I was reminded that the library was a couple blocks from our house.  It had a pipe fence.  It was about two feet off the ground, it was a 2-inch pipe, and I used to walk on that, which was kind of fun and kind of, well not so much dangerous, but I wasn’t real successful at it.  But it worked a little bit.  Did the same thing on our sand box in our basement.  It was made out of 2 by somethings.

[So it was sort of like walking a log.]

Only it was 2 inches around, and slippery. But when I was in seventh grade or so, they threw me the keys to the boat and said, “You go be a commercial fisherman.” So I ran trout lines for a couple/three years in that time period. I grew up in Iowa on the Mississippi, four blocks from the river.  Everything was 6 or 7 blocks from the river or less, and it was a town of getting close to 2000, but wasn’t there yet. But we did have two school systems in town, which was interesting.  The parochial school was twice the size of the public school. It’s hardcore catholic country out there. I had a friend that lived a block up the street, and we did stuff. I was in the woods some and was worried about wild flowers even then, and I still am.  Identifying, and I was a boy scout, so I got into some of that stuff.  Sang in church with the kid’s group and a couple or three of them over the years.

The town was Bellevue.  The only reason to go to Bellevue is because you want to be there.  There is no bridge, so you can’t get across the river.  And it’s kind of off the main drag. There’s a wonderful state park.  Been around up there often enough.  That’s usually where we took our final day of classes at school, took everybody up for a picnic.