{"id":1956,"date":"2021-07-15T11:50:03","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T16:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1956"},"modified":"2021-07-15T11:55:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T16:55:42","slug":"exercise-can-be-exhilerating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1956","title":{"rendered":"Exercise Can Be Exhilarating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As we get older, exercise becomes more difficult.\u00a0 I long for the days when I could ride my bicycle down the hill all the way to Homer\u2019s, have a couple beers, and throw<\/em> the bike in the back of someone\u2019s pickup and catch<\/em> a ride back up the hill.\u00a0 All of that \u2018throwing\u2019 and \u2018catching\u2019 must have consumed a lot of calories.<\/p>\n

Stephanie and I walk almost every day.\u00a0 Well, Stephanie does.\u00a0 I\u2019m sporadic.\u00a0 Last year, we walked between three and five miles daily.\u00a0 This year, Stephanie is still at it; I\u2019m a few miles behind \u2013 like a continent behind.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Vail, several of us kids had a variety of ways to exercise.\u00a0 When we were young, we played redneck, dangerous livestock farm hands against indigenous people.\u00a0 We used water guns and water balloons as hand grenades (yes, cowboys and Indians didn\u2019t have grenades, but our imaginations were creative).\u00a0 We examined every square inch of the countryside within a mile with treks along creeks and the river, fencerows, pastures, alfalfa fields, and through corn rows.<\/p>\n

In later years, during the day, you might find a few of us building tunnels and forts at Alley North\u2019s haybarn.\u00a0 Actually, you couldn\u2019t find us.\u00a0 That was the point.<\/p>\n

The hay barn contained thousand of bales of hay.\u00a0 These were not the huge round bales you see along fence rows in Iowa today.\u00a0 These bales were two-string bales about 16\u201d x 18\u201d and 4-ft long.\u00a0 Each weighed between 60 and 80 lbs., depending upon the contents (alfalfa, grass, mixtures, etc.).\u00a0 The barn was constructed with poles and galvanized siding on three sides.\u00a0 The southeast side of the barn was open.<\/p>\n

If Alley came by and saw one of us, he would jump out of his vehicle and head into the barn to catch us.\u00a0 We had so many tunnels, some connected, some not.\u00a0 It must have looked like a whack-a-mole game to anyone trying to catch us.\u00a0 Our system of tunnels was simple, and we built them so that the fattest of the gang could get through the tunnel with ease.\u00a0 Underground rooms were supported with board we found inside and outside the barn.\u00a0 We were careful not to add a lot of weight to the roof of the room.<\/p>\n

On the open side of the barn, we would have three to four bales strategically placed so that they would pop out when we got to the end of a tunnel.\u00a0 From several disguised lookouts, we could see where our pursuer(s) were located and plan our escape accordingly.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember that any kid ever got caught.<\/p>\n

I am sure that Alley thought we might be smoking.\u00a0 We were not that dumb.\u00a0 Yes, there were plenty of risks, but all of us pests are still alive to this day, or passed away from other ailments, naturally or unnaturally.\u00a0 No one was ever harmed in the hay barn.<\/p>\n

Alley would have things straightened out, and within a month, we were at it again.\u00a0 Like gophers, we came back to pop our heads up out of the kid-made bales to get the adrenaline going when Alley spotted us again.<\/p>\n

Alley North also owned the grain elevator<\/a> at that time.\u00a0 On an occasional Sunday, we would sneak into the basement from a window that was missing.\u00a0 We would ride the one to two-person caged elevator up to the top.\u00a0 One hundred twenty feet.\u00a0 What a view from the headhouse.\u00a0 I am not a person familiar with heights, so I didn\u2019t go out onto the roof, but I know a few did.<\/p>\n

If Alley came to the elevator, we had a little game we played with him.\u00a0 Next to the caged elevator was a ladder you could use from the first floor all the way to the top.\u00a0 It was dark in there.\u00a0 In most places in the shaft, you couldn\u2019t see the ladder from the passenger elevator.\u00a0 We could climb down the ladder to a spot in the darkness and go to the back side of the ladder to hang on and lean against the wall.\u00a0 The passenger elevator\u2019s controls were wired in such a way that if you kept your finger on the up button (or down button), anyone pushing a button at the top, the first floor, or the basement, could not override the direction of the elevator.<\/p>\n

Someone always made it to the first floor coming down the ladder.\u00a0 While Alley was in the headhouse looking to see where we were hiding, the first person to the first floor pushed the \u2018down\u2019 button and held it.\u00a0 Alley was stuck on top.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure he knew about this button flaw, but the elevator would stop when a kid yelled, he would hop in the cage and push the \u2018down\u2019 button.\u00a0 If Alley did happen to push the \u2018up\u2019 button, the kid in the cage would grasp a rung on the ladder and swing back behind it.\u00a0 Depending on how many of us kids dared to do this, the game could go on for most of the afternoon.<\/p>\n

No one was ever caught.\u00a0 No one was ever hurt.\u00a0 We were foolish, but we were invincible kids.\u00a0 We probably left the elevator and ran to the haybarn to hide and plan our next incredibly stupid caper.<\/p>\n

Next blog:\u00a0 How we exercised at night, featuring J.C. McCullough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we get older, exercise becomes more difficult.\u00a0 I long for the days when I could ride my bicycle down the hill all the way to Homer\u2019s, have a couple beers, and throw the bike in the back of someone\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,281],"tags":[876,801],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-youth","tag-allen-north","tag-vail-iowa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}