A Summer in Iowa

Part 3 — The Bridges of Parke County

Sunday, January 2, 1972

Even though I’d gone to bed early, the sound of the phone ringing so early on a Sunday morning was jarring. Okay, 9:00 wasn’t all that early, but it was a Sunday on a holiday weekend… and I was still recovering from my first experience with alcohol. There was no phone in my bedroom, so it was Mom that answered the phone. I’d been lobbying to add an extension in my bedroom ever since I turned twelve, but Mom thought I was too young. She promised me I could get one when I turned sixteen, but that wasn’t until April and I’d hafta pay for it out of my allowance.

Mom knocked on the door and said, “That was Hook’s calling. They called to let us know the photos are ready for pickup.” As the fog slowly cleared from my brain, I remembered dropping off the roll of film from my dad’s old camera — film that had been sitting in it for more than three years, since before he died.

“Thanks, Mom,” I called out. “I’ll pick them up as soon as I get dressed.”

“They’ll still be there this afternoon if you want to sleep a little later,” she pointed out.

“There’s a chance of snow later,” I replied.

“You’re welcome to pick them up now, but I’m going back to bed,” she responded.

“Do you want me to wake you when I get back with the photos?” I asked.

“Only if it’s after ten,” she answered.

“I won’t be back before that anyway,” I replied.

Throwing off the covers, I grabbed my robe from the closet and made my bed the way Mom insisted, then headed to the bathroom, where I showered. I didn’t need to shave every day yet and although I’d last shaved on Friday afternoon, I decided it could wait another day.

After a quick breakfast of cereal, tea and toast, I got dressed and donned my winter coat. I rode my bike over to the Greenbriar Shopping Center and locked it up outside of Hook Drug. It was another dreary, overcast day with a temperature in the mid-thirties, but at least it wasn’t raining or snowing. I picked up the developed prints and negatives but decided to wait to look at them, so Mom and I could look at them together.

When I got home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of instant coffee and eating a slice of toast while she read the Sunday Star. After she finished, we sat next to each other on the family room sofa and I took the photos out of the envelope.

The colors were a bit muted, which I guess was to be expected after so much time. One by one, we looked at the photos. Immediately, I recognized where and when they’d been taken. It was on a partly sunny day in October at the height of the fall color. They took me back to an earlier time, as if it was yesterday…

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Sunday, October 13, 1968

“Jeff, It’s time to get up!” Mom gently called through my open bedroom door. I turned my head and saw her face peering back at me. She’d opened the door just enough to stick her head inside. “Remember, we’re going to spend the day at Turkey Run?”

“Could you please close the door?” I asked.

“Not until I see you get up,” she replied. “Otherwise, you’ll just go back to sleep.”

Now I had a dilemma. I’d been sleeping in the nude since the start of the school year, but Mom didn’t know and I didn’t particularly care to tell her. “Can’t I have some privacy?” I asked.

“Why in the world do you need privacy to get out of bed?” she asked. “After all, you’re wearing pajamas.”

“Actually, I’m not,” I admitted sheepishly.

“You slept in your underwear?” she asked.

“I’m not wearing anything,” I finally explained.

Turning a brilliant red, she asked, “Since when don’t you wear your pajamas? I just bought you a new pair.”

“Mom, none of the boys my age wear pajamas,” I tried to explain. “We just don’t. Pajamas are for little kids. Dad doesn’t wear pajamas.”

“He wears his underwear to bed,” Mom countered.

“All I know is what I hear at school, and most of the boys in my gym class say they sleep in the nude. It’s like no one wears undershirts anymore.”

“You don’t wear an undershirt?” she asked.

“No one does. I’d look like a dork if I wore an undershirt. And everyone would know, ’cause we hafta undress in gym class.”

Shaking her head, she responded, “Well at least sit up, so I know you won’t fall back to sleep.”

Obligingly, I sat up in bed, allowing the covers to fall to my waist. Seeing the time on the clock radio next to my bed, I groaned. Gees, it was only 6:00.

