Memorial Day

Scott bounced on his toes in the kitchen as he waited impatiently for his family to get ready to go. It was 12:45 and the parade started at 1:00. he didn't want to miss anything.

“Come on,” he muttered through his teeth. “We're gonna be late!”

“Calm down, Scott,” his mother replied. “We live five minutes away. We have plenty of time. Why can't you be this worried about being on time for church or school?”

Scott just turned awkwardly away from his mother being very careful not to make eye contact. He knew why he wasn't worried about being on time for church and school. He wasn't worried about being on time for church and school because the pastor and the teachers never threw candy at him. If they'd throw candy at him, the ten-year-old would be so much more eager to get out of the house.

 He was a little confused about parades though. His parents always told him to never run into the streets and to never take candy from strangers and to especially never eat anything off the ground. On Memorial day, none of these rules seemed to reply. Not only were the kids allowed to run into the street, they were encouraged to pick candy up off the ground that had been thrown there by strangers. Scott had thought about asking his parents why this was the case but had decided that he had better not risk pointing out the inconsistencies in the logic of the situation lest his parents decide not to allow him the opportunity to pick up candy in the middle of the road from strangers this one day a year.

Instead, he got into the family's Astro van and kept his mouth shut as his brothers and sisters piled in around him. Dale backed the van out of the parking spot and drove down the long driveway. They drove up the road towards Paris square where the parade would pass. Scott's heart sunk just a little when he all the long lines of cars and pickups parked on both sides of the road. His father pulled the van over and put it in park. The children got out and looked up the hill with considerable disappointment at the distance from their van to the top of the hill. They breathed deeply and started hiking. It didn't take as long as they thought it would to get to the top. 

“There's Grandma and Grandpa!” Caleb exclaimed as he pointed across the street.

Sure enough, there thy were in their normal spot. They sat in a matching pair of aluminum frame lawn chars at the corner of Paris avenue and Lisbon street. An old blue building cast just enough of a shadow to shade the elderly couple but that didn't keep them from rocking the oversize sunglasses that fit over their spectacles. The children looked both ways and ran across the street. Christa laid a blanket out on the grass where the kids sat waiting for the parade to start.

After an unbearable amount of time, the parade finally started. The children watched eagerly as a marching band lead the way. The local V.F.W. Honor guard walked proudly in front of a flatbed wagon that carried all of the areas veterans. The children waved ecstatically at their great uncle Clyde who responded by tossing generous handfuls of tootsie rolls to the exited children. The kids scrambled to pick up the candy and shove it into their plastic grocery bags. The rest of the parade consisted of cars, trucks, tractors, horses, and a group of kids on bicycles. The kids waited for a full minute after the last vehicle drove by just to make sure they didn't miss anything. 

The whole group packed up their stuff and headed down the street to the church. This was the part that didn't thrill the children very much, but it was part of the deal. Their was always a short service held at the church to remember the soldiers who had fought and died for their country. The children didn't fully understand what the service was for but they knew it was important. A man lead the group in a series of hymns and patriotic songs and then turned the podium over to someone else. The speech he gave wasn't too long and was greeted by nods of understanding and admiration from the grownups in the audience.

After the memorial service, the Henning family always took a walk through the cemetery. Grandpa would point out different grave stones as they walked saying something like, “That's where your great grandpa is buried. This is my mother's grave.” There were several grave stones that were pointed out as the people they represented were remembered and their places in the family tree were established for the younger generations. Some might think a stroll through the graveyard to be a strange activity especially for the children but none of the family thought this to be the case. The children listened attentively as the older generations spoke fondly of the relatives the younger generations never had the pleasure to know. 

The family eventually made their way back to the square where the afternoon activities were well under way. Several food booths were set up around the perimeter but the main event was the peddle tractor pull. The peddle tractor pull was just like a regular tractor pull. There were different tractor classes with different loads. The only thing that set it apart from other tractor pulls is that the tractors were peddle tractors and the drivers were children. The tractor classes were more or less designated by age. The Henning children never participated in this event. It wasn't that they weren't interested. They just had someplace else to be.

The family made their way back down the long hill to the van where they loaded up and turned back towards the farm. They turned into the gravel driveway and watched the white farmhouse grow closer and closer until they pulled into the parking spot and put the van in park. The family piled out of the vehicle and rushed towards the house. Dale and Christa smiled as they watched their kids split at the sidewalk. Caleb and Scott ran to the porch while the younger three veered right to the swing set. 

