The summer I left the seventh grade at Skyway School was a nearly normal summer … or so I thought.
The next day it started to rain and it rained for four days straight. The day after the rain ended Ricky called me and asked if I wanted to try something. Being the inquisitive one that I was, I was game for almost anything.
I met Ricky at his home and we went down a field road to a point where we left our bikes and then on foot to what was known to me as “The Trestle” over the east branch of the Presque Isle Stream. Ricky showed me what he had cobbled up. It was an old discarded Frigidaire refrigerator case minus the insides and door. To this unit Ricky had attached a makeshift rudder and he informed me that we were going downstream.
By the road we would have been in Sleepy Hollow in less than a half hour. By the stream, as it seemingly meandered over half of Aroostook County, it took three and a half hours. The main thing about it were the deer, moose and birds and all the other assorted wildlife we saw and of course, the time two buddies spent together on an adventure that few, if any city kids ever dreamed possible.
Guy Woodworth of Presque Isle is a 1973 graduate of Presque Isle High School and a four-year Navy veteran. He and his wife Theresa have two grown sons and five grandchildren. He may be contacted at lightning117_1999@yahoo.com.
