Trick or Treating 1955

    Halloween was one of the few times that we could get away from the farm, school, chores and get candy – and so we looked forward to it greatly.
    Most of our neighbors were older folks and as I remember, we only went to a few places. The next door neighbor, Leonard and Inez saved the toys from the cereal boxes for us – I remember one, a little toy airplane that flew when you blew it off of a drinking straw. But after they passed away, there was no point of even trying, as his son Raymond brooked no nonsense from us. We knew him instead, as the man who hired a kid at 85 cents an hour to load hay bales from field to mow for his cows, having no pity on us even at 100F in August, and then always rounding our hours down.
    Next lived a pleasant old couple, Bert and Hattie, who although they didn’t have any store bought candy, did give us a large brown store paper bag of popcorn. Having lived part of their lives poor, they developed a taste for fresh, hot popcorn, salted and sugared and shook in the bag with melted lard (butter reserved for company or to trade at the store). It was actually pretty good, and the brown paper bag with its rich lard soaked bottom was interesting too. The popcorn had to be made fresh from their own garden popcorn ears, shelled and popped while we waited and listened to a story or two of the olden days on the Barrens when all they had to eat was lard and bread for school lunch, and sprinkling some maple sugar on it made it palatable.
    We didn’t stop at the next two houses as both had men who drank to excess and families too poor to stop and ask for a treat.
    So our next stop was Grandpa and Grandma. Now they never bought any candy from the store, but always made it; Christmas candy ribbons, taffy, fudge and whatever Grandma thought she might try. She usually had us there to help pull and wrap the taffy – pretty good with our buttery grimy hands giving it flavor and color more than the normal Watkins flavorings she added. She loved to have us visit, and if we dressed up a little, she oohed and aaahed at her little kittens come to visit.
    I think once or twice we stopped at Uncle Maurice and Aunt Myrtle’s place and got popcorn balls; another time at Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Ramona’s and got some fudge candy with wild hazelnuts.
    Did we ever get a real store bought candy bar? Can’t remember it for Halloween. Maybe that is why I buy extra now and when no one shows up, eat on it until I get sick.
    While we were out on the road gathering our sweets, a few neighbors or cousins stopped at home and got a treat from Dad who stayed behind. I remember cousin Mike coming late and trick or treating at the door. Dad asked "If I don't give you a treat, what trick might you do?" (none of us had ever been asked that, and Mike probably never either). “Tip over your toilet, “ Mike replied (about 10 years old). “Go ahead,” said Dad, knowing his new outhouse was bolted to a full concrete foundation and likely 10 people wouldn’t be able to budge it.      When Mike looked like he might start blubbering, Dad invited him and his twin sister Marlys in and gave them a real candy bar each that had been hidden away from us.
    Then my family got religion and found out Halloween was a celebration of devil worship, and so from then on we were stuck going to the church basement bobbing for apples and playing wholesome games, while wishing we could be sinners like regular people who went to town to get real candy bars on Halloween night.

Allen Swenson -- A Sterling Original

Sterling 150th:  Allen Swenson –A Sterling Original (2006)

  “Well Russ, if you want to see a pitcher plant, you have to go out in the marsh where  they are” said my late friend Allen Swenson 4 years ago. I had admired one of his beautiful nature photos of the rarely seen plant that traps insects.  That was Allen’s gentle way of telling me that you have to make the effort to explore nature to see all of the wonderful things in your own neighborhood.  He had made the trip out into the big swamps near old family homestead on the corner of B and 87 to see what was actually there. I had whizzed past by them slightly over the speed limit.

  I knew Allen for most of my life, but at a distance whizzing by. In his last four years, our common interest in local history brought us together.  His reverence for the past and his vast local knowledge from 80 years of living on the corner started my visits. He lived only a mile from the cabin, so after he came to a few or our early history meetings, I began to stop by every month or so for an afternoon visit. We both enjoyed each the visits being in many ways alike yet having chosen lives of opposite direction.

   When I was growing up, Dad used to take our old tube radios to him for repair.  Whatever was wrong cost 50 cents or a dollar to repair using parts scrounged from the dump or old radios given to him.  Later he and Dad served on the town board together for many years. Dad thought very highly of Allen as an intelligent, honest, and competent town clerk and an neighbor.  Allen was hard for people to classify as he really one one of a kind.

    Allen was valedictorian of his Luck High School class of 1937.  He nephew Larry writes “Allen was an avid gardener, canning and freezing his own produce.  He belonged to the local gun club and loaded his own shotgun shells. Allen enjoyed hunting and fishing.  His photography was a vision into how he saw the world; his photographs were of nature and life around him on the farm.  He enjoyed working on electronic equipment and was a ham radio operator. He was a self taught man who enjoyed learning all of his life.”  When he died 3 years ago in April he was learning how to use a computer and scanner.

    Allen had his own telescope, his own photo darkroom, read widely, was well versed on the latest news and science and at the same time skeptical of politicians, religion, superstition, quackery and such.  I never knew anyone who could intelligently converse on such a wide range of issues, ideas and who had carefully thought them out. He was one of those rare natural geniuses who could do whatever he chose.  He was interested in everything and even in his 80s undiminished in mind, curiosity and memory. When someone gave him a camera lens that didn’t fit his camera he built a tiny turning lathe, cut a ring from a piece of metal tubing, turned it down and then turned two sets of tiny precise threads as an adaptor that of course worked perfectly.   

