The Cissna Park years…

This post is a continuation of my life story (abridged version) that I am documenting through multiple blog posts.  My last post in this series, The Early Years, covered roughly the first decade of my life, living in a small town called Claytonville and placing in my life one of my most prominent role models, my grandfather.  Now moving on to the second epoch…

Cissna Park was big city livin’ compared to Claytonville.  In a town of about 800 people (it’s been that size forever I think) that’s where the school was that I attended for 13 years as well as a couple restaurants (including the Dairy Queen), Luke’s One Stop (local gas station), the Cissna Park State Bank, the Star Market (local grocery store), as well as all the basic small shops you could really need.  We had a newspaper (weekly that is), clothing stores, doctor, insurance, fire department & ambulance, realtors, car dealership, grain elevator, flower shop, funeral home, and many churches.  I was actually several years down the road when I finally realized just how well off this town was compared to other small towns in the area.

If you hadn’t gathered, I grew up in the middle of corn and soybean fields.  What an awesome experience.  This translates to being out in the sticks.  I can only recall two stoplights in my entire county.  We had to drive 50 miles to get to the nearest Super Wal-Mart and 15 miles to the closest fast food restaurant.  There were only about 30,000 people in the entire county, with 22 municipalities scattered across the 1100 square miles, of which only 2 were over 1000 people.  Yeah, I know, it’s amazing that life exists in places like that. LOL.  But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In fact, my school district was only about 325 kids.  Now for most of my college friends, that is smaller than their graduating class.  Not in Cissna Park…..I graduated with 28 friends,,,yeah, pretty safe to say that I knew my entire high school and probably most of the middle school.  In case this blows you away, here’s some more info about Iroquois County and Cissna Park.

When my brother and I moved with my mom to Cissna Park, life definitely changed.  As far as kids go, not much was different.  We still came and went as we pleased, but there were more of us.  It was nice to have one of our first-cousin’s who was our age live in the same town as well.  Our days were filled with riding bicycles around town, playing video games with friends, pickup games of basketball and baseball, Red Devil basketball summer camp, swimming lessons, Little League baseball games and practice.  I still made many trips to the farm with my grandfather.  But generally, as the saying goes, boys shall be boys….

The main difference was that my dad wasn’t part of my every day life.  My brother and I were fortunate that our parents maintained a civil relationship and never talked bad about each other.  We did stay with my dad a couple nights a week, so we upheld a steady relationship with him, but as you can imagine it wasn’t the same.  Limited to one weeknight and every other weekend, I treasured the time spent with my dad.  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy time with my mom, but to be honest, and most realize this, there’s no replacement for your father…

I love my mother.  She taught me a lot about love and respect.  She shared many of the same values that my Eisenmann family had and so it’s no wonder why I have the beliefs I do.  She silently taught me what it meant to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of another person as she continually does to this day.  I see now more than ever the sacrifices she made for my brother and I so that we could have the “good life” as kids growing up, playing all our sports and not worrying about a thing.

My mom remarried when I wasn’t quite yet a teenager.  That was an adjustment to say the least.  Now there were two male figures in my life, one being my father and the other my step-father who I predominantly lived with.  He and my mom did a good job of balancing that situation.  As a young boy, I’m sure I didn’t handle it very well at times, well, I know I didn’t, but none the less, I’ll say that my step-father, Lyle Young. was a positive influence on my childhood in spite of the life circumstances that surrounded that acquisition.

Lyle came from a farming background as well, growing up in rural Cissna Park.  He served a stint in the military and eventually returned to Cissna Park.  Interesting enough, he even worked with my dad for a while.  He reinforced the same teaching as my biological family when it came to working, obedience, and respect.  I’ll always remember him as an extremely dedicated employee, who wanted to provide the best he could for my mom, my brother Carl, and me.

Another monumental event in my life in the early 90’s was when my dad was saved, but you’ll have to wait for the details on that…