“Hurry up, Jeffy. Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“Mom,” I replied, “like I’ve told you before, it’s Jeff! Jeffy’s a little kid’s name. I’m twelve years old now.”

Rolling her eyes, she closed the door and left. Realizing there wasn’t much point in putting on my pajamas, just to walk to the bathroom, I grabbed my robe from my closet and headed to the bathroom, where I pissed, took a quick shower, sprayed on my deodorant and brushed my teeth.

Back in my room, I dressed in my tighty-whities, running shorts, my favorite tie-died t-shirt, black socks and my red Converse sneakers. I figured that would be appropriate for the day. It was still a bit nippy out, but it was supposed to be a very warm day for October. Indian Summer for sure.

Yesterday had been gorgeous with a high in the low seventies. I would’ve loved to have gone hiking then, but I had a crapload of homework, and Dad said I needed to ‘hunker down’ and get it done, so we could go hiking today. I got way more homework in junior high than I did in grade school, and the classes were way more challenging too.

Sitting down at the table, Mom had a bowl of cereal, a couple slices of toast and a glass of milk waiting for me. Dad had cereal, toast and a cup of coffee as he read the Sports Section of the Sunday Star. Mom joined us with her own cereal, toast and coffee. I grabbed the comics as I started to eat.

“So I take it we’re going to Turkey Run?” I asked.

“And maybe The Shades, if there’s time,” Dad answered.

Turkey Run and The Shades were two state parks located to the west of Indianapolis, near the border with Illinois. They were close to Crawfordsville, which was right off of Interstate 74, the only interstate highway that was fully completed and open. Dad loved driving on the interstate.

“I thought you said we might go to Brown County and eat at the Nashville House,” I complained. No one made better fried chicken, and their fried biscuits and Southern-style coleslaw were incredible.

“It’s going to be in the upper seventies today,” Dad explained. “Everyone’s going to be on the road and we’d end up spending half the day in traffic, just to get there and back. Then we’d have to wait for hours for a table at the Nashville House.

“Traffic inside the park would be brutal and by the time we got anywhere near a trailhead, it’d be time to leave and head home. Not that Turkey Run won’t be crowded too, but there are a lot more hiking trails, and with all the gullies, it won’t be nearly as hot. Brown County State Park might be known for its fall colors, but I think Turkey Run’s just as colorful.”

“What about food?” I asked. “There aren’t nearly as many places to eat as there are around Brown County.”

“We’ll stop at Shapiro’s on the way and pick up some food for a picnic lunch and dinner,” Mom explained.

Saying Shapiro’s was on the way was a bit like saying Boston’s on the way to New York. You can go that way, but it takes a lot longer. However, Shapiro’s does have great food that’s worth going out of the way for. They’re reported to be the best, most authentic New York-style Jewish delicatessen in the Midwest.

After cleaning up from breakfast, we stocked the ice chest with several packs of blue ice and a six-pack of Like, which was the diet version of Seven-Up. We added some picnic supplies, filled our canteens and loaded everything into the trunk of Dad’s brand new ’69 Ford LTD. Dad packed his camera and I brought along the Instamatic, and we both brought a few rolls of film.

The trip into the city seemed to take forever, as none of the interstate highways were done and the city streets had a million traffic lights. Even as early as we were, the parking lot at Shapiro’s was packed and we had to wait for a parking space. In the meantime, Mom went inside to pick a number and wait in line to be served.

Finally, we found a parking space and Dad and I went inside to join Mom and help carry everything out to the car. I couldn’t believe how much food my parents bought, just to feed the three of us. I was a growing boy though — nearly a teenager. In addition to rye bread, we bought a pound of corned beef, a pound of smoked turkey, potato salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw, baked beans, Key lime pie and New York-style cheesecake. Our ice chest was large, but there was barely enough room for it all.

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Even though we got an early start, with the stop at Shapiro’s, we didn’t get to the park until nearly 10:00. Already, it was crowded and the inn and swimming pool parking lots were pretty full. Of course the pool was closed for the season, which meant that most of the park visitors, like us, had come to see the autumn leaves.

