My younger brother Anson is not only my younger brother but the youngest of all the Heagle brothers. Bob, the oldest, is three years older than John. John, second son, is three years older than I am. Anson doesn't fit that three year pattern -- he is five years my junior.
Consequently during our grade school years, Anson really "looked up" to me with some kind of misplaced hero worship. Whatever I did, Anson wanted to do. Wherever I went, Anson wanted to go also. This was alright with me until I reached high school, then I considered him a pest. That led to some pretty nasty fights between the two of us, but I think that is to be expected.
"Where are you going?" he asks me as I head toward the road that runs past our farm that we call "Deer Trail Farm".
"To get the mail, and no, I don't want you following me down to the mailbox!"
The mailbox is down the hill and across Highway 25, about a half mile's walk one way. It is the same spot that the Heagle boys gather to catch the school bus and on really cold and blustery Wisconsin January days, it is a trial just making it down in time to catch our ride.
It's all in the timing. Don't want to get down there too early and have to face the wind and cold until you feel like your face is going to fall off, and of course, you don't want to miss the bus, have to trudge back up to the house and break that news to Pa because that's a lot worse than freezing along the highway.
This summer vacation day, there is no pressing need getting down the hill. There's just the pest who is following me at a short distance, chucking small stones at my heels, trying to get attention.
I reach Highway 25 and the pest , without looking, races out ahead of me across Highway 25, laughing in his small victory that he will be the first to check the contents of the Route 4 mailbox.
"Some day yer gonna get killed not looking both ways before you cross the highway!" I yell.
As he pulls the mail out of the box, I get the first glimpse of the semi-trailer truck that is just now beginning to be visible, climbing the rise out of the north.
I don't say anything as Anson starts to meander slowly onto the highway, leafing through the mail piece by piece, totally absorbed with his task. I know if he keeps coming, even at this slow pace, he will arrive safely. But then something in today's mail really catches his attention and he stops! He stops dead center in the highway!
The semi is beginning to bear down on him and before I can shout, the driver hits the air horn. Anson, startled by the blast, turns, sees the truck, then instead of retreating safely, in total terror begins to run south, right down the middle of the road!
Fortunately, after running only a few steps his brain engages, and he veers off the highway to safety. As the trucker rolls by I can see him at the wheel, doubled over in laughter. I am on the ground, laughing to tears.
"Shut up! That wasn't funny!"
There is another time in my youth that something similar occured. I am fishing the Red Cedar River below the farm, another two or three miles past the mail box. I have waded out to the rocky shelf where I always start, casting for sauger. There are none to be had this day, so I climb the bank, unroll the legs of my jeans and start south towards "the rapids" in search of small mouth.
along the way there is as barbed wire fence edging a very large cow pasture. I negotiate the fence the same way that I always do: I get down on my belly, fishing pole extended ahead of me, and low crawl under the bottom wire.
This time, when I stand up, I hear a sudden snort and a white tail deer that had been grazing less than fifteen yards from the fence, scared witless, jumps up and down four times in place -- doink! doink! doink! doink! and then, like Anson, the poor thing's deer brain engages and in what seems like four leaping bounds, he is gone.
Again, I am back on the ground, laughing to tears!
Anson is affectionately known as "Baby Huey" when he reaches high school age. Of the four Heagle boys, he is the only one who comes close to his father's great height. Anson is big -- and he has a really big heart. He is possibly the gentlest soul that I know.
Here's an example:
He's following me about, as usual. This time it is winter and I am toting the 12 guage shotgun in hopes of bagging a couple of pheasants. I won't even suggest that I hunt partridge. they are much too fast for me! In fact, their annoying habit of staying hidden on the ground until you are about to step on them and then all taking to the sky with a tumultuous beating of wings, always puts my heart in my throat, unable to even lift my shotgun to engage theam.
We are crossing the last open field above the woods that stretch across the bottom 20 acres of Deer Trail Farm when I kick up the biggest snowshoe hare I have ever seen in my life!
I pull the 12 guage stock to my cheek and take a bead on my prey when I hear:
"DON"T!"
Thinking that Anson sees something or someone that I don't see, I take the gun from my shoulder and glance around. I see no reason for not shooting.
"Why?" I ask incredulously.
Anson pauses. Then he says:
"You might hit him."
Anson, like all his brothers, taught for a number of years before turning his job over to his lovely wife Diana and going back to the earth. He works at Rainbow Springs Golf Course near his home, mowing greens, fairways, changing the cups, and performing all the outdoor tasks that take him back to the smells of his childhood: the fertilizer, the freshly mown grass, the smell of gasoline engines and the clear, clean fresh air of early mornings.
He lives way down in Mukwonago, Wisconsin; too far from me as far as I am concerned. I miss him. Now I wish he would follow me around again.
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