Two Hills
2008 winner
When I was a young boy, I had a friend named Roy. He lived a mile from me down a dusty, graveled country road. Roy and I shared a lot of adventures. In back of my house was a woods where Indians lurked and pounced on unsuspecting travelers. Roy and I were always saving countless people from a fate worse than death in those woods. One day we build a fort there, and shortly after it was completed we were attacked by at least 3,000 Indians that were seeking revenge for all the good deeds Roy and I had ever done. It was a tough fight, but Roy and I finally won.
We loved those woods, but we probably spent more time at Roy’s house. His dad was in the junk business. In two acres, his dad had seemingly accumulated every junked car, rusted truck, unwanted stoves, worn-out washers, and discarded refrigerators in Delaware County. To us the wrecks were always a plane or a tank. Sometimes it was great fun to smash a windshield or bash a door. But, whenever we got tired of the junkyard, there was always the hill behind Roy’s house.
Roy’s backyard ran into a creek that was about ten yards across. The base of the hill began on the opposite side of the creek and gently rose to a height of approximately seventy-five feet. The face of the hill was scared and rugged. Over the years, rain and snow had cut little furrows and exposed rock and flint as the rivulets had rushed to the creek below. The hill became a castle that Roy and I often stormed to rescue peasants from a tyrant.
One day we got tired of being heroes, and it dawned upon us that going down the hill could be a lot of fun. So it was off to the junkyard where we located four wheels from a Red Flyer wagon, some 2x4’s and a tomato crate. In a short time we had build a pretty slick race car with ropes tied to the front axle for steering. We painted it white, added a red twenty-eight, and off to the hill we went. We flipped a stone to see who would be first. Roy won.
We pulled the car up the hill and rode it back down. Drag it up, ride it down. Toward the end of the afternoon, we decided to knock off for a grape Nehi. Roy settled in form the last run. Three quarters of the way down, one of the front wheels caught a rut. Twenty-eight was wrenched sideways; Roy was thrown out and lost some skin as he rolled to the bottom of the hill. The car somersaulted into the creek and sank. We decided to leave her where she was and pull her out the next day. That night a driving spring rain storm came up. As a result the creek climbed out of its bank and flooded Roy’s backyard. Several days later we returned to the spot where twenty-eight sank, but she was gone. We were sad for awhile, but we had other things to do, so we stormed the hill and rescued some more peasants from a tyrant.
Roy and I were friends for a long time, but as often happens over the years friends drift apart. I went away to college and joined a fraternity. Roy became part of the 101st Airborne Division.
During a cold November day of my sophomore year, I sat in a classroom struggling with Thoreau and transcendentalism and worrying about a date for Saturday night. Roy and his “fraternity brothers” were in Dak to Providence, South Viet Nam trying to take Hill 875 from a NVA battalion.
A few weeks later, Roy and I both came home. I came home elated that I had triumphed over Thoreau and had a vague understanding of transcendentalism. Roy, however, came home from Hill 875 in a silver government coffin