older than me and he was a local hero of sorts kind of a athletic superstar for the local high school, Boise Senior High. He played football and he wrestled. He also swam at the same bridge that me and my brother did. I have references to the Twin Bridges in other posts to this blog. I was lucky enough to actually watch Dennis fight I think twice at least there on the bridge. Dennis was a great fighter Dennis is a legend. I was quite taken aback couple years ago when I realized or became aware that Dennis lived in Salt Lake. Dennis is still the big guy I remember, funny always joking around. He seemed the perfect personality for sales and that's what he did. I don't know much about his adult life except he owned a company which sold organizing products for home and business. Cardboard masterpieces to help you put your home/life in order. We started having lunch a couple times a year the last couple years – – I took a bit of a break when I went through my neural surgeries and rehabilitation/divorce but we've linked up again just recently. He let me know that he come down with cancer and I felt quite bad for them but the way he talked I assumed that he'd beat the bugger and he was in remission but sadly cancer took him back in February. It would not have made a whole lot of difference had I known. I assume his brother Kim: my friend, was in town for the whole event out of like to spend some time with Kim. Again, a little intimidated by his success and his elevation within the LDS faith. I think I will be able to catch up with him in the next couple of months or however long we have left on this dirt ball. I think were quite different now in some ways but in others perhaps very similar. That's for another blog. What I thought was really memorable was that Kim informed me as Dennis was going through his end-of-life process Dennis remembered me and told his brother to let me know that he would be waiting to visit with me in another place when I no longer needed a power chair for mobility…

Legend

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I just finished texting a friend of mine from the old days as Dennis not dissimilar from another friend I am from the old days was also named Dennis and went to the same ecclesiastical communal gathering called a ward which I did. This Dennis was much older though and was a bit of a legend as well as personal hero. He would've been what was deemed one of the “big kids”. A universe away from my as a lowly little kid.

Dennis was a larger-than-life kind of individual. He was an All-Star wrestler high school as well as a bit of football sensation as well as a fighter. Dennis was a local icon the kind of guy that everyone kind of adopted or pretended that they knew. My personal memories of Dennis Ward were literal fistfights at the iconic Twin Bridges on the Ridenbaugh Canal South of Boise Idaho. I would spend major portions of summer days at this swimming hole. Big kids like Dennis would slip down to the bridge on their lunch breaks or when they would get off work. I just researched this blog there are number of accounts fictionalized and nonfiction of some of the great fights from those days. I guess the point I am trying to make is that the peculiarities of time I have brought Dennis and I together again not so much as legend and hero as much as friends which, blows my mind.

I guess we have more in common than I think. We are both from the same geographical location and the same congregation. We are both living in Salt Lake and seemed like each other's company. We get together once or twice a year and I just feel that is enough. We actually should get together more it's funny that we do not. Earlier last week I learned that this has cancer. I don't know what kind I don't know how aggressive except that is in the middle of this chemo regimen. This gives me hope Dennis will go through this regimen and be back to his old self. Dennis is a funny guy some might say a joker. Happy-go-lucky. Perhaps his best quality for success in this situation is that he's a fighter, hands down probably the best fighter I will ever know. I still worry about Dennis because watching what happens to him could very well happen to me. I am not nearly as good a fighter as Dennis.

Dennis is scheduled for chemo tomorrow at 11 o'clock. Dennis has six more treatments in this round. I don't know how many more rounds he has. Dennis has already shaved his head after brazenly pulling out handfuls of hair on YouTube. I do not know if I would call this brave as much as entertaining and Dennis is always been an entertainer. Dennis is a sales guy that I mention that earlier? Dennis is self-employed, Dennis has a neat little business selling closet organizing systems and who knows what else. I'm looking forward to my lunch with Dennis hopefully this lunch will be one of many we still have to share…

Summer's Heat

As climate global change clicks into full gear will longer Wasatch front are getting the full brunt of unseasonable heat. Everyone is crying about how hot it is but you know what? I love it. I know you've heard this before but It is true I wait all year for this weather. I woke this morning the day was already hot, I looked out the window and saw clouds. The clouds were still there when I went out in now or so later and I remembered the exact same kind of clouds when I was preteen and teenager. These clouds held promise may be rain.