“It's time to make ice cream, right?” Caleb inquired as his younger brother leaned forward expectantly.

“Yes dear,” Christa responded with a smile. “It's time to make ice cream. As soon as your grandparents get here, I mean.”

Just as she finished speaking, a large gray Chevrolet Caprice drove slowly up the driveway. The boys jumped fro the porch and ran to greet their grandparents as they pulled into the yard and parked in the shade of a lonesome pear tree. Richard and Mary slowly got out of the car and made their way to the trunk. They boys met them with literal open arms knowing that there were several items that needed to be carried to the porch. Richard pulled the ice crusher out and handed it to Caleb. The ice crusher was a large squared-up chunk of cherry firewood that had a baseball bat handle attached securely in the top. It's purpose should be pretty self evident given it's name. Richard handed a large wooden bucket to Scott who felt more than a little bit important for having the privilege of carrying the ice cream maker.

Richard joined the boys at the porch with a feed sack that looked quite heavy. He dumped the contents of the sack out on the grass in front of the porch. Several plastic juice containers and milk jugs rolled out on the ground each jug was full of frozen water. Richard pulled a utility knife from his pocket and make several slits in one of the jugs and placed it back in the sack. He took the ice crusher from his older grandson and began using it to crush the ice. 

After a few moments he gave the boys a chance to demonstrate their ice crushing skills while he helped Mary pour a thick creamy liquid into a large stainless steel canister. He placed the canister into the wooden bucket and clasped the cranking mechanism across the top.

“How's that ice coming boys?” Richard inquired of his grandchildren.

“I'm pretty sure it's good to go,” Caleb responded.

Richard picked up the feed sack and poured the crushed ice around the silver canister. He slit another plastic bottle for crushing as he directed the boys to start cranking. Caleb grabbed the hand crank and got to work. As he cranked the handle, the canister started turning in the bucket. Richard added ice until the bucket was full and then he sprinkled the ice with rock salt. As the ice melted, the water surrounded the steel canister providing more even cooling coverage. The boys took turns cranking as their grandpa added ice as needed. Every so often, Richard would take the crank for a moment so that he could judge whether or not the ice cream was ready. The longer the boys cranked, the colder the contents of the canister got and the harder it got to turn the crank.

Finally, Richard declared the ice cream to be done. He removed the crank as the younger children swarmed around him. They watched with anticipation as their grandpa pulled the lid off of the canister and reached in for a shiny silver square rod that poked out of the top of the creamy ice cream. The shaft was the top of the dasher. The dasher was a metal stirring mechanism with wooden blades that ran along the inside walls of the canister. The dasher turned in the opposite direction from the canister to prevent the ice cream from freezing in a solid chunk. It also prevented the ice cream from freezing to the inside walls of the canister. The dasher was a very important piece of the ice cream making process for a couple of reason. Besides the practical aspects of the dasher, this piece of the equipment gave the family the first chance to test the product that they had worked so hard to create.

Richard pulled the dasher from the ice cream and carried it over a plate to a picnic table where there was room for everyone to gather around. Everyone grabbed a spoon from a pile and cleaned the dasher one spoonful at a time expressing copious amounts of delight as the sweet frozen food coated their tongues with flavor and sugar.

“Well,” Dale addressed the group. “What do you think? Should we go ahead and eat the rest or is it not any good?”

He was greeted by a chorus of yeahs, let's eat it's, and of course it's good's so Christa and Mary proceeded to hand out Styrofoam bowls to the kids who lined up in front of their grandpa to receive their share of the sweet frozen treat. They topped their ice cream with toppings ranging from caramel and hot fudge to bananas and maraschino cherries. The adults were not far behind the children in the consumption of the ice cream. Once everyone had their helpings, the grownups sat on the wicker furniture on the porch and talked in between bites. The children sat on the edge of the porch and on the steps as they enjoyed their ice cream without conversation. It was more efficient that way and everyone knew that there were limited second helpings.

The Tunnel Under 172

“So,” Caleb commented to his younger brother as he stood up and looked around. “How much trouble are we going to be in if mom finds out we've wandered this far away from the house?” 

Scott looked around and shrugged. “I don't know. Do you think she's wondering where we are yet?”

“I don't know,” Caleb responded with little to no concern. “I'm not too worried about it.”

