It was listed on the map as “Farmington River Watershed” and in the early spring it would flood over and just about—well, once—filled the ‘Subway’ shop with about a foot of water. It was an ideal place to swim—if one did not mind swimming with various flora, fauna and whatever that was that brushed against your leg—along with just walking on the side. It was the place, that as a kid, you assumed only you knew about. Only you knew of the secret locations: those paths through the water that lead to sunken treasures that you would boast to anyone in your third-grade class who would listen to you.
In sixth grade, it was the place you braved to go to at night on a dare or when it swelled and the current would drag you along, perhaps a mile or two until you were in a foreign county—and the sheriff would radio your hometown that he was bringing you home. Of course, he’d tell you about his great adventures in the past—and how he was younger when he tried to battle the flow of the water.
In junior high, those awkward times, called for awkward winter days as one would try to walk across the ice and proclaim that it was solid as a rock. You played two-man hockey, minus skates, and kept an ear open for a subtle “cracking” noise. However, even if the ice splintered and broke apart around, you’d have to think that it was a cool, maybe surreal feeling to hear that sound break through the silence of a snowy day.
Which leads to high school, when one day you’re not caring about anything or anyone to the day that you take a particular person to those points in your memory. Showing them where you found a fossil, the place you nearly drowned, and where to not stand in the early spring. You would say all of this in the summer, before the school year would start. And, if you were fortunate, it would be in a secluded area, a place set apart from everywhere else that had a small waterfall. We considered this to be a place of tranquility and we called it Dragonfly Pond.

 

Spring brings in the new life, if you believe in the romanticism of everything coming up from the dark and cold winter. For our small town, spring guaranteed only one thing: that one family would leave as a generation died and a new family—usually one who didn’t really know what they were getting into—would move in. We’d pass by a recently vacated homestead and wonder how long it would take for squatters to take it over for a few weeks, teenagers to use it as a crash or party pad—providing the electricity was still running, and how tall the grass would grow before you couldn’t see a two-story house from the gravel and dust road.

There were three paved roads: the main highway coming in and out, the street where the school and churches were, and the one that the late mayor John King and his family resided. Considering how much money was spent on that section of road—complete with painted lines—and not on the main drag, the King family home would be pelted by eggs and other forms of ammunition—I mean, the smooth road made it easy to fly by and throw a cherry bomb or two.

Not that I participated…I’ve only heard the stories.

Spring break—in other towns—usually had everyone leaving for the week, but in our neck of the woods, it was the same as it was the week before: nothing. Except, due to school being out, you had more time to do it. So, as I had done for years prior, I spent it doing stupid things.

“How fast you think it’s moving” I asked Rob, my best friend and fellow doer of stupid things. Up until that year, he had gone by “Bobby” or “Robby” but he goes and grows ONE short, stubby--one needs a magnifying glass to see it--hair on his chin and he felt that childish things were beneath him.
Legos? Childish.
Playing games of imagination? Only if it involved death and destruction.
Cap guns? No, he had graduated to an Airsoft rifle…at the age of thirteen.

“No idea. Want to see where it takes us this time?”
I nodded, of course, so, on the count of three, we jumped into the swirling water.
Of course, if my grandparents or his parents asked what he had done that day we’d say nothing much and would never speak of being dragged across sunken trees and passing by what may be a water moccasin or a simple stick bobbing along like we were. There were some spots in the channel where we had to guide over in order to go down a particular run. There was a time that we tried to use a ramshackle raft made up of wood, plastic and loads of duct tape but it gave out at the first fork in the water—and we were taken in completely opposite directions, which caused me to be introduced to St. Charles County’s Sherriff Garrett Marshall. Rob ended up on top of a downed tree and he proudly proclaimed that he stood upon it and announced that he was king of the world. A part of me wanted to believe him, the other half assumed he was frightened out of his gourd and had to find the courage to down the waterway.

Dangerous? Maybe, but with the lack of a video rental store that actually had action films, no driver’s license, no car to speak of, and two mangled bikes—courtesy of trying to do a few BMX tricks off the top of an abandoned house—and that the waters would recede sooner than later, then we just did it. Other kids could go to ‘Oceans of Fun’, but we had our own log flume course.

We’d arrive water-logged and slightly disoriented at an unknown location, pull ourselves onto the muddy banks and just flop onto the ground.

“We need to think about how to get back faster than walking, you know?” Rob asked as I crawled on my hands and knees a few feet away from him.
“What? That’s how we dry out.”
“Chaffing though, burns.”

I had no idea what he meant, but it sounded bad, so I agreed.
I was almost thirteen, maybe twelve point seven at that time, and it was during that time of the year that my grandmother bought me a stick of deodorant—and I had not touched it at all. Didn’t think a thing about it, at least not until Rob told me it would be a good idea if I ever wanted to talk to girls.
The thought never really occurred to me. Girls were annoying. They looked at me like I had
something on my head. They didn’t understand the inspiration of playing like you were a secret agent or a ninja. They didn’t understand my drive to not want to talk to them.