On a little farm we had about 10 acres that we raised hay for our few had of cattle. We're such a small operation We did everything ourselves– – Or the sons did. Dad worked all day it was up to Ross and I basically to get the hay in. Of course we can even do the first cutting until halfway through June and then another cutting in August followed by a smaller last cut in September. I'm trying to emphasize the fact that bringing in the hay was hot business. If my dad was lucky you and get us out early before he left for work And if we were really lucky you would help us with that first load before he left. Many days began with hopeful cloud cover and the promise of rain in cooler weather which would have been ideal for loading hay. Usually around 10 o'clock the clouds burnt off and the heat began.

Mom knew it was going to be hot so she dug out our little Coleman beverage cooler. I can still see this little cooler pink and white. Mom would take two of the four ice cube trays from the refrigerator icebox and dump them into the Coleman. Then should open up a can of frozen pink lemonade maybe two then dutifully adding the 6 units of water whatever amount the container that house the frozen juice. The the Coleman container would then stashed under the drivers seat of the international cub tractor we used to pull the big wooden hay trailer. Hauling hay is miserable weather your bucking hay bales or throwing hay into the wagon one pitchfork at the time. The sun is relentless, you sweat then the hay sticks to your skin and itches. We're usually good one load in the morning and then we would take off for the bridge where we would swim the soothing cooling water of the canal. Had we been as strong as my dad as far as work ethics we went to work through the afternoon drinking reconstituted lemonade and soaking whatever I we chose to wear with water and getting the job done. I often remember the sad look to my dad's eyes he would come home from his hot day at work and see I loaded racket hay and no boys to be found.. If we're still at the twin Bridges but my dad drive by in his little red service van he would stop And demand we climb on our bikes and get home or if you is really angry demand that we put our bikes in the back of the van and drive home in workers shame. We would do a fast milking and get out on the wagon off load the hayThen get our sorry asses back out into the hayfield for one load and possibly if my dad was really lucky two before calling it a night.

I love the heat nobody else does – – they all complain. Perhaps I enjoy the relentless temperature Trying to make me uncomfortable and sweat. Neither of which is going to happen. Regardless of the temperature in the heat before a complaint I just remember the snow on the valley floor and being confined to the apartments and then I just enjoy the heat and perhaps the other reason is that there is discomfort in this heat many the discomfort is burning away the sins of the lazy boy.

Flash Back

Do you ever wish that he had a time machine? I know you can't go back and change things all that stuff about quantum physics and time travel. But would it not be great to be able to go back in your own history and just watch your history unfold? I would. The time I'd be most interested in would be the three years before my accident just as I was becoming an adolescent. The earlier years were okay and kind of fun.

I played a lot of Little League baseball growing up not necessarily because I wanted to but because my friends all played baseball. The team was made up of course all my friends from whatever grade I was in the summer. Myself and my best friend John lived in rural Boise. We lived quite a ways from the city, at least a couple of miles. The rest of the team members all lived in town and we practiced at the East junior high baseball diamond. Five days a week usually practiced which meant riding my bike all the way in to East been practicing. It was a long ride. In the early days I wrote a JC Higgins one speed and later inherited my older brothers Schwinn 10 speed. That's like my mit over the handlebars and pump into town. I put the past the old Holcomb school and on the Boise Avenue, past the twin Bridges then passed Greenwood Circle, past the Food Fair market(it used to be Dells market) then test Garfield school where we turn right on Broadway and pump past the Broadway bar (Danny Barlett's dad owned and ran the bar) past Fred's and Hawkins Take-home, as the Circle K Tavern across the Boise River Bridge, past Clover Club potato chip factory in coast into the baseball field. The ride in was actually quite a long pump. We practiced for about two hours sometimes three then reversed the trip.

