“All right then, tonight I’ll be there”, Luke, Dave and I were going to take a risk.
After a long easygoing summer we were going to make our own entertainment. We
made the final plans like, what time to sneak out and where to meet.
I woke up to my sister’s voice yelling to me, “Get up! Luke is here.” I walked
upstairs and Luke said, “Come on, let’s go, the fish aren’t going to bite forever”. So I
quickly got dressed, snatched up my dad’s good fishing rod, some tackle, and we were
off. We rode our bikes two miles out to Second Lake. When we got there, we hurried
down to the lake and cast our lures out, breaking the glass covering of the lake. I caught
a three pounder within the first half hour. After I caught my fish, we didn’t catch
anything for a long time and got really bored, so we decided to take a break and sit down.
While we were sitting I said “Luke what are we going to do tonight”, and he said he had
no clue, so we just sat there. Then I heard a train whistle as it cruised through town I
looked towards Donnelly and seen these two gigantic towers and that’s when I knew
what I was going to do that night. I asked Luke if he was up for a good time and he said,
“always.” So we fished a little more and then went back to town. When we got back, we
headed over to Dave’s house, we told him about our idea and thought it was great. So we
went up to his room to make the plans. We decided to sneak out at two o’clock in the
morning and we also decided not to tell anyone. After we ironed out the plans we all
went home
I ate an excellent home cooked meal that my mom made. After supper, my
parents told us that they had brought home a couple of movies for us to watch with them.
So I thought great we will watch the movies and everyone will go to bed. Wow, was I
ever wrong they brought home the longest movies ever. So I watched the first one and
that lasted until twelve forty-five pm. After that I told my parents I was tired and had to
go to bed. So I took a shower and went down to my basement bedroom. I shut my lights
off and got ready for one of the most exciting nights of my life. Sure enough, at ten to
Luke showed up at my window, and issued me the bad news that my parents were still
up. I said no problem, and I went to the only other room in the basement climbed on the
freezer and out the window. When I got out Luke was waiting and we headed over to
Dave’s house. Dave was already out and ready to go.
Now I would like to tell you a little about Donnelly. It is a little proud town of
two hundred people with one gas station, one grocery store, one bar, one bank, and two
tall grain buildings. One sat on the edge of town that was the tallest one with one single
tall thin grain arm that holds the town’s Christmas star year round. Just to give you an
estimate on how high this tower is, the only other thing that comes close to it in height is
the town water tower. The other one is in the middle of town and is more of a big
building than a tower. There are three lakes or ponds that surround Donnelly and one
creek. Well that is about all I can tell you about my little town so, back to the story.
In Donnelly the town mostly shuts down at about eleven o’clock at night, so by
now it’s like a ghost town out there. We started to make our way up to the shorter tower
right in the middle of town. We got out our tobacco product of choice to try and calm our
nerves, as we got closer to this gigantic monster that we were going to conquer. When
we made it up to main street we saw Dave’s step dad parked outside the bar. All three of
us froze instantly after we realized he was still in the bar cleaning up. We sprinted across
the street to the base of our metal mountain.
We sat there for a while then Luke decided to go first, Dave who was deathly
afraid of heights said there was no way he would bring up the rear so he went second.
And that left me to go last. As Luke started to climb the first set of ladders Dave turned
around and said, “no way man this is just fucking nuts I can’t do it.” After what seemed
like hours of convincing we got him to go. When we got all the way to the top of the
ladders there was a long thin catwalk we had to walk across to get into the building. This
we decided to do one at a time. Luke went first and about half way over he shouted back,
“be careful, there are a few loose grates.” I thought Dave was going to pass out after
hearing that one but, he got through it and only asked to turn back like a dozen times
before Luke reached the other side. Then Dave went, sorry then Dave crawled at a
sluggish speed that made my grandma look like a track star. But, finally he made it.
Well, it was my turn and I felt pretty confident, for a while anyway. As I got to the
halfway mark my foot went right through one of the grates. I thought I was going to die
right then and there I grabbed on to the side rails and put my other foot on a side brace. I
looked up to see their solid white faces, Luke said, “holy shit Trevor, are you ok,” and I
simply nodded and pulled my foot out. Then I scampered across then rest of the catwalk
to meet those guys. We were inside the building now but we wanted to go all the way up
to the peek of it, and we weren’t there yet. It took us a while but we found the trap door
that would lead us to glory and fame. When we got up to our mountains peek, we looked
out over our beloved town in amazement, it was the most beautiful thing any of us had
ever seen. The town looked peaceful and perfect as a painting in some museum. That
wasn’t even the best part the best part was the lakes on either side of the town. I have
never seen anything like it, they were breath taking and the way they glistened in the
moons rays made them a spectacle that I would never forget.
This was the first time I had ever snuck out and there are many other stories. We
had bragging rights among the kids in our town for along time. We went back to that
tower and we ventured to the other one later on that summer, but that’s another story.