Hoping to find a picnic table away from the crowds, we took the long road that branched off just past the park office, to the Canyon Picnic Area. Because it was out of the way, not many people bothered with it. Although the parking lot was nearly full, it was early for lunch and we had no trouble finding an out-of-the-way picnic table. We made quick work of setting up our picnic lunch and enjoyed corned beef and smoked turkey sandwiches on rye bread, with potato and macaroni salad as well as coleslaw.

Turkey Run was known for its extensive network of hiking trails, many of which were very rugged and challenging. The park straddled Sugar Creek and included the Rocky Hollow Nature Preserve, with its extensive limestone grottos. The stretch of Sugar Creek that ran from Turkey Run to the nearby Shades State Park was popular with kayakers and canoeists. Reservations for canoe rentals were booked more than a year in advance for the fall season, as was the Turkey Run Inn.

As we ate, Dad laid out an ambitious plan that included several of the most picturesque — and rigorous — trails in the Rocky Hollow Nature Preserve. We’d start out taking Trail 3 through Rocky Hollow and the Punch Bowl and veer off onto Trail 10 to the viewing point for the Camel’s Back. We’d continue on Trail 10 until it rejoined Trail 3, which we’d take to the ladders that would take us into Bear Hollow. We’d then take Trail 9, which was the most strenuous in the park, to Boulder and Falls Canyons. Finally, we’d return via parts of Trail 5 and Trail 3, which followed Sugar Creek and took us through the Ice Box.

It amounted to four or five miles of strenuous hiking that would take us to parts of the park we’d seen many times before. We’d need the better part of the rest of the day to finish it, without any access to facilities if we needed them. Now that I was twelve, I was beginning to voice my own opinions about things and I thought I had a better idea for the day. So I spoke up and challenged Dad. “Some of the best views of the fall leaves are right along Sugar Creek. Maybe it’s time we try something different.”

“What do you have in mind, Jeff,” Mom asked.

Opening up the park map, I suggested, “We’re already right by Trail 2 and it’s a short walk to Box Canyon, which we’ve never seen before. From there, we can take Trail 2 through Gypsy Gulch to where it meets Trail 1, which we can take along Sugar Creek to the Narrows Covered Bridge. I bet we’d get some great photos of the canoes passing under the bridge.

“From there, we could walk back along the other side of Sugar Creek to the coal mine. I didn’t know there was a coal mine,” I said as I pointed to the map, “or maybe we could go the other direction on Trail 4, deep into the nature preserve. We’d take it all the way to Trail 3 and then we could pick up with what you’d planned, Dad, except we might not have time to do both Trails 9 and 10, so we’d hafta choose.”

Mom and dad looked at each other and seemed to communicate by telepathy, and then Mom said, “Okay, we’ll try that, and maybe we’ll skip doing Trail 9. I’m getting too old to climb over boulders anyway.”

“You’re not old, Mom,” I countered, although truthfully, she was. She was already 34 and had another birthday coming in December, and Dad was already 40!

“I appreciate the sentiment,” she replied.

There was another reason I wanted to take a different route on our hike. I had an ulterior motive. It was already about seventy degrees and it was supposed to reach the upper seventies by the early afternoon. This was probably the last opportunity I’d have until next April to go hiking without a shirt.

For reasons I didn’t really understand, I loved going shirtless outdoors. I loved going shirtless indoors too, but I could only do that at home; except that Dad kept the thermostat set too low to go shirtless. The hike Dad had planned would’ve taken us right into the grottoes, where the air would be cold and damp. With my route, on the other hand, by the time we got to the grottoes, the air would have had time to warm up a bit, so I could leave my shirt behind.

After cleaning up and putting everything away, making sure the blue ice in the ice chest was still frozen, Dad got out his old Kodak Duaflex and I got out the Instamatic camera. We each pocketed an extra roll of film, just in case. We grabbed our canteens and at the last moment, before locking up the car, I pulled off my shirt and threw it into the trunk. Mom gave me a funny look and insisted I slather on some suntan lotion before we locked up.