There was a section between Greenland Circle the food fair market that was very rural nothing to pasture or hayfield on each side of the road. Midway between these two points on one side of the road was a huge stand of rosehips. On the other side of the road was a number of wild trash trees with wild shrubbery at their base. For one reason or another these rogue pieces of vegetation were targets for all kinds of litter. I don't know why but we found more than one pack of cigarettes on our home treks home. Other great finds included Playboy magazines and other treasures of soft porn. Other kids most of regular bikes back and forth by John and I did why they didn't find these treasures leaves me perplexed. These finds almost made the bike trips worthwhile.

That was 50 years ago or more. The only thing that remains is the curve in Boise Avenue. So much development has taken place over the decades none of the rich rural flavor remains. I spent a couple of hours with Google maps and the “satellite” feature which allows you to actually see the area given me a view of what the journey looks like now. I wish I could find a Google map that could take you back in time and see what the world looked like then. Every once in a while I do a search to see if somebody has put together images taken from another time been spliced together to render views of days gone by.

Historical Fiction

I'm searching for an image of the twin Bridges across theRiidenbaugh at Boise Ave and Law Street--I'll post when found...mls

The year was 1959 or maybe it was 1961. It was the middle of July stinking hot in the afternoon. It must've been around 2 o'clock that's when all the big kids , the teenagers,started showing up at the bridge on the Ridenbaugh canal. We had been there (my brother and me and our best friends John and Tom) since lunch. My brother and I are doing chores and take off for the bridge where we spend the afternoon swimming staying out of the way of the big kids.

The canal water flowed dark green, deep in cold and not too swift, not dangerously slipped and no under toes where we swam. The cold water felt like a blessing these hottest days of the year but we would jump off the bridge and swim to shore. We had our own little spot on the bridge the teenagers come out on the other side of the cars as they parked in the shade of the trees on the northwest side of the bridge. The smoke cigarettes can sometimes have beer. If the teenagers liked you they might give you one of their smokes, in those days we called them cigs. That's okay if they didn't we had our own hidden away that we stole from the Town & Country market couple miles up the road.

The feeling on the bridge that day was tense something was going on I wasn't sure what. There is about five guys over by the cars hanging out. These were kids I didn't recognize. Their drinking beer and yelling now and then and laughing like goofs. We just kept ourselves and watched. It wasn't long before Buddy Parish drove in on his Norton motorcycle. Buddy was one of the big kids from our neck of the woods. He lived on a farm not too far from the bridge. But he was a minor celebrity. He played high school football and wrestled it was good, farm boy. He was a junior or senior something like that. He had a job as a couple times a week at the bridge swim for about a half an hour and head back to work. He parked his motorcycle not far from the commotion in the shade of the trees and walked towards the bridge. He acknowledged the small crowd as he passed, it was obvious he knew them and also obvious he did not want a lot to do with them. Buddy made a wisecrack-- Buddy was always making wisecracks are usually pretty funny and sometimes got him into trouble—and suddenly the crowd got quiet. But the atmosphere around the bridge electrified. Buddy seemed oblivious to anything walking toward the bridge. He walked over to our side of the bridge but both hands on the rail and over the side swimming under the bridge and climbing up on the opposite side of the bridge.

Four or five of the teenagers wandered onto the edge of the bridge. In the middle of the group was a big guy named Baratoua. Baratoua was big and muscular and seemed mean. He said something the Buddy who smirked and shook the water from his body purposely dousing Baratoua. That was enough Baratoua reached out to grab Buddy's arm but Buddy had been expecting something and spun around catching Baratoua with a near haymaker . Baratoua staggered but quickly got his balance and attack Buddy. Buddy did a quick sidestep and Baratoua stumbled onto the bridge Buddy quickly followed. Baratoua was twisted with anger and began circling on the bridge. Buddy, also circled, Baratoua giving Baratoua Buddy's best goofy smile. Baratoua lunged at Buddy both arms swinging wildly fists clenched in adolescent hammers of rage. Buddy sidestepped again pounding Baratoua in his side with a good punch to the head.Baratoua cursed and raised spun around and charged Buddy one more time. Baratoua missed entirely and Buddy came down on Baratoua like a summer storm.