So, to avoid the ribbing from Rob and possibly everyone else once at school, I applied the chemical equivalent of being told Santa Claus no longer exists and that one day I would have to go to work, pay taxes, and care about how much water I used when taking a bath. One could say this was a sign of growing up. I felt like throwing up thinking about how one day I would like to see girls as more as someone to play tetherball against.
Rob and I would stay out until the mosquitos decided we were a fast-food banquet and we’d go to our separate houses—except every other day when one of us would go to the other’s for the night. I ran back through the trees to the opposite end of my grandparent’s farm, the place I had called home for the past twelve years of my life. My grandparents weren’t exactly farmers, they just enjoyed the country. They had three horses and a lot of chickens but the fields behind the house and to the left of the barn were used to grow hay that was sold to others who had farms and needed it for theirs. They did not seem to mind driving several miles to the local grocery store or across the county to the tractor supply shop as the tractor they owned was usually 85% inoperable most of the year. It would miraculously come to life during baling season.
My grandmother, Sue, would be in the kitchen when I opened the glass doors leading to the back patio. She was a Bob Ross meets Julia Childs: able to place together four ingredients that you would think could never work and end up with something that Gordon Ramsey would be left speechless over. My grandfather, Will, but everyone called him. “Billy” would be sitting in a large recliner in the living room reading the newspaper or sleeping. Either way, as soon as I stepped into the living room he would tell me “go wash up for supper”. When Rob was with me, he’d add a “y’al” in front of that.
We would go upstairs to wash our hands and then at least change our shirts so grandma wouldn’t look at us and mutter how dirty our clothes were. In the past, we could get away with it. Young boys were known to get filthy dirty and require a bath either before or after eating but once you reach a certain age, you’re expected to figure that out for yourself.
Later on, we would sit in the study room where my Nintendo was plugged into a small TV. I had the basic games of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, and Duck Hunt, but nothing more. Rob would usually bring a few titles from his extensive collection or we’d rent one from “The Video Trailer”. Literally, a hitched horse trailer on the back of a truck. In any other town it would be considered shady but it was owned by Mr. Tony Sanders, a man who may have been friends with Methuselah in his youth. The choice of movies and games were hit and miss. I recall renting a carton movie called “Legend of the Overfiend,” thinking it was an adaptation of “The Legend of Zelda”. It wasn’t...not by a long shot and it made me uncomfortable as my grandfather walked in during a particular scene. He turned the TV off, ejected the tape, whipped my butt a few times, and muttered under his breath about “that damn Sanders”.
So, I had to have one of them take me into town in order to rent a movie or game as all they had at the time was four channels.
“When I was younger, we only had two,” Grandpa would say when I asked why we couldn’t pick up the afternoon cartoons on Fox.
I would nod in agreement, not that I watched a lot of TV at home. My television watching only occurred at Rob’s house. He had cable. He had Cinemax. He was not allowed to watch Cinemax. Can you guess who watched Cinemax late at night? Those movies, like the cartoon, were a confusing mess. With guns, gore, nudity, sex, the things that call to a young man’s subconscious and lodge into their brains, never to leave. I may not be able to recall a phone number which was just given to me, but I can recall what happened at one hour and five minutes into the movie “The Lonely Lady”.
We watched the adult stuff only once but that was enough to give us another bad representation of how relationships—and girls—went. It was another something that could be damaging if one tried to use any of it as advice later in life, let alone junior high school. We actually had adult-ish conversations about what we were going to do when we grew up. Rob had ideas at least. I had dreams.
“I’m telling you. Lawn care is the way to go. Everyone always needs it and no one under the age of fifty who doesn’t have a riding mower likes doing it.”
“It’s hot.”
“The smell of the fresh cut grass.”
“The Humidity.”
“The smell of money.”
“A lot of walking from house to house.”
“Oh no, my friend. We’ll soon have a fleet of trucks and equipment.” Rob stood up on the remains of a stump on the side of his house like he was addressing the Roman senate and proclaimed: “We’ll call it ‘Grassbusters’.”
I had hoped Rob would never mentioned the words “job”, “business” or “work ethic” around my grandfather, at least for a few more years. Otherwise he would have me start my career by cleaning our the barn on a weekly basis. As it was, I only had to sweep it every other month and I felt like that was a bit too much for my twelve, nearly thirteen year-old self to do.
“We’ll start with two mowers and make our way around town. Starting on our street here and spreading out. And hey, they’re building more houses a few miles away.”
I nodded but had the visions of pushing or pulling an old, large, manual push lawn mower to someone’s house and then push it a few hundred times more across someone’s lawn and then push it back to 175th road, which, unfortunately, did not have any hills that I could sit on the mower and coast my way home and was it not paved.
Rob jumped off the stump, but still had his arms in the air and animated his words like we playing charades.