    Allan chose to live a life that allowed him as much time to read, explore nature and his interests as was possible.  He lived with his parents on the home farm. His father died when he was about 22 and he took over the farm work. His mother died many decades later and from then he lived by himself on the farm.  He did just enough farming just well enough to pay his expenses. By the standards of the community he would have probably been thought to be a poor farmer.

   I think his neighbors thought of him as Thoreau said  “he marched to the beat of a different drummer.” Robert Frost said about his own decision to become a poet rather than take a normal occupation “Two roads lay ahead.  I chose the one less traveled“ I think Allen decided that if he lived frugally and simply he could have the time to find the elusive pitcher plant; to know the stars as friends; to know each tree, grass, flower, stone, bird and animal; to understand glaciers, rivers, lakes and swamps; to really know where he lived.

    Allen and I made different choices how to live our lives. My life has passed to age 58 without having seen the pitcher plant.  Allen’s gentle reminder started me on the search. I hope to meet you there; where wet feet are to be enjoyed.

The Swenson Sawmill setup near Trade River 

Reaching a Kid with Crystal Radio

    An excerpt from some stories about my 6 years of teaching school in Wisconsin.   This one is set on Washington Island, WI -- in Lake Michigan, a ferry's ride from the tip of the Door County Peninsula.  The names are changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. 

Allen was not interested in anything.  An eighth grader, he was best buddies with Don and Dave, two brothers, one 7th and one 8th grade.  They all seemed unreachable.  They refused to do any homework; sat rigidly quiet in their desks until I wasn’t looking then shot spitballs around the room.  Years of strict discipline had honed their skills so they didn’t get caught.

  Allen was slightly more open, and at times you could see he was interested in the science experiments, but managed to keep from jumping in.  Don and Dave didn’t show any signs of loosening up.

One day, when the lesson was over, and the kids were supposed to be working on their assignments. I started a project.  I stepped out of my classroom to the schoolyard directly behind the big bank of windows so everyone could see what I was doing.  I nailed an electric fence wire insulator as high as I could reach in a nearby tree, ran a wire over to an open window by my desk.  I nailed an insulator on the wood siding as high as I could reach, then hooked the wire stretching it tightly 8 feet high, about 20 feet long.  I connected an insulated wire to this and ran it through the window into the classroom.

While I was working on this, several students came out to watch with questions of what I was doing.  My internal rules for the classroom were that kids who were learning didn’t need rules about sitting, moving, etc, and if they weren’t learning, it was probably my own fault.  I didn’t state any rules for the kids other than “behave the way you know you should,” followed up by “Gee, if you really have to go to the bathroom, just go. I don’t want to know the details!”

Continuing the project, I came back in connected another wire to the heating radiator next to my desk.  All this time the kids were bothering me asking me what I was doing, following me around including Don, Dave and Allen (most likely because they saw an opportunity for some deviltry along the way).  I wouldn’t answer questions, just made comments like “needs to be pointing towards Green Bay to pick up a strong signal,” “got to make sure the antenna isn’t getting grounded,” “needs to have a good ground.”    The kids were boisterously puzzled.

I sat down at my desk and opened a shoe box and brought out “toy.”  A six inch square wood base, mounted with an empty toilet paper roll wrapped neatly with 100 turns of copper wire, a piece of tin that slid back and forth across the roll and a tiny earphone, some connections, and a tiny little electronic component wired to the coil.   “I need to hook the antenna here, and the ground here,” clipping on my newly hung wires. Then I stuck the earphone in my ear. “Quiet, I need to hear,” I ordered everyone who by then was clustered tightly around my desk.

Moving the slider slowly across the coil, I stopped it in the middle, smiled and started moving my head and snapping my fingers as if to music.  “What do you hear? What is that thing?” Allen was in the front and absolutely fascinated by what I was doing.

“Here, try it,” I said, handing it to Allen, “stand back guys and be quiet, you can all have a turn.  It is a radio, it’s called a crystal set. I made it last night to see if I could pick up a station out here on the island.”  

Allen took charge and gave each a turn. “Where’s the battery? Can I make one,” he asked with a rush of questions after things quieted down.  

“Well, Allen, I’ll make a deal with you.  If you start working on your assignments, I will help you make one.  I have some spare parts that you can have. First thing is when you get home, save an empty toilet paper core.“

“Russ, do you know what is wrong with Allen,” Janitor Jim, asked me after school that day.  “He went into the bathroom and unrolled a whole roll of toilet paper and dumped it all in the garbage can.”  

Allen built his radio, helped several others build their own.  This was his turning point; with a few more projects (i.e. homemade model rockets, tooth pick bridges, paper airplanes and the Great Egg Drop) he took on his other work in a cheerful friendly manner that spilled over into his other classes.

That left Dave and Don and another story is how with a telescope and star chart they too got interested and active in science.