Page 4 - MWC 02-04-2021s

The Midwest Cattleman · February 4, 2021 · P4
I’m looking out the widow
this morning and I see it snowed
about an inch and a half. I also
heard they called off school. It’s
amazing how things change.
Growing up in Montana in
the 60’s there was one bad win-
ter after another, foot after foot
of snow, not inches, and school
was rarely called off. My dad
liked to say that he wore out a
scoop shovel shoveling snow the
first winter. Nine of those win- gle Earth’ right now if you know anyone was fastened in a safe- That old pickup was basically a
ters about wore him out as well.
The Road
You may have heard me say
that we lived at the end of what
was barely a road. That made
every morning and every trip
to school an exciting adventure.
I guarantee you it would have
made for some really exciting
‘reality’ TV.
We had what was kind of a
catch-22 private road. The coun- what those trips were like.
ty’s excuse for not maintaining
the road was that the bus didn’t
go that far, and the school bus
wouldn’t go that far because
That old drag is still sitting beside the road where I left it in 1973. (This photo was taken in 2000.)
the county didn’t maintain it. I
think that was my first experi-
ence with the word “bureaucra-
cy”.
As a result it became my job to
help maintain that road. My job,
every spring or every time condi-
tions allowed, was to ‘drag’ that
road and smooth out ‘ruts’ with
an old six-foot ‘road drag’. At the
age of nine or ten, I would fire up
the old ‘R’ John Deere, hook it to
the drag, push in the hand clutch
and drag that old road -usually
all the way up to the top of the
hill. Even though I haven’t seen
one in 40 years I bet I can climb
up on one today, start the ‘pony’
starting engine and then start
the diesel, just like I did when
I was nine. Just for the record, ‘trap’. Once on the return trip, ruts and then climb until it spun
that old drag is still sitting be- my dad and younger brother res- out and slid again. It was a little
side the road where I left it in cued a Bald Eagle. It was never bit like riding the ‘tilt -a-whirl’
1973. You can see it if you drive boring. at the fair. There were turns,
to the old place, or even on ‘Goo- Those were the days before jolts, jerks and then the UFO’s.
where to look. ty belt and there surely were gun shop, veterinary clinic, and
The Ride no child safety seats. After a mud closet on wheels, so any
warm breakfast we would climb or all of a whole assortment of
In order for my brothers and
I to get to school. my parents into a cold pickup truck where items might become airborne.
would have to drive the 3 miles the windshield still had a heavy Flying boxes of rifle shells, sy-
out of ‘the breaks’ and meet the coating of ice. Sometimes the ringes, ropes, over-shoes, or a
bus at our mailbox. If we were windshield was clear, but more carton of cigarettes could come
late or if the bus was late, our often we would start the trip flying at your head any moment.
dad would have to take us the with only a small opening in the We got pretty good at ducking
rest of the way into town. frosted glass. and catching things. Like a roll-
The pickup would eventual- er-coaster, when it finally came
It’s really hard to explain
ly warm up usually by the time to a stop you were just glad to
Sometimes we got to school and we got to the ‘coal bank hill’. It get out.
sometimes we didn’t. Often, we would be in four-wheel drive, One of those mornings after
would see deer, hunt coyotes, or in fact, a pickup might stay in it had snowed and the wind had
four-wheel drive all winter. If blown all night, we started on
‘bag’ a cottontail for a Bobcat
there wasn’t our trip to meet the school bus.
new snow, the The bus was either very late
conditions or very early. In any event we
could be deep missed it. As we started off for
snow, drifted town, it became evident that the
snow, blowing north-south road was not only
snow, melting drifted shut but it was crusted
snow, slushy as hard as a rock. Not one for
snow, or snowy quitting what he had started,
mud. Most of my dad pulled out into a neigh-
the time there bor’s frozen wheat field where
were ‘ruts’... he found it much easier going. I
ruts in the never will forget the snow blow-
snow, ruts in ing up over the hood of the truck.
the mud, and of It would have made one heck of
course…my fa- a ‘truck commercial’. That was
vorite… ruts in one of the few mornings school
the hard frozen did close and as we pulled up in
ground! After the school yard it was evident
it all finally that we were the only ones there.
dried out, what Oh well... we made a memory! I
was left was… wouldn’t take anything for it.
deep, hard ruts KwC
in the dirt road.
The truck
would spin,
slide, hit an old
set of frozen