“And think of the money. We start with two mowers, and a weeder, and a couple cans of gas and we have some heavy profits to use for whatever we want, you know?”
I nodded once again because the wheels in my mind were indeed turning. I could give the money to my grandpa so we could get cable TV, maybe a Super Nintendo, and some more clothes. I thought really hard on that last part. I was going to be going into high school in about a year and maybe it would be good to have some flashy shirts, a few designer jeans, and maybe a new watch that could tell the time in twenty-four time zones at the push of a button.
“I’m in, Rob, how do we start?”
“We start with the parents and convince them to let us borrow their mowers.”
“I kind of already got one,” I replied, which was kind of a truth. Grandpa put me in front of an old, large, manual push lawn mower and told me that it was a present that I’d be happy to use. Which was half a sentence. The other half was “to get some muscle on ya, boy.” Said mower would only start if you kicked it, played with the spark plug connection, and then kicked it again. It would growl and roar as it was ready to take-off like the planes from the Air Force Base.
“Perfect. We need to create posters and flyers. Just the name, a logo and the phone number and we’re in business.”
“I can get some poster paper,” the pending smile ran away from my face, “if I ask my grandma.”
“Okay, so?”
“And she’ll be so excited that she’ll tell my grandfather who will tell me: “Sonny boy, when you value your time and work and use that ethic to make your life better then you have graduated to being a man.”
Rob stepped up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Think about the girls who will want to bum rush for a ride in a sweet 4x4 with a CD changer.”
“I don’t know any.”
“I’ll write you a list.”
I nodded again.
“Let’s go inside and get this started,” he replied with a clap of his hands.
Rob was so into his idea that he bounded in front of his parents and announced his intention to be an entrepreneur in landscaping. This was not his first big idea to start a business. He once tried to do a paper route, but crashed his bike when the chain broke away and papers went flying into a gutter. I heard it was both a tragedy and a divine comedy as Rob should a few choice words at the loss of his bike, the papers, and the skin on his knees and arms.
His next intention was to sell chocolate door to door. We had to go door to door for band class one year to raise money for our new music stands and Rob decided that he could continue selling afterwards by changing to a different kind of candy bar. He was doing pretty good until he left said chocolate in a car on a day that would have made Satan wonder if he was at the North Pole.
Finally, he attempted to try to capitalize on Dragonfly Pond by showing others how to navigate the waters and have a “grand ol’ time”. However, a rumor started that someone found themselves standard on a downed tree and cried their eyes out until someone came to rescue them. I still think that was Rob.
The good news was that Rob never tried to cheat anyone. He didn’t play a shell game or attempt to swindle anyone in a get-rich-quick scheme he was just unsuccessful in his earlier endeavors. The lawn mowing business had promise and I felt a little better about it when he stated we would be working together. He only needed a little capital to get it started and said he’d sell every all of his video games in order to buy a weeder.
His parents were impressed and nodded a lot. His younger brother, Ryan, was not impressed but he was interested in buying the games for all of the money he had: five bucks.
I went home that night and sat at the dining table with just my grandparents. I told Rob it would be better if I told them the plan so they wouldn’t think I was being strong-armed, although I kind of was; but it was something that I had to. Yes, I finally figured I would have to grow up but, I could still watch Saturday morning cartoons.
“I’m going into business with Rob,” I stated.
Grandma nodded and continued nibbling her cornbread, but my grandfather stopped eating and looked at me with a dumbfounded look. He held that expression for an entirely too uncomfortable time before he placed his fork down and looked at me and one word: “Continue.”
I tried my best to recall Rob’s speech and if I had put in as much effort as he had then I would have prepared notecards, but I had to wing it through the presentation on how we were going to help others and better the world. I left out the part about girls and 4x4 trucks with CD changers.
Grandpa nodded and then continued eating. This was usually a good thing. If he hated the idea then he would slowly shake his head and make some growling snarl that sounds slightly like a dog throwing up before telling whoever it was who brought up said idea that it wouldn’t work.
I helped grandma with the dishes and thought of how I could help out more around the house and since I had voluntarily said I was going to work outside for a living, grandpa took it upon himself to start his own rendition of “Miyagi-Do”, starting with climbing on a ladder and removing the muck and growth in the house gutters. Did I want to? No, I didn’t, but Grandpa promised what he called “seed money” if my work was up to snuff so I worked like a madman to the sounds of the radio on my Walkman. I had no idea if he was going to give me a quarter or ten bucks or so. Any amount would go towards paying for gas so I picked up leaves, needles, mud, a small pine tree that was actually growing in the gutter. A small tree that was not supposed to be there, that should have been the trees in the woods behind us, but here it was, making do. My grandparents stepped in to take care of me when I was little, so I took that “Charlie Brown Christmas” looking tree and carefully placed it and a lot of the earth debris in a planter that was in the garage.