Heidi's health class was given the world's dumbest assignment.  For three weeks each student was to carry a 10-pound bag of sugar around everywhere he went.  The sugar represented a baby.  The exercise was to teach the young people what it's like to have the responsibility of a baby 24 hours a day.

The kids were to tend the baby, protect it from kidnappers, pay a babysitter when they couldn't care for it personally, wake up every three hours for three consecutive nights to tend to it, and keep a journal each day on what they'd learned.a

Take any Kerns boy, set his feet on a trail, point him toward a mountain, and he'll outhike any companion—human or equine.—Canine, too.

Matt proved that he could outhike a dog the day that he left the family at Rock Creek Lake.  He declared that he was hiking home by going up over the top, hiking the ridgelines, dropping into Willow Creek Lake, and hiking down the mountain to home.  The distance was a difficult six miles or so.

We watched as Matt and his yellow lab companion, Annie, began scaling the near-perpendicular slope above Rock Creek Lake.  I had personally tried to dissuade him from the idea.  I reasoned that it would be a long, difficult hike, and possibly dangerous.  No one had ever before taken that route, nor had anyone been where he'd be going.

Matt was filled with his idea and with the spirit of adventure, however, and was not to be dissuaded.  Annie was a willing companion, so off they went.

The rest of us went back the way we'd come.  Our route was a three-mile hike back down the steep trail to where we'd parked the pickup.  From there it was a slow, bumpy 12-mile drive down a bad mountain road.  We wondered how long it would be after we arrived home until Matt would make it.

There was no hurry.  We simply needed to be home by evening so that we could do the chores.  I only hoped that Matt would make it home before nightfall.  If he had any trouble, there would be no helping him, nor could a search party be activated, until daylight the next morning.

As we turned into the driveway on our arrival home, we were both amazed and relieved to see Matt heading for the barn, buckets in hand, to do the chores.  He'd beat us home, and was even hoping to have the chores finished before we got there.

Annie, however, was nowhere to be seen.  She'd become footsore and lagged farther and farther behind.  Matt was on a schedule, wanting to beat us home, so he couldn't be delayed.  He'd last seen her at the top of the mountain and trusted that she'd find her way home in her own good time.  As he expected, she was on the porch the next morning.  It took her several days to recover; but after a good night's sleep, Matt, himself, was ready to go again.

The boys made many hikes with Boy Scout troops.  At first they were scouts themselves.  Later they were the scoutmasters and leaders.  These hikes were made memorable by two things:  One was the beautiful areas where they hiked, and the second was the slow companions with which they were saddled.  It's an unwritten law that every hike by a scout troop must include one participant who can't hike, and who doesn't want to be there.

Past hikes are thus talked about in terms like, "Remember the time we went to Mirror Lake with Joe Turner?"  (Name has been changed to protect the innocent).

"Slow Joe?—No Go Joe?  How could I forget?  He had the biggest feet I ever saw, and he walked flat-footed.  I can still see the clouds of dust he kicked up with each step."

"He didn't take steps.  He shuffled.  He's the only guy I know who could shuffle up stairs."

"It took him forever to get to the lake.  I felt sorry for our scoutmaster having to hike back there with him, and push him up the trail."

"What do you suppose Joe is doing these days?  Do you suppose he has an upstairs in his house?"

"I know he doesn't!  By the time he reached his bedroom, it would be time to get up again."

"Joe wasn't as bad as Fred.  Remember when Glen was our scoutmaster, and we hiked the Elkhorn Crest Trail?  Fred arrived for the hike with his lunch packed in a family-sized lunch cooler.  We all had to take turns carrying it while Glen literally pushed him up the trail.  Every so often he'd drop to the ground and gasp, 'You guys go on ahead—I'll catch up later.'

"Glen had no sympathy for him.  He'd jerk him to his feet and say 'Get going!'  We finally left them and hiked on ahead.  We sat down to wait for them to catch up, and it was two hours before they showed up!  Tim Taylor got worried and went back to see what happened to them.  When he came back we asked if they were coming.

"He said, 'Have you ever seen a slug in reverse?  Yes, they're coming, but…Glen has his shoulder in Fred's back, and he's pushing him up the trail!' "

It was well after dark before the troop reached home.  There were plenty of worried parents, and many steamed-up scouts swearing to never again go hiking with Fred.