The fight was over as quickly as the fight had begun. A couple of Baratoua's lieutenants helping him along. Baratoua suddenly start turned toward the bridge and screamed at Buddy, “You better have a stick the next time I see you, Parish!” Buddy laughed and replied, “yeah, think you're the one better have a big stick.”

I had seen Buddy fight a couple times on the bridge. He was good. Buddy was kind of a hero.

I talked to my buddy Dennis tonight. Dennis lives in Salt Lake Valley now Dennis is from my hometown and I texted him tonight. It was great visiting with Dennis about the old days, about the days we would spend on the bridge, crossing the Ridenbaugh canal.

Myth Maker

This an image of an old friend, friend yes but more of an acquaintance, his name is Dennis and he is quite bit older then I. His younger brother Kim was my age but as long as I can remember I was always aware of Dennis. Dennis was raised on a farm out in the South East end of Boise. In the farm country which was fast being returned in to Suburbia. Dennis went to the same church as I so I seemed to see a lot of him. In summer we swam at the Twin Bridges—the bridges spanned the Ridenbaugh Canal an irrigation ditch which wound its way through Ada county. Many hot lazy summer afternoon were spent on the rough wooden bed of the bridge bringing youth of the South East side to hang out and try to be cool. I was not a teenager and my main mode of transportation was by bike . The teenagers got to the bridge by truck or car-all style and show. If there was a King of the Bridge it was Dennis. In fact there is an early mention of Dennis and the bridge from a couple of years and a famous Twin bridge fight. Dennis the warrior. Dennis also has some notoriety as a high school varsity wrestler. Dennis very well could have been King.

Dennis popped up on Face Book not long ago and of course, I immediately “friended” him and he did the same for me. I was interested to note that Dennis was also living close to me is South Salt Lake County. We chatted and of course we talked about hooking up but nothing has happened until this week when Dennis pushed the idea of getting together and having no reason not to agreed and tomorrow we are on. So, jut for fun I have been doing some research on this guy. He looks to be conservative, local culture, he is self employed and “loving it”--I am sure he is something out of Ayn Rand. Dennis bills himself as an Appreciation marketing coach...as a man thinketh etc.

So now I'm a little spooked at what I may have gotten myself into. Once in college my then and I wife were so desperate for friends we accepted an invitation from another young couple only to be AMWAYED right after dinner with something”wonderful” they wanted to share with us. So I m wondering if the lunch is going to turn into a “come on” to be a cog in some multi-level program on becoming you best self. Either way I plan to use the time with Dennis to catch up with someone from my own history, compare POV and maybe just generate a more perfect myth.

The Fight

It's still hot, way hot but I still would rather have the heat then the cold of the deep Utah winter. On days like today, in my youth, I would be down at the twin bridges in South Boise. I have written briefly of the canal the bridge spanned. On a day like today, sun boiling down and the temperature over a hundred degrees. The breeze would be hot, blowing hot air you could be soaking wet and by the time you were half way across the fields to home your clothes would be completely dry.

I have been working on a short story now for a couple of years about a fight I saw down at the bridges. The story has never come together the way I want the story to but the need to write the story keeps haunting me. When I was most active at the Twin bridges I was between 10 and fifteen. Of course a broken neck really put a kink in my swimming but I did still swim after the accident just not as much. Swimming after the wreck took a lot more planning.

The fight I want to write of really took place but there were a number of fights which occurred over the summers we swam the canal. And I am thinking the fight I will finally end up document, just might will might be a compilation of all the “duke outs” of the bridge. My brother and I road bike of course , bikes were the only form of transportation we had except parents, in those day and the only way we ever got a ride with parents to somewhere like the bridge was if they just happened to be going somewhere else and they happened to be going past the bridge. On the other had, the teenagers, the big kids, drove vehicles. Many times just clunkers but even the clunkers were a step above the bikes. The bridge drew older kids from all over South Boise from Broadway to the Barber Dam.

