Some Disagreements With My Parents During High School...

What's something I really disagreed with my parents about?  That is rather difficult to consider because it seems there is a difference between disliking and disagreeing.  Parents have a very important role to play in the rearing of their children.  That role is perhaps more difficult for Christian parents who not only want to raise kind, respectful, smart, happy, well adjusted children but also want their children to become followers of Jesus as taught in the Bible.  Children seem to be born with a pretty strong stubborn streak that puts them in opposition to many of their parent's desires.  

In my case, I seemed to realize that my parents were doing their best to disipline and guide me and my siblings to be all of the things I listed in my opening paragraph.  They had these goals for their children because they practiced these ways of living themselves.  I had great models of how to live as a godly, loving and industrious person.  There was no doubt that my parents loved me and loved the Lord.

Though I probably realized my parents were working hard to make a living as dairy farmers with its financial and labor intensive challenges, there were many requirements for me that I did not "like".  Here are some of those things:
 1.  Helping with housework - vacuuming, dusting, mopping

2.  Helping with laundry - carrying clothes to the outside clothesline to hang for drying, taking it back in when dry and folding and ironing as necessary

3.  Helping in the kitchen - doing the dishes, setting the table, peeling potatoes, etc. etc.

4.  Gardening all summer - planting, weeding, harvesting, helping with canning, freezing etc. etc.

5.  Farm work outside - getting the cows from the pasture, carrying pails of milk to the milkhouse, cleaning the barn gutters, feeding hay, throwing down silage, helping with haying, thrashing, silo filling etc. etc.

6.  Helping to saw wood for the wood burning furnace and kitchen stove - even when the outside temperature was well below zero degrees!!!

7.  Getting up at 6:00 AM to help in the barn before getting picked up by the school bus for school.

High School Organization Highlights...

When I was in high school, I did not have the use of a car to drive to and from school.  A school bus picked me up at the end of our driveway which was a short distance from our farm house.  All five of us Groves kids rode the same bus to whatever school we were attending - elementary grades 1 - 8 or high school grades 9 - 12.  There were very few if any students who drove themselves to school during my years of high school.  Maybe there was an  after school bus later that took boys home if they stayed for football, basketball or track practice but there were no school sports for girls at that time so girls never needed to stay after school for a late bus nor were girls in any organized sport programs.  

Band and choir were separate elective classes and I was in both of those classes all through high school.  In the band I played a baritone saxophone which was owned by the school for my first three years of high school (shown far right in the photo below) and then

transitioned to a Tenor saxophone when an older student graduated

and I was able to play that school owned instrument for my last year of high school.   The Pep Band which played at home basketball games was also an extra-curricular opportunity for me and my saxophone.

My Story of Being Lost One Time As A Child...

I do not remember ever getting lost as a child but I must have gotten lost at least once when I was probably about three years old.  I have heard this story a number of times about something that I did  but I don’t honestly remember it happening.

When this happened, I could not have been older than three because this incident happened during the time our family lived on my Great-Grandmother’s farm near Viroqua, WI.  We moved from that farm to another farm just before I had my fourth birthday.  

As I write this story, a few parts are facts and other parts are “probably” the what and why of this story.

I must have been an active toddler who loved being outdoors.  Apparently, one warm, beautiful day I decided to explore beyond the yard of our house and our farm buildings.  A paved road stretched along the front of our farm’s buildings.  The photo below shows me standing beside the paved road years later with my Great-Grandmother’s farm behind me.

 Alongside our farm, above the buildings, was a gravel road which led from the paved road to some of the fields of our farm as well as to another farm beyond our property.  It also led to an area known as the Maple Sugar Grove.  This was a working Maple Sap producing grove.  My father and mother spent time during each spring with the work of collecting the sap of the maple trees and getting maple syrup made.  They did some of their courting in that Maple Grove before their June wedding in 1941.

A Big Impact From A Small Decision...

A small decision...

When I was a senior in high school and making a choice about what colleges to apply to and which college to attend if I were to be accepted at more than one college, I chose to apply to two different WI universities.  

I had an older brother who was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI and he would be a senior when I started as a freshman if I got accepted and went there.  We were great friends as well as siblings and he was having a wonderful experience at UW-Madison so I thought that would be a terrific place for me also.  

My high school career had included a number of opportunities for me to go to the campus of the La Crosse State College only thirty miles from our farm home.  La Crosse was the place where District Band and Chorale ensemble as well as Forensic competitions were held.   I played a baritone saxophone for three years, a tenor sax for one, sang in the choir and a vocal trio, participated in 4-minute Speech for three years and Interpretive Reading of Prose for one year during my high school years.  The District competitions for those events were held on the campus of the La Crosse State College so I had learned my way around that campus and part of the town where it was located.   I had been born in La Crosse, WI and had cousins who lived there so had been in that city many times during my childhood.    La Crosse had a strong pull on my heart so I was confident that it would be a good place for me to start college if I got accepted there.

Tell Us About A Kitchen Disaster...

When I saw this title, I did not know how I could possibly respond to this request.  Nothing came to my mind other than so many thoughts and memories of my many kitchen stellar achievements.  I love being in the kitchen to prepare meals and cook and bake delicious foods.  But did I ever even come close to having a kitchen disaster?

My love of baking started when I was quite young.  My mother was a great cook and baker so I watched her working tirelessly  in the kitchen every day.  She baked all the bread for our family of seven and was known for the most delicious white bread imaginable.  She also baked cakes, pies and cookies regularly.  All this on a wood burning kitchen stove when I was a young child.  

Mom had one cookbook that I have inherited.  It was well used and well loved.  

My Childhood Camp Experience...

When I think about camping trips, I think of tents, sleeping bags and cooking over a campfire.  Well, I can’t write about that kind of camping trip because I have never been on one of those.  But I have a story about a very memorable campgrounds where I spent a week sleeping in a tent each summer when I was between the ages of 10 - 18 in 1955-1963.  My conditions at this camp included outdoor bathrooms, outdoor cold water only sinks where we washed up and brushed our teeth, dirt floors in our tents for the first years and then board floors after that, mosquitoes, heat, some storms and lots of walking - just like the boy scouts enjoyed because my experiences happened at a Boy Scout Camp.

Walt Reschlein was a successful Christian business man in La Crosse, WI during the years I mentioned.  He had a vision for a week of Bible Camp for children ages 10 - 18.  He made arrangements with the Boy Scouts who owned a campground for their summer camps to use their grounds for a week following their camping season for a week of Bible Camp.  Mr. Reschlein partnered with churches in the area in order to provide all the necessary planning, advertising, registering, programming and staffing for the camp.  

Lakeside Evangelical Free Church in Winona, MN (pictured above) was where I and my family attended at that time.  My church partnered with Mr. Reschlein for the Bible Camp week in August which was held at Camp Decorah near Holman, WI.  A number of youth from our church attended each summer.  My first year for this camp was 1955 when I was 10 years old.  My close friend at church was a year older than I so she had attended her first year in 1954 and invited me to go with her and her family as they drove both of us to camp that year.