I see where Iowa State’s Lake LaVerne has been drained and they are dredging it to make it deeper. (I don’t know why they call it a lake. Being from rural Iowa, I would call it a pond.) In the process of dredging Lake Laverne they have found all kinds of odds-and-ends of stuff like it was a time capsule of Iowa State University. They found an old cannon, bicycles, a bowling ball and enough junk to fill a scrapyard. The cannon they surmise may have been used to celebrate touchdowns at nearby Clyde Williams’ Field, and then stolen from Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity in the early seventies. The bowling ball may have been from the Student Union Bowling Alley, the bicycles from who knows where or why.

I had a second floor roach apartment above La Pizza House, right across Lincoln Way from Lake LaVerne and Friley Hall. I would often stand at the windows, smell pizza, smash roaches and gaze at Lake LaVerne, the Campanile and Iowa State’s campus. You hadn’t been kissed until you were kissed under the Campanile.

Being college kids we crudely nicknamed Lake LaVerne “Lake Latrine” which may have had some truth to it considering the trash they are hauling from it now. But it was quite pretty. One of several girl friends took me there to view the two swans, Elaine and Lancelot, gliding smoothly across the mirrored water, necks in a shepherd’s-hook curve, until Elaine bit Lancelot and drove him away, a foreshadowing of this girlfriend’s and my relationship.

I have never been shy about expounding on sensitive personal matters, so I’ll just spill it. This was the era of Woodstock, Vietnam War Protests, sex, drugs and rock’n roll. The Pill changed everything. But to my surprise, a lady I was seeing informed me she was pregnant.

Gulp. I remember walking across Lincoln Way to sit down on the banks of Lake LaVerne to cry. What a mess I had made of my life. What was I to do? Feeling sorry for myself, I tried to to cry but couldn’t. Lake LaVerne was telling me, “You made your bed, Buddy, now lie in it!”

I’m not proud of this. We drove to a Holiday Inn in Chicago and had what was then an illegal abortion performed by a med student. He told us to use birth control in the future, and the fetus was nothing more than a lump of cells. Yeah right. We weren’t fooled, but it was our selfish way of handling a difficult situation. The drive back to Ames was long, quiet and hot.

I find myself today a critic of abortion, even though hypocrite me went through one. We took a life. A life, although it would have been a major inconvenience to us, might have made someone else happy.

I don’t deny the right of someone to make the same mistake, if it was a mistake, or to learn from it. I’m just remembering emotions dredged up from Lake LaVerne like they were in a time capsule. Sometimes wisdom comes from stirring the muck.

This spring Ginnie and I had a 8’x16′ raised garden bed built out of old railroad ties. It’s right outside our kitchen door where we can see and admire it from the kitchen window, and walk just a few feet outdoors to tend to it, which is easy-peasy. To fill it we had a dump truck full of dirt delivered. The truck driver told us the dirt came from the bottom of a pond that had been drained. The soil looks almost like clay and is hard packed. However, the tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beans are exploding like there’s no tomorrow, weed free!

Sometimes the wisdom that helps us grow comes from the muddy places we’d just as soon forget.

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Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.