Having been on my own journey, I was returning to the home I have known for many years. I flew on wings of blue and white as the eagle soars through the sky.
As the day faded, I pulled a book from a bag and began to read. It was the story of a boy who grew to be a revered Indian Chief – the chief of the Crows.
My eyes became heavy. I set the book aside and drifted off to sleep, wandering in another land and place. Somehow the words I had read were played out before my eyes. Indian boys clothed in wolf skins stepped into manhood , approaching a buffalo ready to charge. One young boy began his own journey to find the path of his destiny as leader of his people. I saw a glimpse into the life of a great warrior and chief.
As quickly as my eyes closed into slumber, my mind was roused back to reality. The dream, though brief, faded into the darkness.
And yet, the thought came to mind in an inaudible whisper, “Your father would be proud.” Of where the thought came, I did not know. Was the voice because of my own journey? Was it the cry of the voices of a people in search of a land? Of that, I cannot tell.
The plane landed and we made our way to the baggage claim area. As we waited, I looked, and above the baggage carousel was a sign, “There are road trips. And then there are pilgrimages.”
My Guest Author is Ed Brannin who tells about a true life incident
In the mid 70’s I was working for the Sweetgrass County Sheriffs Office. There had been a theft of saddles and tack in Fergus County. A suspect in the theft allegedly lived in Sweetgrass County and the investigation lead to a search warrant. When the search warrant was executed none of the stolen saddles were found. This resulted in the Sheriff’s office being accused of fabricating the story about the theft.
About this time Uncle Sid had been visiting with his sister Anita. During his visit he had picked up an old saddle that he was going to take home to Washington. The night he was leaving I was working patrol. I saw Sid standing outside the bus depot getting ready to leave. He had the old saddle with him. I decided to stop and say goodbye. When I got out of the patrol car, Sid threw his hands in the air and hollered that he gives up. After this the word spread that the investigation into the saddle thefts must have been legit since the Sheriff’s office had spoken to a suspect with a saddle.
Uncle Sid at the rodeo at Big Timber, MontanaUncle Sid with JugheadUncle Sid on Butterfly at Harlo rodeo 1924
Note: I’m sure Uncle Sid got a big kick out of that! He was such a jokester! Come to think of it, he did have a large collection of saddles…….
We pulled into the gas station to fill up the truck. Parked at the pump beside us was a green F250 that was hard pressed to be considered green. It was covered with mud, dust, and very likely other ranch excrement. The diesel was running, and it was evident the engine had been revved a time or two.
But that wasn’t what caught my eye. There was a guy, I assumed the owner, in the back of the truck along with a four-wheeler. When he had pumped gas into the four-wheeler, he took rags and wiped off the gas cap and the seat. He took the squeegee and cleaned off the mirror, then wiped the whole thing clean. When it was to his liking, he hopped in the dirty truck and drove off into the sunset.
I thought the scene a bit amusing. As I pondered it, the modern cowboy came to mind. When I was a kid, we drove into western towns and were rewarded with seeing real cowboys – you know, the ones who wore cowboy boots with jingling spurs, cowboy hats, western pearl snap shirts, walked bowlegged, and rode the range on horseback. Their horses were well cared for – fed, brushed, and rubbed down. They not only bore their rider across the range to drive cattle, mend fences, check livestock, etc., but they were also the cowboys’ companion.
Nowadays, four-wheelers ride the range. The guy who carried his four-wheeled horse powered steed in the back of the truck was just taking care of his ride.
That was the response from the little man whenever something strange happened or something was missing.
One day I opened the microwave oven. I said, “Daddy, why is there a cup of cold coffee in the microwave?”
His reply? “The old man did it. He must have gotten it warm and forgot to take it out. I’ll drink it in the morning.”
“Daddy, your t-shirt is ripped.”
“The old man did it.”
The old man moved papers, left trails of spilled coffee on the floor, left burners on, set off the smoke alarm, hid things, and did other antics.
One morning Daddy came out of his bathroom and said, “I looked in the mirror and there was an old man staring back at me.”
That old man in the mirror hung around for a while. I guess that was good because he was company for my dad.
Note: Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see one of my sisters in the blink of an eye, but the other day, for one split second, I thought I saw an old man in the mirror (that looked like my dad) looking back at me.
This is a remembrance of my guest author (my dad) about one of his uncles
Charles Crawford Brannin had many nicknames. Some of the neighbors called him Crawford. Dick Brannin called him Diney. Several nieces and nephews knew him as Sparky. Father and Uncle Ed called him Tommy. However, to my sisters and me he was Rube.
