Kay Elmsley Weeden - Escapades on the Wisconsin

 

Thank you. When I was about eight years old, our family moved to a new town. When we pulled into the driveway, we saw the house, but what we really saw was the river. We moved into a house right across the street from the Wisconsin River. My parents hadn't even told us. We couldn't believe it. We flung open the doors and jumped out and raced across the road, main street, down the bank, into the river. My dad was close behind us. As we were looking at this amazing sight, I remember him saying something like, “Don't, blah and be blah and [audience laughter] be blah, blah blah,” you know, all those cautious words that you're supposed to listen to. But we four kids just looked at our new playground, it was like a wonderland. It was going to be amazing. And it was, because my parents, they left. They went to work.

 

I’ve got to figure out one day, what were they thinking? They went to work and left four kids, the oldest age 10, home alone to take care of themselves. But that was the 1970s, and that's what you did. And so, my sister, who was in charge the first day, said, “Let's go swimming.” [audience laughter] Yeah. So, we jumped into our bathing suits and raced off across the street, down the bank and we walked along until we found this really cool tree that had half fallen into the water.

 

As you scrabbled up the tree, you could catapult yourself off that tree into the water, and you'd hit the water and the river would grab you and you would dog paddle as fast as you could to the edge down the way, and you'd get back out and run back and do it all over again. It was amazing. Until one time, I slipped and I didn't jump far enough and I ended up plunging into the tree branches underneath the water. I remember so clearly, even though I was only eight years old, struggling, trying to get out of these branches. I couldn't do it. And then, I remember my chest, it hurt so much, because I didn't want to open my mouth. I didn’t want to suck in the water. And then, I remember giving up. I just stopped.

 

And then, the next thing I knew, I was on the shore and there were my two sisters helping me. I was spluttering and coughing up water. And it turns out it was my brother who had saved my life, my brother, Jack. And where was he? Right back up on that tree, jumping. [audience laughter] And the only reason he saved me was, because I was in his way. [audience laughter] Seriously. So, anyway, lots of things happened on that river, even though we were told to be very careful. 

 

One afternoon, we heard screams for help. As we looked out our window, I saw a canoe just flying down the river, overturned, with a man and two young children clinging to it. There was nothing we could do, except pick up the phone, that's what my mom did, and dialed O for operator. And they must have called the police or the fire, I'm not sure who. But we found out the next day that the man and his two children had been rescued about four miles down the river. They had no life jackets on. My dad said, “Don't go near that, blah, blah, blah.” [audience laughter]

 

So, we saw all these canoes and rafts and all these great things, and we could never do it, because we never had anything like that. Until one day, I had this great idea. In our front hallway was this chest, old wooden chest. So, my sister, Nettie, and I, you could get her to do anything, [audience laughter] we opened it up, we took everything out, unscrewed the lid and dragged it across the street, down the bank, into the river. [audience laughter] We dropped it in, and we jumped in and it sunk to the bottom. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we got some sticks. We jumped back in, and we poled our way out into the river. We got out a little bit further, but the whole thing just filled up with sand and water, and it was clear that it wasn't going to go anywhere and this wasn't going to work. And then, we could not get it back out of the water. [audience laughter] I knew I was going to be in some deep trouble if we didn't get this back out. So, we raced back up, we got rope, we got my sister, we got my brother, we got the neighbors, we ran back down and it was gone. [audience laughter] The river had just washed it away. And, wow, I was so panicked. I didn't know what I was going to do. But that's when I had my second good idea. [audience laughter] 

 

We went back up, and Nettie and I, we folded the clothes really neatly, more than I've ever folded them neatly before. [audience laughter] And then, we took that lid and put it right on top. [audience laughter] I took a step back and I looked at it and I thought, looks good to me. Who's ever going to find out? [audience laughter] My mother, I'm going to say like 10 seconds after she got into the house, instead of going up the back staircase that she always would go up, for whatever reason, walked around to the front staircase, and I heard, “Oi, what happened to my great grandmother's travel trunk?” [audience laughter] “Nettie did it.” [audience laughter] Thank you.