Tales of a Teenager

By Dennis Esler

This is the true story of a boy who was born sixth to a family of very poor people. The family lived hand to mouth, and day by day. The father was employed by the Minneapolis news paper but besides his own family, he also was supporting his elderly parents and several siblings.
Dennis, the youngest, had to fight for everything he ever had. This is the story of how he over came the difficulties to survive and eventually to prosper. He had to accomplish this while over coming shyness and stubbornness.
Even at a very young age he preferred being in the woods and lakes, and has never mixed well with large gatherings of people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469172002

Dennis Esler

This is a book of poetry that spans the years. Some of these poems were written forty years ago, and some were written now for this book. They are meant to be fun to read but some of them have been written with tongue in cheek. They all have some segments that was from a real time or place but I may be the only one that can find the connection. A good example of this will be found in the works that I have titled THE FACES OF THE LADY. This is about a large wilderness lake that is along the Minnesota- Ontario border. I have fished and camped on this lake many times and any canoeist that paddles the lake will soon find that this Lady has many moods that can change in an instant. I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I hope you find enjoyment in reading it.

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Copyright © 2012 by Dennis Esler.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-7199-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-7200-2

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Dedicated to my daughter Debby for all her help.

Dad

Contents

Chapter 1  Fishing With Friends And School Mates

Chapter 2  Fishing With Joe

Chapter Three  Hunting With Friends

Chapter Four  Duck Hunting

Chapter Five  Other Adventures.

Chapter Six  Other Activities

Chapter Seven  Fun With In-Laws

Chapter 8  Camping

Chapter Nine  Fantastic Cars I’ve Owned

Chapter Ten  Characters That I Have Known

Chapter Eleven  Bosses I’ve Had

Chapter 12  Stupid Things I’ve Done

TALES OF A TEENAGER

As I mentioned in my book Like Brothers my school years were not always happy years. We were a very poor family that lived on the edge of privation for more years than I care to remember. My father always had a steady job but it was never a job that paid well. There were a lot of extenuating circumstances in our lives that kept us from getting ahead, such as too many mouths to be fed. With the recent depression fresh on everyone’s mind, Dad was responsible for supporting not only his own six children but his mother and dad as well. Added to this, were his younger sisters’ two children who came to live with us after their father had been killed. He did this with a weekly salary of $12.00. Then, to complicate the matter even further was the fact that Dad was a drinker. These conditions caused my brothers and sisters and I to wear old hand-me-down clothes and live in houses that other people thought of as shacks. They were old shacks, normally with no electricity or water; thus, no indoor plumbing or bathing facilities. This is not conducive to impressing the other children at school. It is a good thing that no one is ever a total failure, (you can always serve as a bad example) or we would have set the benchmark.

The first school that I ever attended was at Long Lake, Minnesota. Like so many small towns across the land, it only had a few rooms, and only served the lower grades. By the time the students were old enough for Junior High, they were bussed to the next larger school at Wayzata, a town nearby. My first day at school was an adventure in itself. Dad had taken a job working for Rettinger Motors in Wayzata and thus had to drive through Long Lake to get to work. On the first day of school he offered to give me a ride so I wouldn’t have the trauma of riding the school bus. Everything went well until we arrived at the school. When he told me to get out of the truck and go into the school, I refused. He tried every thing to make me go to school but I was such a brat I cried and screamed and carried on until he finally gave up and took me back home. When we arrived Mother asked why he had brought me back, Dad told her and then left for work. Mother grabbed onto my ear and lifted me up onto tiptoes and we headed for town. We walked very rapidly the mile and a half back to the school. After she explained to the teacher why I was late, I was put into my desk and made to stay there. The other children had seen what had happened and several of the boys decided that they could have some fun with this brush monkey that was disturbing the school. As soon as it was recess time they began to harass me and were taunting me. I cried of course and that was just what they wanted. This is the way my schooling began and it continued for years.

