I quit my full time newspaper job to go into teaching. I finished my requirements and continued on, getting a master degree in outdoor education from NIU.
The environmental movement was huge then... Earth Day, the Clean Air and Water Act, dependence on foreign oil....all were big issues in the early 1980s.
Outdoor ed majors were a strange bunch. Yes, they were environmentalists, but I don't think that was a name people took for themselves.
I took one class that many Rochelle people still recall. Vividly. Outdoor cooking. Preparing meals in the outdoors, using basic supplies like a Dutch oven.
Ironically, you can't use a Dutch oven on many camping trips because they weigh about 50 pounds. But, that's a digression.
I invited the guys out for Dutch oven stew and home made biscuits, all baked over a fire in the back yard on Mill Pond. All the wives and girl friends must have been at a shower or something.
We had some wine. I remember drinking rhubarb wine that Jackie and I brought back from the Amana colonies. There were other bottles of wine, and some beer also.
But the stew was the highlight. Everyone had at least two helpings. And wine. And biscuits.
Maybe I just have a stronger stomach...lord knows I eat everything in sight. And the next day, I was the only one who could venture out of the house.
I maintain it wasn't the cooking that gave five guys the runs. But I admit it could have. All I know is I didn't have a problem, and I ate the stew too.
And by the way, I aced that class.
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