Guest Column

Close houses, close friends -- that's how it generally goes in small towns like Jefferson

The author, a young friend of ours, wrote this essay for a class at Jefferson-Scranton High School, where he is a junior. —Chuck Offenburger

By BEN TEUSCH
March 27, 2007
JEFFERSON, IOWA

How do you choose your friends? Likely, you choose friends based on personality, humor or similar interests. However, when you are very young, the friends you choose are based on another, very important criterion: proximity.

This was the case for me when I was very young, as I made two very good friends based on the simple fact that they lived on the same block as I did.

I well remember the day I met Dan Green. It was on the sidewalk stairs near his house, three houses down from mine. I remember it was St. Patrick’s Day, and I was wearing a jungle-green sweat suit (which struck me as absolutely hilarious as I met Dan Green). Eventually, we became the best of friends.

We spent countless hours in the sandbox behind his house, building our cities and playing God. The citizens were either cars or army men, and the setting was a peaceful outpost, an Old West scene, or an all-out war zone. We often had a river running through the middle of the world, and Dan would often send me with a milk jug to the outdoor faucet (on the other side of the house, of course) to re-fill the river after it began to empty into the sand.

Another activity we enjoyed at his house was just as much fun; playing in a small rock pile in his front yard. There was “Pride Rock,” named after the location in “The Lion King,” shown near the beginning of the movie, and there were plenty of hiding places around the edges for the “hyenas,” or bad-guy cars, to hide. We must have spent hours just acting out stories as they came to us.

Of course, we were still two young boys with a sense of adventure. One time we “sneaked” from my house to his house and back, using trees and everything we could think of to hide behind. Another activity that brought us joy was lying in one of Dan’s old garbage cans and rolling down his driveway inside of it. We usually had to stop as soon as somebody older made us stop.

“It’s too dangerous!”

“Aw, come on, we won’t get hurt!”

“Find something else to do.”

And so we did. I would hop in my red wagon, and Dan, being a year older and bigger, would push me while I steered it. We would go as far and as fast as we could, until he got tired, or I crashed. Though I’m not sure this was a safer activity, it was “something else.”

We also spent hours upon hours in the ravine behind Alex Carter’s house, which never, ever seemed to get old.

I don’t remember how I met Alex, but he lived right across the street from me, and was actually two years older than I was. I remember being really impressed when I saw all the handwriting homework a big second grader like him had to do everyday. He also had the coolest K’nex buildings I had ever seen. I remember being really jealous of his K’nex roller coaster that took up almost half of his room. I’m sure I annoyed him with asking to see it work so often.

Alex’s backyard was another place where lots of magic happened. Lots of times, the fun would include Alex, Dan and me. Sometimes Alex’s sister or parents would be there, too. During the summer months we’d play on the Slip ‘n’ Slide, a long sheet of plastic that had water sprayed on it. The goal was, basically, to run and slide on it, trying to get as much speed as we could, without breaking it. Injuries were fine, and, in fact, welcomed.

We also built a tree house in his backyard one summer, with his dad’s help. It had a ladder, and a swing, and it even had benches on the main level. We would often just sit up there and talk in the sun while the warm breeze blew over us.

The best, though, was the ravine behind Alex’s house. I don’t know how many times we walked that well-worn trail next to the creek, but every time we went back there, something great happened. We built boats out of sticks to see which went farthest downstream; we tried to summon the courage to crawl up the huge pipes that emptied into the ravine (we never really did – even though the most water that ever came down was a small trickle); we discovered Jefferson’s clay depository; and we faced certain death crossing the rock path that crossed the dreaded “Whitewater Waterfall.”

Crossing into that ravine allowed us to enter a different world. It hardly ever occurred to us that there were actually houses up on the top of the ravine. Dan got his leg stuck in a whitish mud one time that I’m sure had us in a panic far greater than was actually warranted by the situation. And then, during the winter, the ravine became another world. We really enjoyed sledding down the fairly steep sides of it, always careful to dodge trees or logs that might impede our hasty progress downhill. It was also very important to actually hit a tree or grab on to one before the very bottom to keep from going into the water.

The three of us had lots of great fun outside, but we were also able to enjoy ourselves inside the house. Though Dan almost always got the best of me, I continually enjoyed playing Mortal Kombat 3 against him. I also enjoyed playing a racing game with graphics that have been unmatched by any game since – they were pretty bad. We had lots of fun racing each other, though, on the computer in Alex’s basement.

Another “fun” experience that I remember from Alex’s basement was that Dan and Alex loved to play hide-and-seek down there. It seems like they would always find me fairly quickly, which meant I was the seeker a considerable amount of the time. And, without fail, at least half the time I looked for Alex and Dan, they would forgo any intention of hiding and just jump out and scare me. I really didn’t like it, but hey, they were bigger than me, and it was all in good fun.

Good times never last forever, though, and eventually Alex moved to Indiana, and Dan started playing with kids his own age. And thus began a new chapter in my life, with different friends who eventually lived a little farther away from me, a different school, and different activities to make life great. I may have only been friends with them because they were the kids next door, and it may not be how I pick my friends now. I sure am glad, though, that it was how I picked my friends then.

After all, those few years with Dan Green and Alex Carter shaped the very beginning of my childhood, and provided me with memories and experiences to last me a lifetime.

Ben Teusch, 17, is the oldest of four children of Dr. Jim and Nancy Teusch, in Jefferson, where Jim is a dentist and Nancy serves on the City Council. They are also developing a small inn in Jefferson, at the trailhead of the Raccoon River Valley Trail. The family attends the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Carroll. Ben is “almost an Eagle Scout in Boy Scouts,” he reports. At Jefferson-Scranton High, he is out for football, cross country, swimming and track, while also singing in the choir and participating in speech events. He plans on attending Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, “probably majoring in some sort of math,” he says. You can e-mail him at 2112blt@gmail.com.

Click here to read more articles by BEN TEUSCH