With our financial situation, we moved a lot and lived in a lot of towns along the way. I didn’t know then that I would eventually attend thirteen schools before I would graduate in 1957 in Biwabik, Minnesota. I met a lot of people along the way, and it is about those people that this book is about. I will state here that being a teenager is a state of mind only. I became a teenager when I turned thirteen, but I still feel that I’m a teenager because I’ve never really grown up.

CHAPTER 1

FISHING WITH FRIENDS AND SCHOOL MATES

I just never seemed to learn that the more I cried when the other kids teased me, that the worse it would get. It may be teasing about my clothes, being a crybaby, or my inability to keep up with them in the games that we played, but the results were always the same. Eventually I’d retaliate and start to fight with one of them and get into trouble with the teachers. Normally I’d end up sitting in a chair or would not be allowed to participate in the class activities. This of course would only give the others more reason to continue the harassment. It was a vicious circle that had no beginning or end, and it continued until I was a junior in high school. After my junior year I went to work for the U.S. Forest Service on the Clearwater Forest in Pierce, Idaho. This was my first time away from home and it caused me to begin to grow up in ways that I never had before. I found then that the way to stop everyone from teasing me wasn’t to fight, but to turn the tables on them, and make fun of myself before they could. I wished that I had learned this lesson long ago. In September I returned to school for my senior year a changed person, and it made that year the first in school when I actually enjoyed myself and got along with most everyone.

The classmates in our senior year were a super group. We had been together (with just a few exceptions) since our freshmen year, and we all got along well and helped each other in our schoolwork. We jokingly called our system co-operation for graduation. We were the first big class to graduate from Biwabik in many years. Our class consisted of 21 boys and 7 girls. Loretta soon dropped out of school, as did David and it made the rest of us more determined that we would stick together until the end. One thing I will mention here is that to my knowledge, no boy in the class ever dated any of the girls in the class while we were seniors. That didn’t mean that we were not close, we all enjoyed each others company and did many school functions together.

Most of the boys in the class were somewhat athletic in one sport or another but I was not. My parents didn’t like sports so I had never been taught the rules of the games and didn’t have a great interest in them. Over the years this had aggravated one of the jocks and was often a point of contention between us. His name was Mike and he felt that as long as I was not athletic, I was below him. I liked Mike for his athletics but not as a friend. Mike saw himself as a leader but really he was a bully that was used to having his way. He was the youngest member of the class and I’m sure he thought that he was special. He had been riding me ever since our freshmen year and I finally had enough of him. As juniors we had a project in wood shop class to make coffee tables for our homes. We spent countless hours building and finishing our tables. One day Mike decided that he should cause some trouble, so when I went out to the lavatory, he took a chisel and scratched my table top and made several deep gouges. When I returned I asked who had caused the damage. He quickly replied that it was Ronny (the boy at the next table). I of course jumped Ronny about it and tried to scratch his table as well. It wasn’t until after school that day that I was told what had really happened. I’m still apologizing to Ronny for that. The next day I was in the paint room trying to varnish my table when Mike came and began to shoot off his mouth. I grabbed my table and went after him with it as a club. He tried to escape me but the room was congested and he couldn’t get away. After being hit in the head several times and finding that I was ready for more, he backed away and begged me not to hit him again. From then on Mike and I never were friends but he never harassed me again.

The members of our class have all gone on to their own lives now but I will say that we have done quite well as a group. We have doctors of medicine and doctors of theology, engineers, master draftsmen, Hall of Fame musicians, business executives, etc. and I feel that is pretty impressive when I know that we all came from the families of small town miners and workers.

Jon and Melvin were probably my two best friends throughout our school years, and I see them both yet today, but the classmate I spent the most time with was Joe. Joe is my cousin and we’ve been together ever since we were both babies in diapers. We’ve had a lifetime of good times together. I told about some of our adventures in Like Brothers but I’ll tell the rest as this book continues. First though, I want to tell about some of the adventures I had with my other classmates and acquaintances.