The boys had been playing in the back yard. They had wondered out of the back yard towards the driveway. There wasn't a whole lot of draw for the boys in the driveway itself, but there was a bridge where the farm creek flowed underneath the driveway that always seemed to call to the boys. The water had created a small pool at the end if the culvert. The boys liked to drop rocks and pebbles into the pool and listen to the sound reverberated through the culvert. After a few minutes of that, they got board and tried something else. They dropped twigs and leaves on one side of the driveway and ran over to the other side to watch them reappear in the water. The items swirled in the pool for a while before continuing down the brook.

The boys, encouraged but the traveling of the small vessels, decided to pick something a little bigger and see how that traveled. They found a bigger stick about a foot long and dropped it into the water. As expected, it flowed through the culvert and bobbed in the pool for a few seconds before moving on. Caleb and Scott watched it bob through the water until they lost sight of it. They ran down to the end of the driveway and turned right onto a flat grassy path that was used as a field access. The creek flowed along side the field access and was well withing eyesight of the boys. They followed their stick until it reached a large pool. The pool flowed slowly into a four foot diameter culvert that disappeared into a large bank that was topped with State Route 172. 

The boys' stick was caught in the rotating current caused by the creek flowing into the pool. The boys stood on the exposed upper arc of the concrete culvert and watched the stick bob in it's aquatic holding pattern. 

“How deep do you think that water is?” Scott inquired of his older brother.

“I don't know,” Caleb responded. “Let's take our boots off and find out.”

The boys sat down on the grass and tugged their rubber barn boots from their feet. They pulled their socks off and shoved them into their boots before rolling up their pant legs. They walked carefully down the grassy bank to the creek ans gingerly stepped into the water. The water deepened with every step until they were standing in the center of the pool up to their knees. The muddy bottom of the pool clouded the water as they walked. Minnows disappeared into unseen crevices, delighting the boys with the speed of their retreat. The coolness of the creek gave the boys goosebumps as they suppressed giggles. Together, the boys stood at the end of the culvert and peered into the tunnel. 

“What do you think is on the other side?” Scott asked.

“I don't know,” Caleb responded with a shrug. “Why don't we check it out?” 

Caleb bent over slightly and stepped into the mouth of the culvert and walked a few feet. He waited for his younger brother to step in behind him. He nodded his approval and continued into the darkness. The bottom of the culvert was curved in an opposite arch from the top. The boys noticed that the ceiling of the culvert got lower as they walked. The ceiling wasn't actually the surface of the tunnel that was changing. The culvert sagged towards the middle of the tunnel creating a cavity that had filled with sandy sediment over the years. This caused the floor to flatten and raise at a steady rate as the bys made their way to the middle of the tunnel.

The boys stooped over more and more until Scott finally gave up.

“I can't bend over any more, Caleb,” he grunted to his leader. “I'm going back.”

“Okay, wuss,” Caleb responded with a good-natured grin. “I'll let you know what I find on the other side.”

Scott just shook his head as he turned around and made his way back to the pool. He wished he had the guts to stick it out and get to the other side, but his gut was actually part of the problem. His protruding paunch made it difficult to breath when he bent over for an extended period of time. He enjoyed the relief of standing up and breathing deeply as he stepped back into the creek. His relief was short lived as his exaggerated inhale was cut short by...

“Scott David Henning! What in the world do you think you are doing and where on earth is your brother?!?”

Scott spun around so fast that he lost his footing and fell on his rump into the shallow pool. He just sat there with wide eyes as he stared up into the furious and terrified face of his mother. She was perched on the end of the culvert with one hand on her hip. The other hand was pointing right at the middle of his forehead, just in case he should somehow get the mistaken impression that she wasn't actually addressing him.

“That was not a rhetorical question, young man!” she exclaimed.

“W-w-w-which question?” Scott stuttered as he pushed himself to his feet and crawled up onto the grassy bank.

“Where is Caleb?” She repeated herself through clenched teeth.

“He went through the tunnel,” Scott replied as he tried desperately to break his mother's gaze.

“Caleb!!” Christa screamed at the top of her lungs. “Caleb! Answer me!”

“I'm coming! I'm coming!” her firstborn replied from and unseen location.

