Pat Remington inspired me with his blog “Don’t Follow Pat” (patremington.com). His is an honest look at experiences and periods in Pat’s life that are heartfelt and often amusing. I will strive to live up to that standard. BTW Pat and I are 9th cousins removed through our ancestor Ralph “The Saxon” Ellinwood 1607-1674. And, Pat was a student in my classes at West High School, Madison. But, he never played the cousin card.
I am Steve Sheets. Born in 1940 and raised in Rockford, IL. I had four siblings. I was second in the birth order. We lived just outside of the Rockford city limits which required that the first three kids attended a rural school. Our home was later annexed to the city, so my younger twin sisters attended a city school.
Alpine School
A small two-room school on U.S. Highway 20 at Alpine Road. My classroom: 1st-4th grades, consisted of about eight in my grade level. When I hit 5th grade, the community had grown enough that the school included a classroom for 5th and 6th grades and one for 7th and 8thgrades. I was an average student. Today you would probably say I had ADHD. I had difficulty concentrating on my lessons when there was so much other interesting stuff going on in the room. The Alpine curriculum did not provide phy. ed. or music. Art efforts were fairly lame, dependent on the teacher’s creativity and the school budget. Recess was always a highpoint in the day. The school had a playground about two acres in size with one set of swings. The were no adult monitors in blaze orange vests to watch over us. We were able to create games that all grade level kids could participate in. When recess was over our teacher leaned out the window and rang a bell. All the kids brought their home-packed lunch, we had no hot lunch program! One of my moments of discipline, probably for being disruptive, had me enjoying a time-out in the coat room. All the lunch boxes and lunch bags were there provided a devils’ playground. To my knowledge no one knew that I switched sandwiches, cookies and fruit to other random boxes and bags. I guess they didn’t know what their mom had packed.
It was a shock to me when I moved from 8th grade at Alpine, a class of 12, to the city junior high, Lincoln, with a 9thgrade class of 500+.
Horses to Lake Geneva
In the summer of 1958 after graduating from H.S. and before starting boot camp for the Army I rode a horse from Woodstock, IL to Fontana, WI, about 20 miles. My friend Eddy Lamb had horses and lived in Woodstock.
An aside: Eddy’s dad worked for my dad at the Rockford Spring Company, my dad had become the factory manager after Sheets Rockford Silver Company was dissolved. The Lambs and the Sheets families became friends. They came to our home, and we went to their home in Woodstock for picnics, etc.
I had some horsemanship skills which I had learned while a camper at Camp Tosebo. So, when we visited the Lambs, Eddy and I rode. He hatched the idea of a trail ride to some place with an overnight and a return. Because my Miles grandparents had a home at Lake Geneva near Fontana, WI we thought that would be a good ride (20 miles), a day long venture. Boy was my butt sore. I checked with Pappy and Bessie Miles for permission to do so. Having the horses at their home overnight was NOT a good idea. Pappy came up with a plan. He knew a farmer nearby where they bought eggs, etc. That farmer agreed to let us stable the horses there overnight. As I recall we stayed two nights with Pappy and Bessie.
Eddy and I set out early in the morning. Stopping occasionally to let the horses munch on grass or water at a farm along the way. We traveled only on back roads, not the major highways. I think it took us about seven hours for trip.
One potentially disastrous event occurred while we were taking a break on a little gravel town road. One of the horses bolted free from our grip and headed down the road at a full gallop, fearing we had lost the horse, at least temporarily, we were in panic mode. After running for maybe a quarter of a mile the horse inexplicably turned around and ran back toward us. We stood arms outstretched waving as the horse approached us, and it stopped! There must be a god.
We remounted and continued north to the farm outside Walworth, WI. I knew how to find the farm, as I had been there with Grandma Bessie when she made an egg run. We talked with the farmer, he called Pappy, put our horses in a stall in his barn, and waited with us until Pappy came to pick us up.
We stayed two nights with Grandma Bessie and Pappy, enjoying the lake for swimming hydrotherapy for our sore butts. Back on the horses for the return to Woodstock. An uneventful ride “home”.
I am now embarrassed. At the time it never occurred to me that we should pay the farmer. I guess I thought he was just being a good Samaritan. I saw Pappy slip him some money, but it still did not occur to me that that should have been our responsibility. How stupid one can be at age 17.
Leave a comment