Melvin K. lived just down the road from my home and he and I became acquainted when he transferred from another school. At first everyone called him Finlander because of his Finnish ancestry, and he had transferred from a county school that was mostly populated with Finnish children. It didn’t take long though before everyone realized that Melvin was one of the brightest students in the class, and everyone wanted to be his friend. We spent a lot of time together playing sports at home with Mel trying to teach me some of the rules, and counseling me on how to get along with different classmates. I owe an awful lot to Mel and the things he has done for me. We did some fishing together with his dad but we also went alone. His father was very good to me and even offered to pay my way through college if I would study engineering with Mel. Regretfully I turned him down because I realized I did not have a good head for math, and I probably would have dropped out. Mel and I have stayed close friends and still go fishing yet today even though he lives in Iowa and only comes to Minnesota for the fishing trips. I would have loved to have attended college but I wanted to learn either forestry or to be a teacher, and Hugo was very adamant about studying engineering so Mel could help me.

Mel and I have done a lot of fishing together over the years and as I’ve said before we still do make fishing trips together yet today. I think we started fishing together when his dad would take Mel and me down to Whiteface Lake to fish for walleyes. They are my favorite fish for eating and I’ve spent thousands of hours on the water trying for a limit. Whiteface Lake is about fifteen miles from the house but is worth the time to get there. Melvin’s Mother would make up a lunch for us and Hugo and Mel would stop and pick me up on the way to the lake. Hugo seemed to be able to find some fish every time we went there, although I don’t remember catching very many limits. The best part of the day every time was Hugo’s sense of humor. No matter how poor the fishing may be or how bad the weather was, he always made the day fun for us all. After Mel had moved to Duluth to attend college, Hugo and I often hunted and fished and Hugo’s sense of humor never left him. He was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known and I cried as hard when he died as I ever did for my own father.

*****

Joe and I liked to fish the oxbows alongside the river, (we called them sloughs) for northern pike. And this was something that we did nearly every day. There was The Big Slough, Konu’s Slough, #4 Slough, Burke’s Slough and others where we fished. One day we asked Mel to go along with us to the one we called The Big Slough where the fish were just a little bigger as it was deeper than the rest, and also larger. The surrounding area was mostly filled with large elm trees or basswood. Over the years some of the trees had died and fallen into the slough. These fallen trees made good platforms to fish from and depending on their location provided hiding spots for the northern pike to ambush the baitfish from. However, like any fallen trees or logs there may be hidden conditions that could be hazardous. Some of these trees were beginning to rot and if you stepped on a rotten spot it may give way, causing a bad fall, or if they were wet they were very slippery, again causing a nasty fall. The third condition we had to be aware of was that these old logs were excellent places for the hornets and wasps to have their nests. On this particular day Joe and I headed for our favorite log to fish from, but Mel, being unfamiliar with the area, picked a tree that we seldom used because we could reach that area from our favorite logs. As Mel climbed onto the log he broke off one of the tree limbs that was in his way. As the limb broke, out poured a cloud of hornets that immediately began to attack. Mel of course began to run away from them as rapidly as he could but the hornets were faster and began to sting him all over his entire body. Joe and I saw what was happening but couldn’t do a thing about it except shout to run as fast as he could. I don’t know how far Mel ran that day before he got rid of the hornets, but I know we never climbed onto that log again. It was a good thing that Mel was not allergic to the stings or he would have been in serious trouble because it was nearly a mile to the nearest road.

