March Meant Mud

March is upon us. A transition month. A month filled with hope and anticipation as once more the seasons change and we look forward to winter retreating and spring blossoming forth in all its glory.

But when I was kid, March meant mud. Oozing, sticky, boot grabbing, mud. My brothers and I walked to our country school, which was a little less than a mile from our farm, along a dirt road that almost overnight turned from a smooth, snow packed surface to deep rutted mud. The morning walk was fine because the mud froze over night. But the return trip in the afternoon was memorable, if one could call sloshing through mud memorable. It was the fault of the milk truck, mostly. With a heavy load of milk cans, the milk hauler scarcely made it through on these warming days of March, creating new and deeper ruts each day it seemed.

Every spring at least someone lost a boot to the sucking mud as we made our way home from school. Of course one of us would retrieve it from the muck, chuckling at the misfortune of our brother who stood on one leg, waiting for his boot. The one who retrieved the boot didn’t hurry either. On those muddy days, there was little to smile about. A brother losing a boot was as funny as it got.

The Old Timer Says: Watch out for them fellas that use a lot of big words. Like as not if they knew what the words meant, they would not use them.

Upcoming Events:

March 2, Neenah Public Library, 2:00 p.m. Barns of Wisconsin.

March 5, Bridgewood Resort Hotel, Neenah. International Right of Way Association annual meeting. Old Farm: A History

March 7, Governor Dodge Convention Center. Platteville. 3:00 PM. Doing a Genealogy of Your Land.

March 17, Watertown Public Library, 6:30 p.m. Lighter Side of Country Living

March 19, Fond du Lac Public Library, 6:00 p.m.