I seriously doubted there’d be much exposure to sun in the forest and in canyons and gullies along the trails, but my summer tan had mostly faded. So rather than argue, I took the bottle of Coppertone from Mom and slathered the white cream all over my face, neck, torso, arms and legs. She insisted on applying it herself to my back and even applied it behind my ears. Gees!

We stopped off at the restrooms, which were nothing more than a glorified outhouse with toilet seats over a hole in the ground. There were flies buzzing around and the smell was awful. At least there was running water, so we could wash our hands after doing our business.

The hike along Sugar Creek was sensational, with one beautiful vista after the next. I took out my camera and shot several photos along the way. Dad was a bit more discerning as he only took two shots of the fall foliage along the creek. However, what started out as a partly cloudy day with lots of sunshine soon gave way to overcast skies as clouds rolled in. We weren’t expecting rain that I knew of, but without sunshine, the fall leaves didn’t appear as vibrant. It wasn’t even worth taking pictures.

In spite of the clouds, the temperature continued to climb and the humidity became oppressive. I was glad I wasn’t wearing a shirt, even without the sun. Soon we came to the Narrows Covered Bridge, which certainly was picturesque as it crossed high above Sugar Creek. Dad and I both took photos of the canoes passing underneath, but without the sun, it was doubtful they’d look like much. We wouldn’t know for sure until we had the film developed.

We were surprised to see so many people, congregating on and around the bridge. It was kind of weird, walking across the bridge on foot. With so many people inside, the sound of echoing voices was amplified. Most people spoke in a whisper, however, as everyone could hear what everyone else was saying.

There were cars parked all along the adjacent roadway and on the concrete bridge, built long ago to replace the covered wooden one. There was even a school bus parked nearby. Going up to a man who appeared to be the bus driver, Mom asked what was going on.

“It’s the twelfth annual Rockville Covered Bridge Festival,” he explained. “There are 31 covered bridges in Parke County — more than in any other county in America. People go to Vermont to see covered bridges, but we have the largest concentration of covered bridges in the world right here.

“Ever since 1957, when some women decided to get together to serve food to the townsfolk and to sell their crafts, there’s been an annual festival. It’s getting to be a big deal now, with folks coming from all over.”

Then running back up into the bus, he emerged a moment later with a folded brochure, which he opened up to show a map. “The three colored routes represent the three different bus tours available, but you can still drive it yourself. All the bridges are labeled on the map and there are signs on the roads along the way to keep you from getting lost. The Bridgeton bridge shouldn’t be missed.

“Rockville’s the center of it all, with dozens of folks selling their art and craftwork. And there’s enough food to satisfy even a growing boy,” he added as he looked at me.

Mom thanked the driver as she took the brochure from him. “Well, what do you think?” she asked as we walked away.

“At least we’d have the car if it started to rain,” Dad responded.

“Yeah, but there won’t be much chance to hike until next year,” I pointed out.

“How long does the festival run?” Dad asked.

“Through next weekend,” Mom answered, “but we’re already here. Why make a separate trip?”

“Hmm…” Dad thought to himself, “Maybe we can compromise. We could take the short arm of Trail 4, back along the other side of Sugar Creek, then the Trail 3 loop through Rocky Hollow, the Punchbowl and Bear Hollow. We’d return along Sugar Creek, through the Ice Box and cross back over on the suspension bridge.”

“So we’d skip the long arm of Trail 4 and all of Trails 9 and 10?” I asked.

“And that should leave us enough time to see some of the covered bridges and check out the crafts for sale in Rockville,” Dad confirmed.

“What about all the food in the ice chest?” Mom asked.

“If necessary, we’ll buy a bag of ice in town. The food will keep and we can have it for dinner tomorrow or sometime later this week.”

