The Great Blondin

We all have hero's, even an old man like me. As a child my hero was the great Blondin, a high wire walker. I learned all about him and with the help of my brothers and sisters, we found a long pole to use for balance and I got up on a fence post and my sister handed me the pole and I fell of that barb wire fence many times before I got the hang of it. When I got good I did tricks for my sisters and brothers. But walking on the fence loosened the wire and when my dad caught us, it all ended... On the fence. So we chose my moms cloths line. I climbed up the post on one side and my sister handed me my balancing pole and off I went. It was kinda scary at first because it was a lot higher then the fence. But I got control of myself and it was so nice and springy, so I started going up and down like on a trampoline as I walked along. then twang, it snapped, and I went down, down and that was the first time I had gotten the wind knocked out of me and I couldn't breath and thought I was going to die. Then I here my sister yelling Russey mom, and she and all my support was gone. I got more then my breath back and never walked on my moms cloths line again. Not long after we found this old cable and dragged it home. We lived next to a dredge ditch, and we got it tied to a tree on each side of it with wires and I put on shows from then on for my loyal best friends, my brothers and sisters. My dad never found that cable, and I enjoyed many more time breathless with the wind knocked out of me.

Rope Riding

Faded memories come to life when you see thing like the things you once did, and after seeing the girl climbing that rope again, I was reminded of several things I did as a child, that I had forgotten about. One of those things was like something those girls did a few years ago. stand on a table like thing and standing in the swing and jumping off. I grew up as the oldest of seven children, and the things we did then would be considered suicidal today. because of the radically paranoid pansy society we live in today. Anyway we grew up on a dairy farm in Northern Minnesota, and our barn was a high round top roof, with a lean too on each side. One side was for our horses and the other side was for the cows. The middle with the high round roof was open from the roof to the ground, except for a small partition in front that we used as a pump house. This area from the roof to the ground and roof to the top of the pump house was for storing hay. There was a long steal rail at the peek that run from the front to the back. On this rail was a pulley type thing on wheels, that looked like a toy upside down tractor. a rope went around that pulley with one end of the rope going to a pulley at the end of the rail on down to a pulley at the bottom of the building that was hooked to the horses, so they could pull on it. The rope went under another pulley with a thing that had long forks on it and looked like a big mouth that opened and shut. The whole thing when pulled up to the track moved or was pulled out by another rope and lowered unto a wagon loaded with hay, and the forks were opened and shoved into the hay on the wagon and closed full of hay as the horses pulled on the other end of the rope, it was pulled up. when it got to the top it went into the building and was opened inside the building where the hay fell to the ground. When the haymow was full of hay the big forks were taken off leaving the rope on one pull hanging down. in the spring when the hay was gone, we would pull the pully and rope to how high we wanted it and tie it off. Then we would take the pulley end of the rope up to the top of the loft over the pump-house, stand on the pulley and leep off and swing to the other side of the barn and kick off that wall and swing back, over and over again. I can still here my sister yelling my turn Russey, my turn.

SEEING

Ever set on a park bench or lawn chair trying to watch everything going on around you, like the mama bird with her chicks, resting on the ground right at your feet, as though you were a best friend they didn't have to fear. Then she flies away, with her babies taking flight behind her, then as she lands on the roof of a shop, followed by one of her chicks, the other baby loses control and slams into the window of the shop, rolls over and flapping its wings in panic, uprights itself, gains control and flies off, as though it had no worry or care about who saw it blunder in flight.
Then a girl on a long rope swing, tied to a branch of a tree, so high it gives you shivers to think of being up there, starts climbing up the rope. She moves slowly, as though she is planning each moves she make as she goes up, up, up, and she touches the tree branch, as you feel a falling kind of dizziness, as you set in ah at what she had just done, and feeling the joyful pride and the fear sets in with a pain going down your back, because you were in her place on a rope just like that many times when you were her age.
As we get older we live through what we see, and here. And we are and always will be that little boy or girl, deep inside, even though our body is much older, the spirit will always be young. So we set on the old park bench or lawn chair and enjoy the wonders around us as though we were a part of that wonder and yes, when it comes to children and adventure, we were once.