Scott stood dripping on the grassy access road as he watched his mother's right foot impatiently tap the ground. He didn't know if he should be watching the pool for his brother or if Caleb was going to return by some other route. It didn't matter. He couldn't watch anything other than his mother's impatient foot. After a few really long seconds, he heard a rustling noise coming from above him. He looked up to see his older brother climbing over the guard rail that separated the busy stated road from the steep bank that allowed it to bridge the small valley. Apparently, Caleb was unwilling to allow himself to be caught playing in the creek again. Getting caught crossing a State Route 172 somehow seemed like the better option.

“What are you doing up there?!” Christa forcefully inquired of the eleven-year-old.

“The tunnel went all the way through to the other side of the road,” Caleb explained as he jumped and slid his way to the bottom of the hill.

“Why didn't you come back through the tunnel?” she asked with exasperation thick in her voice.

“Um...” Caleb stuttered as he searched his mind for the best answer. “I don't know?”

Christa just stuck her left arm straight out towards the family van that was parked on the gravel driveway and commanded, “March!”

The boys obliged without argument, picking up their boots as they walked. They reached the van and reach for the large sliding door.

“Oh no you don't,” their mother interrupted them. “I'm not going to have you sopping wet children in my van. You walked down here. You can walk back. And you better walk fast.”

The boys turned towards the house and they walked. Fast. All the way to the house without saying a word. They both wanted to know if the other thought they were going to get a spanking as a result of their afternoon activities. However, in their young minds, it seemed that giving voice to a fear actually increased the chances of that fear becoming a reality. They erred on the side of caution and made their trip in silence. Almost.

"So," Scott ventured. "What was on the other side?"

Stem the flow

Caleb, Scott, and Luke walked back the driveway, past the sugar camp, and to the edge of the driveway. One at a time, they sat on their rumps and slid under the barbed wire fence and down a steep five foot bank into the heifer pasture. They followed a cow path to the lower part of the pasture and gingerly made their way across a marshy wet spot by jumping from one clump of grass to another. They were wearing their rubber muck boots but they knew from experience that they were in danger of getting stuck in the mud if they didn't stick to more solid ground. 

The three boys glanced over at a rusted elongated dome that stuck out of the mud to their right. The surface of the object was smooth with the exception of two rough protrusions. The object was the subject of countless discussions and debates among the brothers. They had theorized extensively about the purpose of the object but had not come to any consensus. They thought it might be a treasure chest or a cast iron coffin. They thought it might be a door to an underground tunnel system or the hull of a long-lost boat. They always said they were going to dig it up and find out what it was but never did. What if it was a coffin? (One possibility that the boys never considered was the possibility that it was simply an old cast iron bath tub that had been discarded upside-down and left to be buried by the elements and the cows that trampled on and around it.) 

They finally reached the other side of the marshy area and picked up their pace, thankful to be on solid ground. They kicked rocks and stomped their way through cow pies watching the round forms explode around their rubber boots as they left foot-shaped voids in their wakes. Finally, they arrived at their destination. They stood on a bank and looked over the edge at the trickling rippled surface of the pasture creek below them. They weren't really supposed to be at the creek, but if they could stay kinda clean they figured they could get away with it.

At first, they contented themselves with tossing rocks into the deeper water and listening to the bloop of the smooth stone breaking through the surface of the clear water. The stones disturbed the mud on the bottom of the babbling brook causing a cloudy plum to blossom around the stone and fade quickly as the flow of the water whisked it away. As they walked along the bank, minnows and crawfish darted in and out of the rocks and crevices in the short walls of the creek. Caleb walked into the water and peered in between the protruding roots of one of a tree growing on the bank looking for any water creature activity. He was rewarded with several crawfish that darted backwards with impressive speed, into the mud behind them in search of protection from what their instincts told them was a predator.

“Hey guys, did you see those crawfish?” Caleb inquired of his younger brothers. “They're super fast.”

“Yeah,” Scott replied. “Wanna make a dam?”

“Uh-huh,” Caleb responded with a note of duh in his voice. “What do you think we came out here for?”

“Yeah,” Luke interjected in a weak attempt to insert himself into the sibling banter.

Scott just shrugged his shoulders and shot back. “Well, lets build a dam then.”

There, in the shade of a couple of creekside cherry trees, the three boys set to work on the task at hand. A significant widening of the creek had been caused by unusual eroding as a result of the tree roots on either side. This presented the perfect opportunity for the creation of a small pool, if a proper dam could be constructed to obstruct the flow of the creek. The boys set to work immediately. Caleb and Luke began by gathering the largest rocks they could find and laying them in the water where the creek narrowed. Scott walked downstream a ways and pulled several large chunks of grass out of the soft ground by the roots. By the time he returned to the construction site, his brothers had several large rocks laid out in a line across the creek.