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It turned out the coal mine was nothing more than a hole that was barely large enough for someone my size to crawl through. There was a metal grate over the opening that was locked, so there was no way to go inside to explore it. Not that I wanted to — it was pitch black inside. It was hard to imagine anyone getting much coal out of such a small hole.

Trail 3 was very cool, both figuratively and literally as my mom liked to say. It’s always been my favorite part of the park. In the grottoes, there’s almost always water dripping down the canyon walls and flowing alongside the trail. At times, there isn’t even enough room to get around the water and you hafta walk right through it. When I was little, I used to love to splash through the water in my sneakers, getting them all muddy and my socks thoroughly soaked. In a way, I still like to do that. The cooler temperature in the grottoes made for welcome relief from the oppressive heat and humidity.

It’s funny, but I could remember the first time we came to hike at Turkey Run, when I was maybe only five or six. When my parents saw ‘The Ladders’ labeled on the park map, they thought it was some kind of rock formation. When we got there, however, they were shocked to find there were two real ladders that had to be climbed to continue on the trail. The ladders were made of heavy wood beams, with rungs that were set too far apart for a young boy. It was a good thing we’d taken the trail in the clockwise direction, ’cause I probably would’ve freaked at having to climb down the ladders. As it was, Dad had to keep pushing me up, so I could reach the next rung.

Once I was at the top of the first ladder, Dad had to go back down and yell at a couple of teenage boys to get them to go ahead of us. I didn’t understand it at the time, but Mom was wearing a skirt and Dad didn’t want the boys looking up it. That was the last time Mom wore a skirt on a hike!

Now that I was twelve, I was almost as tall as Mom and had no trouble at all going up or down the ladders. The trail was crowded and there were lots of families with kids as well as teenage and college-age kids in groups and as couples. A lot of the boys were shirtless like me and I found I really liked looking at them — particularly the teenage boys. Seeing all that skin gave me a tingly feeling inside. I didn’t understand it, but I sure enjoyed it.

The Ice Box was a small grotto right alongside Sugar Creek. The walls were steep and the top was very narrow, such that the sun never shown inside the grotto; hence the air temperature inside the Ice Box was never more than fifty degrees or so. Without a shirt, I actually shivered when we walked through there.

Finally, we reached the end of the trail and with it, came to the suspension bridge that crossed Sugar Creek. It was a rickety wooden bridge that undulated as people walked on it. With so many people in the park, it was so packed that I wondered how such a flimsy bridge could hold them all. I had visions of the thing collapsing and all of us plunging to our deaths. Still, we’d taken the bridge dozens of times over the years, and tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people had crossed it without anything happening.

We took advantage of the modern facilities in the Nature Center before taking Trail 2 back to the Canyon Picnic Area parking lot. When we got back to the car. Dad checked the ice chest and reported that the contents were still ice cold, so there was no need to pick up any ice — not yet anyway. At least with the overcast sky, the car was no hotter inside than out. Because we were gonna be getting in and out of the car a lot as we stopped to see the covered bridges, Dad decided we’d forgo air conditioning and keep the windows open. I decided to leave my shirt in the trunk for the time being.

Two of the bridges were just outside of the park, so we headed there first, and then we circled around Parke County, stopping to see and photograph bridges in and around the towns of Tangier, Montezuma and Mecca. By the time we reached Rosedale, it was no longer overcast and the sun had come out. The bridge and mill at Bridgeton were outstanding. Dad and I both took several photos there showing the long wooden bridge over a waterfall, with people hanging out the windows.

We crossed over the bridge and when we reached the other side, Dad asked a man to take a picture of the three of us in front of the bridge entrance. The man had some trouble trying to figure out how to use the Duaflex camera, with its upward facing viewfinder. It was his teenage son who ended up taking the picture. He winked at me when he caught me staring at his bare chest and I wondered what that was about.

From Bridgeton, we headed up to Rockville, stopping at a couple of covered bridges along the way. We ended up parking in a field outside of town that was designated for festival parking. A bus took us into the town center, which was blocked off from automobile traffic. As we boarded the bus, I realized I was still shirtless and thought maybe I should go back to the car and get my shirt. However, Mom and Dad didn’t say anything, so neither did I.

