There is a stretch of highway in southern Indiana that, in my youth, carried me to a world of adventure and discovery. Although only about 18 of its 122 miles lies in Bartholomew County, the adventures that came from my travels down this stretch of road were endless. In my youth, State Road 58 used to begin its westward journey at the county fairgrounds south of Columbus. My road to adventure then made its way through a vast sea of corn, soybeans, and pastureland that seemed boundless to a young boy. Places like Ogilville, Mt. Healthy, and Waymansville lay along the way, small dots on the map but important waypoints on my way to adventure. Waymansville, once a bustling German community, was home to many of my ancestors who now rest in the cemetery at St. Peter Lutheran Church. Finally, winding through a small valley, the highway climbed Dug Hill and left me behind with my childhood adventures.
Many an escapade began at the county fair, which I often attended with my late grandfather. He was known to his friends as Alf, but to me he was “Grampa,” much more informal and easier for a boy to say than “grandfather.” Whether climbing on the farm machinery, walking through the livestock barns, eating slushies and cotton candy, or seeing the wildlife and fish at the state DNR display, it was a new world for me to explore. Any of these activities were of more interest than the midway with its rides, games, and hawkers. Grampa, a retired farmer and former manager of the feed store at the Farm Bureau Co-Op in Columbus, was at home at the fair. He was the backstage pass that allowed me to enter the world of agriculture and be among those who worked the land. These experiences instilled in me a deep respect for the agrarian way of life that has remained steadfast through the years.
On down State Road 58, we would visit a small farm that lay just south of Waymansville below Dug Hill. My Uncle Frank and Aunt Myrtle farmed 140 acres of ground there and made a very decent living from the soil. This place was a young boy’s delight. I would wade in the creek, catch crawdads, fish for bluegill in the pond, climb in the hayloft pretending the bales were the tallest mountain in the world, and drink lemonade on the porch staring out at an endless green sea of corn and soybeans. There were Bill and Silver, the old Percheron workhorses that my uncle once used to work the soil and Daisy, the old Guernsey milk cow I would ride like a horse. There were the Hereford calves I would secretly try to ride in the barn stall, an effort that always ended up in a good spill. I recall one particular ride that landed me in a large pile of cow dung and then trying to explain to my uncle how that stain on my pants had come to pass.
My Aunt Myrtle was as much at home on the Allis-Chalmers tractor as Frank, the only difference was the large umbrella that provided her a bit of shade on a hot summer’s day. I always thought that Uncle Frank chose the hottest day of the year to ask me to help put up hay. The bales were larger and heavier than me and it often took four hands to throw them on the wagon. I did my best lest I get Frank’s label of being “work-brittle”, not a badge you wore with honor. Theirs was also a life of faith, with St. Peter Lutheran Church at the center of their lives. Myrtle was the church organist and a trip to Seymour usually meant that Frank needed a new suit to wear on Sunday. Frank’s disdain for snakes was legendary which clearly had biblical roots.
Oh, those summers past. Whether going to the fair, climbing in the hayloft, milking the cows, fishing in the pond, feeding the hogs, catching frogs, lighting sparklers on the 4th of July, going on tractor rides, and so much more, each one was part of a young boy’s dream of a perfect summer day. Those days may be long past but the memories that were forged remain an indelible part of me to this day. My experiences at the fair and on the farm helped me develop a sense of adventure that I have held onto firmly throughout my life. It was the belief that I would always be able to discover something new in the great outdoors that fueled my lifelong passion for nature, whether it was a new experience, a new plant, or a new creature. Along the way, I learned some valuable lessons about faith, family, hard work, and our place in the natural world.
Each adventure would eventually come to an end and we would start back home down the state road with the windows of grampa’s 1973 Chevy Impala open to the cool air of the summer evening, the smell of the country a sweet perfume. Often, I would fall asleep in the back seat, only to awaken as we pulled into the driveway. I would shuffle off to bed, confident in the belief that I had for the day been an adventurer, a fearless explorer of that small farm south of Waymansville. My eyelids, heavy with sleep, would close to the sounds of the summer night and I would drift off to sleep dreaming about my next adventure, confident it would be a good one.