Scott handed a couple of his uprooted grass chunks to Caleb and the two of them began to shove the grass into the voids in between and on top of the rocks.

“Luke,” Scott addressed his younger brother. “We need more of this kind of grass, with the dirt and roots still attached.”

Luke nodded his head and followed his brother's orders. Scott didn't give his older brother any orders. The Henning family employed a pecking order which served to tell the kids who was in charge in the absence of their parents. The pecking order basically stated that each child was only in charge of the children who were younger than himself. If a sibling resisted an order given by an older sibling, the older child would simply say “pecking order” and as long as the order was reasonable, the younger sibling would comply or risk being reported to the next ranking sibling or one of their parents. This system of rank provided some structure and a lot of friction in the large family. It probably never occurred to Luke that the pecking order wouldn't necessarily hold sway in a situation such as this one. After all, Caleb and Scott weren't likely to report Luke to their parents for not observing the pecking order in a situation where they were all doing something they weren't supposed to be doing at all. 

Caleb and Scott worked plugging leaks with the grassy chunks that their younger brother brought, leaving a slight dip in the middle of the dam to act as an overflow. They dug slimy pebbly mud from the bottom of the creek and smeared it all over the makeshift obstruction as a finishing touch and then stood back to admire their creation. The flow of the water now collided with the dam and curved back on itself as the cavity that the boys had created filled. The water in the pool was clouded with mud at first, but as the water began to flow over the dam, the pool began to clear. After a few minutes, the three brothers could see the bottom of the one and a half foot deep pool that was the direct result of their labor. They looked at each other and nodded in satisfaction.

“You know,” Scott began with some hesitation. “If we took our boots and socks off, and rolled up our pant legs, we could probably play in that without getting our clothes wet.”

Caleb and Luke looked at each other as if weighing the options and shrugged their shoulders. The boys simultaneously dropped to their rumps on the dry grass of the creek bank and hastily pulled their boots and socks from their feet. Their rolled up their pant legs as far as they could (which was much further for Caleb and Luke than is was for Scott as the second son's legs were somewhat stockier than the other boy's were) and rushed to stick their bare feet into the cold water. A few weeks earlier, they would have never gone barefoot because their father had a strict never-go-barefoot-until-May rule and even though they were already breaking the don't-play-in-the-creek rule, there was just no getting around the seasonal barefoot embargo. 

The boys smiled broadly as they swished through their newly constructed pond. The bottom of the creek was covered in pebbles in some places and muddy in others. The small rocks were mostly smooth and harmless and massaged the boys' feet in a way that they would appreciate much more if they were older. The mud squished in between their toes and curled over their toe knuckles like slimy fingers that tickled their feet in a way that made them grimace and giggle at the same time. 

Just as they were really starting to enjoy them selves, a clear crisp two-toned whistle rode the early summer breeze right to the brothers' ears. Their heads jerked up and their eyes widened as Caleb puckered up his lips and responded with a loud three-toned-whistle. The children scrambled from the creek and made a mad dash for their boots. They shoved their socks inside and made the tedious journey back across the marsh and scrambled up the bank to the driveway. The whistle they had heard was from their dad. Rather than looking for the children or yelling for them in a way that might bother the neighbors, Dale whistled for them. The children didn't know why they were needed, but it didn't matter. They were to report post haste.

They boys made their way across the driveway by employing an awkward wince-walk that was the direct result of the discomfort caused by walking on the gravel drive in their bare feet. Their rolled up pant legs bumped against their calves like the body of a bell against it's clapper. Their pants had not managed to stay dry, despite their best efforts. They walked single file on the grassy swath in between the more harsh tire tracks on either side. Eventually, the grassy path disappeared entirely as they reached the parts of the drive that got the most traffic. They finally got to the yard where they ran to the house as quickly as they could. Scott, not being as quick as either of his brothers, was the last one to drop his boots on he ground outside and rush into the kitchen. 

The boys stood on the green linoleum floor waiting to see just how much trouble they were in. Christa looked them up and down, allowing her gaze to rest on the still-wet bell-like cuffs of their rolled-up pant legs. She shook her head disapprovingly and addressed her hooligans.