Generally speaking, scout hikes divided into two groups of boys.  The lead group was always composed of the physically fit farm boys.  The group bringing up the rear was made up of town kids.

The two groups were further divided by their interests and topics of conversation.  The farm boys could be heard discussing tractors and the work they were doing that summer.  The town kids discussed movies.

Their fears were different, too.  A town kid pulled Adam aside one evening up at a lake to clue him into a trick he was going to play.

"I don't want you to be scared, Adam, but I brought a recording of a cow!  I'm going to play it tonight."

"He packed a tape recorder all the way up there," Adam reported later, "thinking that we'd be terrified of a cow, of all things.  He could have played a recording of a bellowing bull, and everyone would have just said, 'Let's go run that bull out of here.'

"I got so sick of hiking with him.  His pack was all loose, and things were falling off.  Nathan finally had to repack him and make everything tight.

"He had a water bottle attached to the end of a long rope.  He swung it back and forth until he got tired, and then he just let it drag in the dirt.  Every time we'd try to pass him, he'd run ahead and then settle back into his slow plod.  Quincy finally couldn't take it anymore.  He came up behind him, grabbed his pack frame, threw him off the trail and said, 'I'm sick of your water bottle!' "

Kevin Rich was a town-kid-turned-farm-boy who fit in with both groups.  Everyone liked him because of his sense of humor and his lack of complaints.  He endured cold, dampness, hardships, and teasing, and was still able to joke about them.  It's good that he could joke about things because his was a personality that seemed to attract cruel and unusual twists of fate.

Kevin had a happy-go-lucky and unaware attitude about things.  If the weather threatened rain at night, he'd still sleep out under the stars.  If it started to rain, he'd start rolling.  He'd roll under a picnic table or out into the forest under a tree.

Even Kevin got tired of being uncomfortable on one 50-miler, however.  It had rained every night.  Kevin and his friend, Rick, a town kid, decided to build a "to-die-for lean-to" to sleep under.  They worked for two hours making a shelter that would shed the rain.  It was perfect.  It was a thing of beauty.  They made sure that everyone knew how wonderful it was so that the rest of the troop would be jealous of their accommodations.

The evening air was suddenly rent by an anguished "AAARRGH!"  The troop rushed to see what catastrophe had befallen their comrades.

As Kevin and Rick were putting the finishing touches on their Taj Mahal lean-to, their last act was to remove some rocks from the sleeping area.  Underneath the rocks they found used toilet paper.

"It wasn't like there was anything they could do about it, either," Adam reported later.  "With thousands of acres of wilderness to choose from, it was just like Kevin to pick the one spot where they couldn't sleep.  He rolled up outside in his sleeping bag that night and got wet again."

Hikes in the mountains can seem interminably long to those who don't enjoy them.  The Kerns boys have several pat answers that they always give to the inevitable question of "How much farther is it?"

"Just over the next rise."

"Just another hundred yards."

"We're halfway there.  All you have to do is what you've already done, and we'll be there."

These answers can be used no matter how far the remaining distance really is.  It's a matter of making the laggards think that the goal is almost within sight because it's just around the next bend.

—"Just halfway there?!"  Rick shouted.  "You've been saying that for hours.  I'm exhausted.  Where is this lake anyway?"

"See that patch of sky through the trees up there?  It's just over the next rise."

—"A hundred yards!" the Californian shouted on another hike, after hearing the same trite answer to his question that he'd heard before.  "I'll show you a hundred yards!"

With that he picked up a rock and lobbed it as far as he could.  "That's a hundred yards.  Do you see a lake there?" he angrily demanded.

"It's just around the next bend."

—"I don't care what you say," my brother-in-law shouted.  "The next rock I come to, I'm going to sit down on it!"

"But Philip, we told our wives we'd be home by 6:00.  There's no time to rest if we're going to get there when we said we would.  They'll be worried."

"Well let them worry then.  It was hard enough getting to Willow Creek Lake in the first place," he replied.  "I must have had rocks in my head to believe you when you said it would be an easier route home to hike up over the top and come down Rock Creek!"

