I met Brad six years ago when my family moved to a house in the country near a small farming community. He rode up one day on a Honda ATV. I had never lived in the country and I had never ridden an ATV and here was a perfect stranger showing up and offering me a chance to ride his. A few quick instructions and away I went. It was a great icebreaker and the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
Before long we were rippin' and runnin' all around the country. Fishing, hunting, trapping, lying about all the things we'd done with girls and bragging about what we wanted to do with them next. I worked for Brad's dad, Earl, in the spring, summer and fall, as did most of the country boys we knew.
There was always something to do. Moving pipe in the green bean fields, spraying strawberries, planting corn, threshing wheat, hauling hay, working cattle and a thousand other tasks. Brad and I worked together all the time.
When we were finally split up, it was to run separate crews. Brad got the irrigation moved, I got the fences fixed, gates built and cattle fed and watered. Life was simple; work hard, play harder.
When we goofed off, we'd do the normal stuff that older boys becoming young men would do. Dirt clod fights, water wars, wrestling matches, all the stuff that turned boys into men. There was a hierarchy on the farm that wasn't dictated by age or blood. It had more to do with ability and experience. Though we had several young men older than us working with us, Brad and I were the undisputed leaders.
This was in part because Earl owned the entire operation, and in part because I was Brad's best friend, but mostly because neither one of us had ever failed to get a crop in or a herd moved. The harder the task the better. We were young and bulletproof. Because we spent a good bit of our down time at the country store in Garden, Oregon, we became The Garden Boys.
From time to time one of the new guys, college students and such, thought they'd grown enough summer muscle to challenge either my authority or Brad's. We couldn't just fight a crewman, that wouldn't be fair. On the outside chance that the challenger could beat one of us, he'd have to take on the other too. No, it wasn't fair, but Brad and I never really concerned ourselves with fair.
Instead we'd arrange for a contest of some sort that we'd put the crews through to come up with a worthy challenger to take on either Brad or me. If the challenger came from my crew, Brad would finish him off. If it came from his crew, it would be my turn to put him in his place. That way the loser could continue to work for his crew boss without any hard feelings and we wouldn't be short a guy at crunch time.
The guys that had been around us for more than one summer would find a way to lose in the earlier rounds and let the new guys have a chance to take us on. The older guys knew from experience that as much fun as we liked to have, neither Brad nor I would ever quit challenge. We might seem like we were easy going, but he and I had our own contest going. If either of the Garden Boys were to ever lose, we both knew that the other would spend the rest of our lives rubbing it in. That was a big incentive to keep our undefeated records going.
By the time I was 19 and Brad was 18, we had a long standing and hard-earned reputation for our skills in a scrap and our talents for trouble, but I was more proud of our ability to solve any problem. Brad could build anything you could think of, and I could think up a special contraption or machine to solve any problem. It wasn't uncommon for neighbors to wave us down and ask for advice on getting something done or solved. That was pretty cool for a couple of teenagers.
But the best part was that we were closer than brothers. We were and remain best friends. We even moved in together. Earl had offered the use of a mobile home on his property by the country store. We jumped at the chance. We got to come and go like we were adults and we were still close enough to home to always have a hot meal and clean clothes. For all of our apparent maturity, we were basically beginners when it came to matters of the heart.
One night I happened to notice something I had never seen before. It was a warm summer evening, the crickets and tree frogs just beginning to sing for night to come. I was sitting on our deck outside the trailer and happened to notice one of the neighbors working in the yard.
Delinda Zeller was 18, a year younger than me, and until that moment she was just a pain-in-the-neck tomboy I had grown used to ignoring. That perfect summer evening she became something else in my eyes.
Long, lean legs, narrow waist, perky breasts, and curly brown hair down the middle of her back; tied behind her ears with a baby blue ribbon. She was wearing a brown summer dress with tiny spots that I later I found out were little blue flowers the same color as her ribbon. Gone was the tomboy. Delinda had become a woman.
So there I was drinking iced tea and finally having a sexual epiphany. I nudged Brad and jerked my head in Delinda's direction. "Waddaya think?"
"Lisa's better." He was talking about Delinda's older sister by ten months.
I will agree that Lisa Zeller was pretty, no doubt about it. But she wore a lot of makeup and acted like she knew she was pretty, both turn-offs for me. I liked them pretty without makeup and I prefer that they not be stuck up. Yes indeed, Delinda was more my style.
"I think it's a good night for a camp out," I declared, knowing by just declaring it, Brad would agree.
"Tonight? You think so? We have a long day tomorrow," he was just stalling while he did a mental list of everything we would need.
"I think the Zeller's should come with us. Maybe do a little catfishing, maybe look for some falling stars, maybe taste your mom's blackberry wine......" I left off right there.
Up until then Brad and I always went camping alone, if for no other reason than we had always preferred our own company than dealing with the camp habits of others. That and we liked to try to stink the other guy out with our flatulence, a habit we were perfectly certain wouldn't be funny to anyone else.
"Maybe you're right." He paused as if thinking about it. "I'll meet you down at the lake."
Brad jumped to his feet, climbed into his Ford 4 x 4 and took off for his folks' house. That left me to do the inviting. Not a problem. I chose the direct approach.
"Delinda!" I called out. She turned, almost done taking down the sun-dried sheets. "Wanna go on a camp out?"
She reached up and pushed a stray strand of curly brown hair that the breeze had pushed across her face. She looked at me strangely for a moment, as if trying to divine my intentions. She didn't seem at all confident but she answered.
"I guess so. Let me get the laundry in the house," she hollered back.
"See if Lisa wants to come too. Brad will meet us by the lake," I shouted. That seemed to reassure her, safety in numbers. Maybe she had thought I was asking her to come with just me. Too late now, I blew that chance.
"OK. When?" she asked.
"Twenty minutes. I'll get my stuff."
She just nodded and carried the basket of laundry into the house. I gathered up my fishing tackle, a couple of sleeping bags, a bag of food and some pans. I tossed it all into the back of my truck and drove the fifty yards to the Zellers.