“I thought I told you boys that I didn't want you playing in the crick.” She paused to give her sons the opportunity to respond though she didn't expect them to. “It's dinnertime. Go change your pants before your dad sees you.”

The Wrong (Not Wright) Brothers

Caleb and Scott wandered around the yard looking for something to do. Their other siblings were predisposed and their parents were both immersed in adult things that were well beyond the boundaries of the boys' interest. It was bout two o'clock in the afternoon which meant there were several hours left in the day to be utilized. All that was left to be decided was how the thirteen-year-old and his eleven-year-old brother were going to spend those hours. They decided to head across the driveway where they occasionally spent some time building crude structures using the lengths of four by four that their father used to stabilized loads on the flat bed truck he drove for work. 

As they approached the far side of the driveway, they realized that there was something more than four by fours waiting for them. The quickened their pace slightly and were elated to find several large pieces of cardboard apparently at their disposal.

“Wow!” Scott exclaimed. “Check these things out!”

“Sweet,” Caleb responded. “These things are huge.”

The cardboard pieces varied in size from two foot by four foot pieces to four foot by six foot pieces. They were all fairly thick for cardboard with a thickness of almost an inch. The boys experimented with stacking them together in a number of fort-like structures until boredom once again overtook the situation. They sat for a few moments brainstorming over the different ways they might fight against the boredom that threatened their happiness until Caleb's head popped up and he turned to address his younger brother.

“Hey,” he began. “You know what?”

“What?” Scott responded.

“I'll bet we could fly with these things,” Caleb answered as he gestured towards the over-sized pieces of cardboard. “We could probably make a kind of glider thing-a-ma-bob and fly all over the place.”

“That would be so cool,” Scott replied. “What do you think we need?”

The two adolescents discussed the particulars of the project as they walked around the farm picking up the items they thought they would need. They walked through the barn and emerged with several lengths of orange baling twine and a small bale hook. Once they returned to where they had left the cardboard, they used the bale hook to make several holes in a few of the smaller pieces of cardboard and then fished generous lengths of the twine through those holes. Caleb helped his younger brother slide his arms through the twin loops so that two awkward cardboard wings were haphazardly fastened to Scott's biceps and shoulders. Scott assisted his older brother with his makeshift wings. The two boys stood opposite of each other to gaze upon their aerial equipment.

“Well,” Scott ventured . “What do you think?”

“I think we're in good shape,” Caleb responded with a confident nod. “Now we just have to figure out how to get enough speed to get off the ground. Any ideas?”

“We could use our bikes,” Scott suggested. “Which hill do you suppose is the longest around here?”

The boys turned in opposite circles surveying the terrain around them with concentration befitting the true aviation pioneers that they considered themselves to be. They both stopped as their eyes came to rest on the water way just north of their grandparents small farm. They looked at each other and nodded with satisfaction as they turned towards the house to fetch their bicycles.

It took them well over thirty minutes to get from the farmhouse to the top of the water way hill. The trip was hampered somewhat by the awkwardness of their cardboard contraptions. The learned right away not to walk too close to one another because their wings kept hitting each other. The hardest part was keeping their arms high enough to keep their bicycles from becoming a problem. The ends of their wings kept catching on the seats and the handle bars. Finally, the winged duo reached the top of the hill. They turned the bikes around and mounted up. 

“So,” Scott ventured. “When we take off, what should we do with our bikes?”

“You mean should he hang on to them or let them go?” Caleb clarified.

“Yeah,” Scott confirmed.

“Hmm,” Caleb thought for a moment. “I guess we should hang onto them if we can. It might be good to have them for when we land. If they're too heavy, just let go. We'll come back for them later.”

Scott nodded in response and both boys pushed off, being careful not to get too close to each other lest their wings should some how get tangled and cause them both to crash. At first the wing assemblies seemed to slow the boys down. Caleb leaned forward over his handle bars so that the cardboard was nearly parallel to the ground. This caused him to surge ahead of his younger brother. Scott saw Caleb's improved performance and followed suit, maintaining the distance between his brother's bike and his own.

About halfway down the hill, Caleb hit a bump and felt his heart rise slightly in his chest as the wheels of his bicycle left the ground. Scott missed the bump but was very encouraged by his brother's apparent success. Despite this momentary lift, the boys made it to the end of the hill without achieving the results they had intended. They skidded to a stop and caught their breath before discussing the results of this first experiment.

