Freedom beckoned

“It’s nice that somebody knows where Magic Valley is,” said a Pennville area friend after a photo in The CR last week of yet another rainstorm moving into that part of Jackson Township.
Not only did I know where it is, I told her. My parents once owned a place there.
I was going to say “farm” rather than “place.” But that would have been inaccurate.
Anyone who ever knew my father knows that he wasn’t a farmer.
Paul Pinkerton farmed the little bit of tillable acreage of the 40 my folks bought.
They built a cottage there as kind of a weekend retreat and had dreams of spending as much time as possible there when they retired.
But then Earlham College came calling, asked dad to serve as vice president for development, and suddenly weekends in Magic Valley were harder to come by.
Eventually, they sold the place. But for several years when I was in high school, it was a central part of family life.
I chafed a bit at that.
After all, you get your driver’s license in high school. And suddenly freedom and mobility and distance from the rest of your family become tremendously important.
Because of that and because I was pretty much an indentured farm hand whenever we were out there, I looked for every opportunity and justification to stay in town, preferably with a car.
That’s how it happened one winter weekend about 1965 that I found myself rattling around in the house in Portland while my parents and younger sister became snowbound in Magic Valley.
Travel was impossible out in the country, but in town things were manageable.
So there I was with no school, the house all to myself, and maybe even our Ford station wagon in the driveway.
Freedom beckoned.
And a rock band answered.
Actually, it was pretty much your standard-issue small town garage band. But they’d played a few gigs and the big time — a dance at the Jay County Conservation Club — was out there on the horizon. Theoretically, I was manager. In reality, that meant I kept the checkbook and helped carry amplifiers and speakers.
I’m guessing it was Jim Klopfenstein who realized that the empty house represented the coolest rehearsal space ever. He played drums in that particular group. Jim Steffy played electric piano. Phil Fleming played guitar. Leroy Rigby played bass. And the lead singer was either Phil Simons or Mark Hearn.
(I figure it’s amazing enough that I remember the rest of the personnel.)
Before I knew it, a drum kit was being set up in my parents’ living room. Steffy was noodling around on the electric organ that was more accustomed to Handel than Herman’s Hermits. And then the amplifiers were toted through the snow. Guitars were plugged in and we were off to the races.
I have no idea how long this fabulous, noisy practice session lasted. But I know it was a blast.
What I hadn’t accounted for was the efficiency of the county highway department.
Though I’d been told over the phone that there was no way my family could make it back to town any time soon, the road was cleared.
As they were coming into town on West Votaw Street, my dad made a turn onto Middle Street by Haynes Park.
And as he did, he heard something.
It was a low, deep, booming sound.
It was Leroy’s bass guitar.
Almost three blocks away.
Sometimes I wonder how I survived those years.
The fact that I’m alive to tell the tale is conclusive evidence of my father’s patience.[[In-content Ad]]