Pfeffer Valley

Pfeffer Valley


In the spring there were basically two routes to explore outward from the little bubble of the farm in Pfeffer Valley.  The first was to follow the topography of the fields and ditches, and this was quite magical, for in the spring, the snow would melt and create a burbling, rippling, stream coming out of the high ridge areas which surrounded the farm on three sides, and down through the fields into the ditches where it increased in its flow until it got down to the next farm, belonging to an old couple who still did dairy farming, the Tschumpers.  They pronounced their name Jumper and their son owned a farm on the other side of the ridge to the south, in the direction of Hokah.  It was the pass between these twos farm that I had seen the UFO come to earth.

Traversing this route required tennis shoes that could be put in the washing machine.  I loved those little magical hikes along the streams.  It seemed like everything was coming back to life after the hard winter freeze.

You could throw a small stick in the water and watch the current take it over and around obstacles all the way to the natural intermittent stream that went under a small bridge and right through the Tschumpers' yard.  They even had another little bridge to walk over from where they parked their car to the house and yard.

If I kept to the road, which was gravel, I had two directions of travel, but only for an eighth of a mile further up the valley.  There the road was fenced off with a gate and was not maintained further on as it crested a small shoulder of a hill and turned downward to the last farm in the valley, belonging to an old bachelor, George Kindhammer.

As soon as the warm weather came, I went barefoot.  I would walk gingerly on the gravel of the road for a few days until the bottom of my feet toughened up.  Then I would walk down it for the rest of the summer just as I would walk on a grass lawn.

Larry and Tommy Langen and their little sister, Kay were the only other children in the valley, and I could walk down to their farm, which was probably a mile away.  Their parents were as stereotypical a farm family as you will find unless you go way back to Per Hansa and Hans Olsa.  They were actually farmers without other sources of income, so they did it all.

Other than curiosity, there was really no reason to expend the effort of exploring that far except that they became my good friends, even though they went to the Catholic school in Hokah and I never had them as classmates.

The water that ran off our fields in the spring followed the little ditches down under the road and past the Tschumpers' yard and out into a wider expanse of the valley.  Then it meandered back and forth past the farm of Al Botcher's friend Al Thompson and down to the low fields below the Langen's.  From there, it took an abrupt turn south and followed the road down to Highway 16 that went between La Crescent and Hokah.  It went under Highway 16 and into a series of ditches and sloughs before bending east and fanning out.  The railway came in and there was a series of low trestles over it before it joined a confluence of the Root River and the Mississippi.

Before this little lazy creek reached the Langens' farm, there was an optimal place to dam it up and that is exactly what Larry, Tommy, and I did.  Piling mud on top of itself, we managed to create a swimming hole about two feet deep in places.  Never mind that cattle waded in the creek just upstream and that the water traveled so slowly that it literally became a mud hole.  We had to hose ourselves off after going swimming before our parents would let us in the house, but it all kept us busy on hot summer days and they let us do it.

Things really changed abruptly the summer that Patty and Al brought home a bicycle for me.  Apparently they had considered that I was old enough for a little more freedom, which was a mixed blessing, but I guess it had to happen sooner or later.

It was a big bike.  I had no clue as to how to ride it.

Determined, I took the bike into the front yard while they were at work.  I could barely get my leg up over the frame and over to the other pedal.  I pushed hard, rolled forward into the lawn and tipped over, the whole contraption slamming into the turf beside me.  Very frustrating.  A boy needs an adult to hold everything steady and provide positive praise for little successes, but I didn't have any of this.  Instead I picked up the bike, returned to the starting line and did it all over again and again, always crashing.

I must have crashed that bike a thousand times, but there came a time when I rolled about ten feet further before I crashed, and then fifteen.  I was getting the idea that if you kept from panic and turned the handlebar in the direction of the fall, you went a little further.

Another eighty or so crashes and it suddenly came to me as though it had been there all the while!  I was able to navigate the bike around the yard with fewer and fewer difficulties.  Before you knew it, I was riding it on the gravel road, keeping to the places where the gravel had been graded aside so that the tires wouldn't bog down.

Bikes in that day didn't have gears or hand brakes like modern ones do, and they didn't have the junior sizes which would have been a blessing for a runt like myself.  The chain connected the sprocket on the pedals directly to the back wheel.  It was hard, like you were in a high gear all the time.  Going up a hill, you would have to stop and walk the bike.

Pedaling backward was the way to brake the bike.  If you stopped pedaling, the bike simply kept rolling along but if you pushed the pedals backward you engaged a mechanism that put pressure on the axle of the wheel and slowed you down.  If you pushed more than a little, the wheel would lock up entirely and the bike would skid.

Having the bike enabled me to visit my friends Larry and Tommy, a mile away, much more easily.  I could coast it down the hill past the Tschumpers' driveway and attack the next stretch upward.  When I bogged down, I then had to walk the bike up to the top where I could get back on and traverse a hillside before coasting down another hill to their driveway.  I could make it almost all the way up their long, long driveway.

At some point they also got bikes and we were off to see the world, all the way down to the Dahlkes' place where the road met the highway.  The Dahlkes were another pair of old farmers.  Their cowyard had a cement tunnel built right underneath Highway 16 so that the cattle could get under it to the pastures on the other side.  We would go in that tunnel and sing, listening to our voices echoing.

Larry and Tommy had chores and responsibilities so I didn't get to see them any time I preferred.  I had to check.  If they were preoccupied, I would simply go on riding my bike down to the tunnel and sing alone.  I was an only child.  I was used to that.