One day Mel and I decided to go to another lake where we planned to catch some large Perch. The lake is about six or seven miles from our house, so again we took a packsack of supplies along so we could make a fire, and fry some of the fish we hoped to catch. We rode our bicycles to the lake and started to fish from an old homestead that was long abandoned. We had fished for several hours without catching many fish so decided to take a break and explore the old homestead. The house was tumbled down but several old sheds were still standing and this is where we started our search for goodies. After sorting through old magazines and papers and other junk we finally found a small square metal box. I opened the box to find that it was full of blasting caps. These I dropped into my pocket and kept on searching. We finally found several sticks of dynamite but they had gotten wet and had deteriorated into mush so we left them where they lay. (I had recognized what the caps and dynamite were because I had been helping my uncle Fred when he was blasting stumps and clearing land.) We finally gave up our search and decided it was time to head home. I just left the box of caps in my pocket and rode our bikes home where I gave the blasting caps to my uncle. I’ve never received another lecture as severe as the one that he gave me for carrying those caps home with me. He told me that I was lucky to be alive because those caps would have blown up with just the slightest jar of any kind. I guess that was just one of the times when my guardian angel was working overtime.

*****

I believe that a little story about Uncle Fred is in order here. Like I mentioned, Fred was still clearing land to make a field, and I would frequently help out by carrying some of the gear that he needed. There was a steel bar that he would pound into the ground beneath the stumps, then pull it out, thereby making a hole to put the dynamite into. We also had a shovel along to pile additional dirt on top of the hole to make a better seal. We always had an axe along in case we had to cut a root that was in the way, and so forth. In addition to all this, there was a box of dynamite, a pail that had the fuses, and the blasting caps and a box of matches to light the fuse.

We were in the field working one day when the county agriculture agent drove into the yard. He and Fred had been friends for years so he would stop by occasionally just to visit, and give Fred tips on how to run his farm. As he got out of his car, Fred waved his cap and hollered so he would know where we were. He joined us in the field and got the shock of his life, because Fred had sat down on the box of dynamite as he was preparing the next stick of dynamite for use. Mr. Aase went white with fright as he hollered, Fred what in hell are you doing? Fred asked what he was excited about. Mr Aase asked "Do you realize that you are sitting there smoking a cigarette while you’re handling that dynamite? Fred told him that what he was doing was perfectly safe as it was only 45% dynamite and that if you lit a stick with a match it would burn like a candle, In fact I’ll show you. Fred stood up and took another stick from the box and reached for a match. It was approximately 100 yards back to his car but I’ll guarantee that Mr. Aase covered that distance in about three jumps. He started out of the driveway with his tires spinning, and disappeared down the road. Fred never did light the stick, but he told me that was one sure way of getting rid of nosey people. I realized that it was an unsafe trick to play on someone but I also saw it as a good lesson that there are more than one way to skin a cat.

*****

Jon and I were best of friends throughout high school and even began our first real job together on the D. M. & I. R. Railroad. I of course, had worked the previous summer for the Forest Service but this was the first job we had to support ourselves. Jon and his brother Punky had been visited by their uncle Niilo, who was a foreman for the railroad. He told the boys that the railroad was ready to hire men to work on the track gang. The next morning the three of us went to Duluth to apply for work. They hired all three of us and we were put to work for Niilo at a section called Ridge. They also had hired several boys from Embarrass and we all learned the job together. We all had to work very hard but we had a good time because we were all young studs looking for a good time. One of the many things that we all did to make the job less tedious was to gamble on any and every thing. Every noon hour we would play penny ante poker and when the trains were passing by each one of us would pick a certain car to bet on. This car was then told to everyone before the train arrived. All rail cars have numbers painted on them so the company can keep track of them when they are used for hauling. If the cars happen to be used for another railroad this is very important because it may be years before the car is returned. These were the numbers that we used to make up each individuals poker hand. We were mostly on the honor system as to who had each hand but there were very few times that any ones hand was contested. The worst part of the job though was that Niilo was very opinionated. If you were not of Finnish extraction, you were not given the better jobs. The jobs were supposed to be given based on seniority but if there was a choice between two employees and only one was Finnish, he got the job. We worked there all summer and then got laid off in the fall. With nothing to do, and no work available, Jon and I did some fishing and hunting but mostly we just drank beer and looked for girls. Some we found, and some found us, but nothing ever came of the short time romances. We just had fun. In the spring we were called back to work for the railroad