This was the first time we’d ever been to Rockville. I wasn’t sure what my parents were expecting, but I expected to see a typical rural town with a grocery store, a hardware store, a drugstore, a post office, a bank or two, a library and maybe a general store selling stuff for farming. What we found instead was a series of shops and boutiques selling various arts and crafts. It seemed Rockville was a tourist haven, with artisans offering one-of-a-kind items of furniture, clothing and household goods.

It felt kinda funny and yet exciting, going into the shops without a shirt, but I wasn’t about to wait outside while my parents did their shopping. No one said anything in any case. There was a store selling homemade fudge in varieties I’d never heard of before, like maple walnut, pumpkin spice and rocky road. We ended up buying one of each of those.

There was a store selling handmade leather goods. I looked at a cool leather jacket and even tried it on. The leather felt good against my bare skin, but it cost more than a hundred dollars, which was way too much for something I’d outgrow in less than a year. I ended up getting a cool leather belt with a setting sun embossed on the back. It was big enough that I wouldn’t outgrow it for a while.

There were several restaurants offering varieties of homestyle southern cooking, whatever that was. They all had set up outdoor seating in the street and they were jammed. Everything smelled wonderful, but when we asked, they told us the expected wait time was over ninety minutes. Yikes! We could’ve had an indoor table right away, but I’d have had to go back to the car to get my shirt. Besides, there were plenty of options with no waiting at all.

We spent most of our time outside in the town square, where dozens of stalls were set up for people to sell their arts and crafts. There was a stall selling baked goods, like home-baked banana bread and pumpkin bread as well as cookies of all sorts. Next to it was a stall where they sold homemade apple butter, pumpkin butter and honey butter. Mom bought a jar of each as well as some of the baked goods.

There was a stall with homemade quilts, where Mom and Dad bought a new quilt for their bed. There were several stalls with scenes painted on household objects, like butter churns, cutting boards and the like. We bought a large circular saw blade that was painted with a fall scene, with brilliantly colored trees and featuring what else? A covered bridge. I wasn’t sure where my parents intended to hang it, though.

There was a whole section of stalls selling food, and there was an assembly hall set up with rows of tables where people could eat the food they bought. There were ribeye steaks and chicken breasts, grilled over charcoal. There was Chinese food, Mexican food and Greek food, as well as plain old American hamburgers and hotdogs. There were all kinds of desserts made with pumpkins, including pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin ice cream. I’d never heard of pumpkin ice cream before and someone said it was invented at the festival, but I doubted they were the first to think of it.

I ended up getting something called gyros, which I’d never had before. They were a Greek specialty, made with seasoned roasted meat, lettuce, onion, tomatoes and tzatziki, all wrapped up in some kind of flat bread. The meat was roasted on a turning vertical spit, and there was a choice of chicken or a mix of beef and lamb. I asked the guy serving it what tzatziki was and he explained it was a mix of yogurt and cucumbers. I don’t like yogurt, but he insisted I’d like it and he was right. It helped to tone down the spices a bit. I got myself two gyros — one with chicken and one with beef and lamb. They were both delicious.

Mom and Dad both got ribeye steaks with baked potatoes, and we all ate corn on the cob. Again, it felt strange to sit indoors in the assembly hall without a shirt, but for reasons I didn’t understand, it was exciting at the same time. There were other shirtless boys and my eyes kept being drawn to them, particularly the younger teens. We finished off the meal with pumpkin ice cream. It was easily one of the best things I’d ever tasted.

After taking a final look at all the stuff for sale, we boarded one of the buses to the parking area and found our car. Dad checked to make sure the ice chest was still cold enough, and we stashed our purchases in the trunk. It was cooling down outside and on top of that, Dad said he couldn’t wait to turn on the air conditioning, so I grabbed my shirt and pulled it back on.