“Did you see me hit that bump?” Caleb asked excitedly in between breaths.

“Yes!” Scott replied. “I thought you were going to take off for a second.”

“Me to,” Caleb responded with a grin. “I wonder what we can do to get in the air next time.”

“I don't know,” Scott responded thoughtfully.”I just don't think we can get enough speed to lift off on our bikes. Maybe we need to jump off of something. Do you think the silos are too high?”

The boys stared thoughtfully at the thee blue Harvestores. The tallest of the three was eighty feet tall and the other two were sixty feet and forty feet, respectively. Caleb nodded as he weighed the options in his head.

“I don't think too high is a problem when your flying unless you get too close to the sun,” he mused.

“What do you mean?” Scott questioned.

“Well, I read this story about two brothers who made wings with wax and feathers because they needed to escape this island,” Caleb responded. “The one brother flew too close to the sun and the wax melted. He didn't make it but the other one did.”

“Yeah, but we didn't use any wax,” Scott argued. “Or feathers.”

“Well,” Caleb shrugged. “We probably should be careful anyway. That twine will melt if it gets too hot.”

The boys pushed their bikes into the grass and let them drop. They turned towards the silos to consider their options.

“I don't think we will be able to get these wings through the cage,” Scott stated apprehensively, referring to the steel safety cage that enclosed the silo ladder.

“I think you're right,” Caleb agreed. “Let's try something different.”

It wasn't long before the brothers found themselves walking up the hill to the Yankee barn. The Yankee barn stood just northwest of the farmhouse. It was a two story structure with a gambrel roof that their father had designed and built when he was in high school. The lower level had several stalls that were used to house calves until they were weaned. The upper level was used to store hay and straw bales but was mostly empty on that particular day. There was a full sized door in the east gable of the roof that was used to pass bales through for stacking in the barn. The boys gave each other matching looks that essentially said that'll do.

It took them a few minutes to make their way through the lower level of the barn and up the stairs with their awkward wingspans. The upstairs exterior door slid easily open. The boys stood in the opening. Scott had his left hand on one door jamb and Caleb braced himself against the other. The paused for a few moments as they contemplated the most effective way to achieve the lift off they desired. 

“What do you think?” Scott inquired of his older brother. “Running start?”

“I don't think that's necessary,” Caleb responded. “I think if we jump out, we should be high enough to glide down okay. We might even make it all the way down to the lower driveway.”

“That would be pretty sweet,” Scott declared. “Who's going to go first?”

“Why don't we sit down on the floor and go at the same time?” Caleb suggested.

Scott agreed this was the best course of action and sat on the floor, allowing his legs to dangle from the doorway. Caleb followed suit and prepared for the countdown.

“One, Two, Three!”

The boys jerked forward but lacked the resolve to propel themselves from their perch.

“Okay,” Caleb panted against the adrenaline in his chest. “Here we go. One. Two. Three!”

Again, the boys failed to launch.

“Okay,” Caleb commanded through gritted teeth. “For real this time. One! Two! Thr...”

“Don't you dare jump out of that barn!!” a panicked scream echoed through the air.

The boy jerked their heads from side to side looking for the source of the panicked command. They saw their mother standing in between the farmhouse and the summer house in her bare feet with a trembling finger pointed at them.

“It's okay, mom,” Scott called to her as reassuringly as he could. “We gots wings.”

“No you do not!” Christa responded with a trembling voice. “You have two pieces of cardboard! Those are not wings! You two get down here right now! And use the stairs! Do you hear me?!”

The brothers nodded their heads with disappointment as they pushed themselves back from the doorway. They stood up and Caleb closed the door before the walked slowly to the stairwell.

“I don't know what she's so worried about,” he grumbled to his younger brother. “This cardboard is pretty thick.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “It's not like we're using cereal boxes. Do you think we're going to be in trouble?”

“I suppose so,” Caleb responded through a dramatic sigh. “It just depends on how scared she was.”

As one of the participants in this event, I am unable to remember anything beyond this point. I can only assume that our aviation equipment was dismantled and we were dispatched to our room until our misconceptions about flight could be corrected... or until dinner. What I do know is this: our short career as aviation pioneers was at an end. We never made such an attempt at flight again. From that day forward, we only ever took to the skies within the relative safety of our own imaginations.