A spiking hot day in July had drawn the usual kids to the bridge. Me, my brother Ross and our best friends the Cantrells. We had got to the bridge later then usual that day. Old picks-ups and beaters were scattered round the banks of the canal hugging as many trees for shad as the truck owners could manage. Dennis Ward was there. Dennis was a senior at Boise High, sort of a local hero, played some football, wrestled State and had a quick wit. Everyone liked Dennis at least I know I did. Dennis' younger brother Kim was my age and Kim and I often hung out together. Frank Baratua was also at the bridge that day. Frank was not a regular and he was a bit of a bully. Frank had thrown me over the side of the bridge more then once. “Chucking” kids who wandered to close to the big guys was great sport . When your number came up you just had to be sure you curled into a ball before you hit the water. Northing was worse then an unprepare4d belly flop.

I wish I could remember what the fight was about but too much water has flowed under the bridge. When I remember most was the guys circling each other in the middle of the bridge surrounded by all the swimmers. The days was hot andf not a breeze moved the air. Dennis could actually box and he did the old dance and fob routine and Frank was a bit of a “windmill” fighter putting his head down and “windmilling\” into his opponent. I got the sense Frank fought a lot and this method probably worked for him more often then not. This form of intimidation did not work on Dennis who quickly stepped a side and sank a couple of good hits to Frank's head. Baratua stumbled, cursed but lunged again, Dennis threw

threw Frank to the rough planks of the floor of the bridge. Frank got up a red stream was coursing from Frank's nose. A couple more lunges and Frank had had enough for the day. Frank had come with a couple of other young toughs but they just followed Frank to his pick up. Frank revved the engine to his truck and spun out kicking up dirt and dust and yelling “ I coming back Ward”. Dennis just laughed and called after the fleeing truck, “Yeah, well you better bring a stick.”

I three or four other fights at the bridge as a kid but5 I don't think any were more memorable then this one.

Time Machines

I just finished reading Stephen Baxter’s Time Ships. A good read but not as good as some of his work. However the subject matter was entertaining. Baxter writes as the title suggest, about time and the movement backward and forwards there in. Baxter did sort of a re-write of Orson Wells’ The time Machine with a nice application of quantum mechanics. The book has got me thinking though ‘if I had the ability to time travel where would I go?’

Most nights as I fall asleep, I fall asleep by truing to remember a specific time and event and going to that point in my memory as best as I can. This system works well because soon I am, asleep. Most often then not I choose to go to the twin bridges just South of Boise, Idaho in the summer 1964.

So, I guess I would return to Boise, Idaho 1964. I am 14 years old in this summer of 64, the Beatles have stated their invasion of the USA along with other Brits. It’s July and the second cutting of hay is still two or three weeks off. It’s hot the day I return. I had finished what chores my father had left me to do and I was free. I told my mom headed for the bridge and I jumped on my hand me down schwinn ten speed and pump down to the twin bridges.

I would get to the bridge about one- o-clock. Mom always made us wait an hour after eating lunch before we were able to swim. By July the heat is intense warming the water sufficient to sustain long term swimming and by this time in the Summer there was always a crowd of five to ten people hanging out at the bridge. Teenagers and kids. We stood round talking and listening till it was too hot to stand then we jump over rail of the bridge into the cold, cold water. The older teenagers smoked and occasionally would show up with cans of beer and sometimes get rowdy. There were occasional fights as the teenagers established dominance but it was mostly a neighborhood crowd. The summer afternoons seemed to last forever. If you were lucky you were able to coax one of the older guys out of one of their Lucky’s and get dizzy smoking it. If you were really luck lucky Tuck (the local fantasy chick) would wander down to the bridge in her cutoffs and tank top. Tuck worked at the hospital 3-11 shift. She often spent her mornings and early afternoon lying out in her back yard nude working on her tan. I knew this because I knew Charlie who was Tuck’s younger brother and we had a tree house over the spot where she laid out. She thought she was safe from view from the road but not from the tree house—or maybe she did not care about the tree house…and that would be another day to go back to.