The drive home was in bumper-to-bumper traffic, so we didn’t get home until well after dark. I was sure glad I’d finished my homework! What a wonderful day it had been. It was a day I’d never forget.

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Sunday, January 2, 1972

Mom and I looked at the pictures that had sat in Dad’s camera for the past three years. There were only ten of them, but they took me back to that day when we went hiking in Turkey Run and discovered the Rockville Covered Bridge Festival. One picture in particular brought me to tears — it was taken by a teen who happened by, and it was of the three of us, sitting on a stone bench in front of the Bridgeton covered bridge.

I remembered that at the time I thought the teenage boy looked so mature, but in reality, he probably wasn’t any older than I was now. I’d stared at his bare chest and he’d winked back at me. I didn’t know what to think of it at the time. In retrospect, I didn’t think he was queer or anything, any more than I was. We just liked being shirtless. Being shirtless felt sexy. So’d going barefoot, which I did all the time around the house.

“We don’t have many photos of the three of us together,” Mom pointed out. “Either you or Dad was always the one taking the picture.”

“That’s undoubtedly the last one of the three of us,” I said. “Little did we know that in just over two months, Dad would be dead.”

“We should have it enlarged and maybe hang it over the TV,” Mom suggested.

“Where would we put the saw blade painting of the covered bridge?” I asked. “We bought it at the festival, just after the photo was taken.”

“There’s a blank spot on the short wall next to the entry from the garage,” she proposed. “That spot could use a little color.”

Nodding my head, I responded, “Yeah, it’d look good there, and the wall over the TV would be a great place for this picture. The large format of the negative and the small f-stop should make for a crisp enlargement.”

“I’ll have to trust your judgment on that,” Mom said. “I don’t know the first thing about photography.” Then after a brief pause, she continued, “It’s too bad you weren’t wearing a shirt.”

“You forget that the shirt I wore that day was tie-dyed in orange, light blue, purple and vivid green.”

“You’re right, that would’ve been worse,” Mom admitted with a laugh. “At least tie-dyes aren’t as much in style as they were back then. That’s one style I wouldn’t miss.”

“At least I looked good without a shirt,” I added.

“Yes, you did. You still do, but you look better in a suit and tie.”

“At the Rockville Covered Bridge Festival? I don’t think so,” I replied.

“You’re a very handsome young man.”

“Girls don’t seem to think so,” I responded.

“Are you kidding? When we’re out together, they flirt with you all the time. Girls go out of their way to flirt with you. You just don’t flirt back. You’re almost oblivious when it comes to the opposite sex.”

“I wouldn’t know how to flirt, Mom.”

“You’re just shy, Jeff. It’s hard when you’re a teenager. A lot of boys don’t start dating until they’re in college. That’s probably where you’ll find the girl of your dreams.”

The trouble was, I didn’t dream of girls at all, but I couldn’t tell Mom that. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t dream about girls. Most of my friends talked about girls all the time. I wasn’t queer or anything like that. Homosexuality was a mental illness, and I sure as hell wasn’t sick or perverted. I had to have faith that eventually, I’d find the right girl and get married.

“We should go to the festival this year, weather permitting,” Mom began, interrupting my thoughts. “It would be fun to go — just the two of us. In two years, you’ll be away at college, so this year and next year will be the last times we could go.”

Mom knew about my plans for early graduation, but had apparently forgotten about it and I decided not to remind her. “Yeah, we should plan on it,” I agreed.

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Author’s Note

The Rockville Covered Bridge Festival has grown considerably since the timeframe of this story. Now called the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival, it’s frequented by more than two million visitors each year. In addition to the activities in Rockville, there are booths selling crafts, food and drink in Billie Creek Village, Bloomingdale, Bridgeton, Mansfield, Mecca, Montezuma, Rosedale and Tangier. Held during the ten days starting with the second Friday in October, it’s well worth the trip.

The photo of the original Bridgeton bridge was taken in 1985. Sadly, the bridge was destroyed by arson in 2005 and rebuilt in 2006, as shown here.