The last I saw of Philip that day, he was holding down a rock.  Each was keeping the other from moving.  I left him there.  Without him to slow me down, I trotted down the road, took a shortcut over Reservoir Ridge, and was walking in my back door promptly at 6:00.  It had been a wonderful Labor Day excursion.

Each Labor Day thereafter I invited Philip to go hiking with me again, but he was never able to free himself up from more important matters.

It was an incredibly dumb idea.  I had to hold myself back from having a session with the teacher and telling her so.

Margie pointed out that most kids today have no idea what a baby is like.  They grow up in a two-child family where both children are the same age, and never experience having little brothers and sisters and babies in the house.

Margie and I graduated from high school 28 and 29 years ago.  Nearly all of our classmates are now without children in the home.  They had one or two or three children (if they stayed married), raised them, and have now sent them off on their own.

We have sent three out into the world, too.  But we still have six at home, including a five-year-old in kindergarten.

I guess we're unique.  I've always thought of us as being really ordinary people, but from other peoples' perspectives I suppose we look pretty different—maybe pretty strange.

Let me tell you how it is.

Seb is the friend of Aaron, age 14.  Seb lives with his dad.  There are just the two of them.  Seb is often alone.

Seb asked Aaron if he could spend the night with us.  Seb spent the weekend.  And the next.  Seb would move in and become a permanent resident if he could.

"It's so fun here!  There's so much to do," Seb says, excitedly.

There is, indeed lots to do here.  With so many fertile minds at work there are always several good ideas for activities waiting in the wings while the current one is being carried out.

Our house is not quiet.  Our house is not clean and orderly except briefly.  The forces can be mustered to clean the living room, and it can be done with lightning speed; but several minutes later it looks lived in again.  It will have endured an Indian ambush, collected three pairs of tennis shoes and numerous books and crayons, and currently be being used as a dance floor for practicing cheerleaders while a bear cave is being constructed out of blankets and furniture in the corner.

It's a game for one boy to hide in the living room with his bow and suction-tipped arrows.  Another boy suddenly runs through the room dodging between practicing cheerleaders while trying to reach the kitchen without being hit by an arrow.

This game goes on for quite some time with kids trading positions.  It usually ends with an injury when someone runs into a piece of furniture or into a cheerleader.  In the case of the latter collision it's the cheerleader who ends the game.  In the case of a collision with a piece of furniture it's always the other guy's fault.  The ensuing squabble makes it impossible for the game to continue.

The uninjured participant looks about for something else to do.  His eyes quickly light upon the bear cave housing a younger brother and sister.  The bear cave immediately erupts with screams and squeals as it's invaded by a newcomer bear.  The fracas is quickly joined by the injured Indian, tribal quarrels being forgotten, and the Indian battle and bear cave evolve into a full-scale rodeo complete with bucking broncs, riders, and calf ropers.

Margie was the last of five children.  Her older brothers and sisters were, therefore, pretty well gone from home or too mature for games as she was growing up.  Her friend came from a large family.  Margie would say, "Let's go over to your house.  There's always something going on over there."

"No," her friend would reply.  "Let's go to your house where it's quiet!"

Quiet is hard for our house to be.  Being alone is equally hard unless one shuts himself in his bedroom.  The sounds of boisterous activity and teenagers' radios still filter in.

Perhaps that is why Matt built his house in the back yard.  It started out as a senior project.  Each senior was to learn a new skill, do something he'd never done before, and report on what he'd accomplished.

Matt's house started out to be a shop on skids so that it could be moved later.  It went together so nicely, though, that it looked too good to have interior walls of plywood, so it got sheetrocked instead.  The plywood floor looked tacky next to the sheetrocked walls, so linoleum was laid.  He painted it, wired it, and plugged it into a long, heavy-duty extension cord.  He moved his bed, desk and chest of drawers in, and installed a one-way monitor.  When the monitor was on, he could be called to dinner or to the telephone.  When he wanted perfect peace and quiet, he simply shut the monitor off.

He had the best of both worlds.  He had all the commotion and fellowship of family life that he wanted on one hand, and all the peace and quiet he could stand on the other.  He could turn them on and shut them off at will.