A load of names was bound to slow anyone down. Fortunately this didn’t go against Rube’s nature. It wasn’t that he had anything against hurry in principal; if people wanted to do a day’s work in an hour’s time that was their problem. Anybody with a lick of sense ought to know that rushing about was best reserved for memorable occasions. The three or four times we saw Rube in a rush were memorable occasions.
The winter of 1942-43 Uncle Ed and Aunt Dora stayed with us. The first week in January, Rube came steaming up the road. He busted into the shop where the stormy weather had driven us. He didn’t even bother to brush the snowballs off the bottom of his tattered trousers but went straight over to his older brother.
Rube and sister Babe
“Gu-guess wh-what?” he said, waving a chopper mitt in Ed Brannin’s face.
“What?”
Rube burst into a grin. His week’s growth of whiskers grinned with him. “B-B-Barney just married the long legged school marm.”
That was news! Barney Brannin was fifty four years old and Nella Francis was in her early twenties. “B-b-bet they have some l-l-long legged kids.”
Barney and Nella didn’t produce any children, but the marriage did change things at the Brannin Hunting Lodge. About the end of January, Rube came hobbling up the road with a sack on his back. He was mumbling to himself all the way. When he reached the barnyard, he sat the sack on a bare place on the snow spotted ground. He took a short breather, and then, wagging his finger, he began talking to whatever was in the sack. “D-don’t worry. I’ll be back after while.”
“What you got in the sack?” Dad asked as Rube came into the yard.
“It’s B-B-Bones,” Rube answered.
He untied the gunny sack and dumped a red rooster on the ground.
“Brought him up for vacation,” he explained. Then a scowl crossed his face. “I-It’s on account of N-Nella,” he said. “She’s got a h-h-hungry look in her eye.”
Bones was in charge of the Brannin hen house. Every so often the cook would crave a chicken for dinner and Rube would bring Bones up for a vacation. The rooster spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with us. Those were critical days. Luckily Bones was old and tough or he’d have never made it through the Fourth of July. That’s when the Brannin cook would poach some of the spring hatch for chicken dinner. But here it was – January.
“Wh-when B-B-Barney gets to town, maybe he’ll buy Nella some w-wieners.”
It was cold weather and Barney didn’t get any wieners until the end of February. By then things were in a desperate condition. Rube was getting homesick for his pet rooster and so were the hens. In fact, Rube’s pullets were on strike. They hadn’t laid an egg since the end of the year and the first of March is egg laying season.
“D-danged hens fergot how to lay,” Rube announced when he came after his rooster. Hopefully old Bones would stir the hens to action. Rube hobbled down the road with a sack of live chicken over his back. A week later he came back. This time he was traveling in the express lane, coming in a dead run, which for him was twenty yards without stopping to see how far he had come.
When Rube reached the house he didn’t even go for Dad’s tobacco can. You could tell there was something important on his mind. It came pouring out in a conglomeration of words. It seemed that Bones had gone right to work getting the hen house in order. Two or three days after the rooster returned, Rube found him scratching the straw in a nest box. Later that afternoon there was an egg in the box.
“B-B-Bones laid it,” Rube boasted. “B-b-best rooster I ever had.” He shook his head in amazement.
“Whoopee” he shouted. “B-b-ones L-l-laid an egg. Wha-what a r-r-rooster. Wh-whoopee!”
He pulled his ragged jacket off, unzipped an empty tobacco pouch and headed into the middle room for Dad’s can of Prince Albert tobacco.
We played cards, but then, we were Methodists! The Baptists down the road wouldn’t be caught doing that and truth be known, Mama and Daddy didn’t want us caught at it either.
They weren’t opposed to us playing, we just couldn’t do it in view of passersby with the possibility of being the topic of conversation around someone’s dinner table that night. We had to maintain a certain appearance you know – especially since we were the preacher’s kids and were often held to a higher standard than the neighborhood kids.
One day my sister and I headed out to the front steps to play a friendly game of poker. We were quickly told that we could play in the back yard or in the house where no one could see us. I didn’t see a problem, nor did I think it was anyone’s business. Some folks even frowned on solitaire or pinocle or rummy.
Our poker playing was quite harmless. After all, we used candy corn for poker chips. If someone happened by, we could easily destroy the evidence by ingesting the sweet nuggets. Surely using candy corn ante couldn’t be considered gambling. Well, I guess it was quite a gamble for the winner who took the ante pot that had been handled by everyone at the table. You can bet that made the win not quite so sweet.
