How does our swinging off a rope into a river this weekend tie into "Mankato Memories?"
Allow me to regale you.
It was North Mankato, the summer of 1982....
I was in 5th grade, and MTV was just hitting its stride.
J. Geils Band - Centerfold, The Go-Go's - We Got The Beat, and Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now...we're "totally" killing it on the radio station.
My neighborhood crew and schoolmates were finding respite from the summer heat (humidity) down at the Pit (aka, Hinniker Pond). To be sure, there wasn't a kid in our clan who's parents actually thought we were at the "Pit", so much as where we said we would be - North Mankato Swimming Pool in Spring Lake Park. Our squad was.... cut from more of the "adventure seeking" cloth. We were delinquents; guilty of our fair share of misdeeds, and all the duplicitous trimmings of youth. Plus, the Pit had cliffs and banks to jump off! The Pit provided more adrenaline and sexiness than the springboards at the pool.
As some of us were floating on inner tubes, one of the older boys (either Brad Venberg or Mark Deichman) made a remark about how cool it would be if we had some rope to tie on a tree, so we could soar off the banks into the water "like in that Mountain Dew commercial."
Me, being the younger, resourceful lad - who would do just about anything to gain the approval and admiration of the older boys.... I declared, "I know where we can get the PERFECT rope!"
You see, it wasn't but a few days earlier, that the same squad of friends and their older brothers dared me to go into the old, run-down school building (now known as the Bell Tower Apartments) - then called Ray Ecke's School Of Rock (70's bands would rent the rooms to practice their classic rock crafts). They dared me to climb up through attic, onto the roof, and ring the old school bell. That bell, mind you, that had been dormant for a few decades.
Welp, of course I did. I climbed in a window (the one we always snuck in through to explore that history gem) climbed through the attic, and rang the bell. I'm pretty sure it took me 10 seconds to get down, and fly across the street to the Kwik Trip to meet my comrades, waiting with giant grins of approval.
Back on the water, at the Pit, I told the boys of this giant rope that I saw up in the attic of the old school. "It was prolly the rope they used to ring the bell back in the day."
There was a moment of silence... then we feverishly swam ashore, and ran TOP SPEED to the corner of Belgrade Ave & Center Street.
I hustled up to the attic of the old School, while the older boys challenged me to "hustle!" and warned me that "You better not be lying!". A few minutes later, I crawled out the window...the clouds opened up, the heavens sang, and the light shinned down on that beautiful 40 ft long rope I was struggling to drag.
We got back to the Pit. It took us all of 5 minutes to unanimously find and agree on the perfect tree and the perfect branch to attach the big rope. I want to say it was Mark Deichman who made the daring climb, and tied the knot...but It very well could've been one Rodney Lowe.
That rope swing was as good as a rope swing gets, ever. It put that swing in that Mountain Dew commercial to shame. My contemporaries and me, we spent hundreds of days over the next few years wringing every ounce of enjoyment, thrills and fun that we could from that rope, and that tree. College students, bikers from the nearby Harley shop, innocent kids who couldn't resist the sexiness and lure of the rope swing.... millions of breathtaking memories were made.
To that little North Mankato school - where my mother and her siblings attended - built in the late 1800's.... I say, "Thank you!", on behalf of myself, my brother, my schoolmates, and even that dumb drunk college kid who climbed too high up the tree and let go of the rope on shore... Thank you!
Thanks for all the remarkable memories, good and bad, North Mankato.
Maybe you, dear reader, will smile the next time you pass by those Bell Tower Apartments.
