Category: Guest Authors

a true story by my Guest Author, my Dad

Talk about excitement.  We had a new car, and we were going to town.  Going to town made our day.  Sometimes it made our month.  A trip to town in the early thirties meant a three hour drive over dusty roads, an overnight stay in a hotel, and eating in a restaurant.

The new car was a second hand Studebaker that Gib McFarland had tipped over.  That automobile was a speedster!  Story was that McFarland had driven FIFTY miles and hour.  Fortunately, he wasn’t going that fast when he ran in the ditch and tipped the automobile its side.  Daddy didn’t run into ditches, and, when he drove too fast, Mama would scream, “Bud, you’re doing thirty‑five!”

We hadn’t expected to go to town.  It was July, and we had already been to town in June.  The surprise trip came about because of the new hired man.

This new hand was a cowboy type who had worked on a neighboring ranch.  After branding time, he got laid off.  He came up to the sawmill for work to hold him over until haying season. The would be cowboy didn’t bring a horse with him, but we could tell that his heart was in riding and not in stacking lumber.  He was outfitted with a big hat, shiny spurs, and chaps.  He took his spurs off, but he kept the chaps on.  They were leather chaps with floppy legs.  He wore them every day, even on Sundays.  He wore them to breakfast.  He wore them to dinner.  He wore them to supper.  Maybe he slept in them.  Anyway he earned the name of “Chaps”.  (Pronounced, “SHAPS”).  If it wasn’t for him we’d have waited until August to go to Big Timber.

The hired man was a neat fellow with good teeth.  After every meal, Chaps picked his teeth.  He was polite and put his toothpick back in the holder when he was through with it.  The rest of the logging crew tried to get their toothpicks before the new man put his back.  Chaps combed his hair and brushed his teeth twice a day.  On the day we went to town, he came out of washroom with a toothbrush.  He held it up and said, “I’ve tried them all and like this one best.”

It was Daddy’s tooth brush.  My father turned to mother and said, “Niter, get a clean dress on, we’re going to town.”

my guest author is my dad

Some people smoke “roll your own cigarettes”. They get their tobacco out of a little cloth sack that says, “Bull Durham.” 

Why is it called that?  I don’t know.  

Ernest smokes ready made cigarettes.  They are named SPUDS. He smokes them because they have menthol in them, which helps the cough that he gets from smoking cigarettes. 

When I was about three years old I found a package of Ernest’s cigarettes. I coughed twice and decided to help my cough.

I put the cigarette in my mouth and went to the house to show my mother how big I was.  She took the cigarette away from me and told me that cigarettes would stunt my growth.

Did you know that? 

One time, two of our cousins came up with some girls from town.  The girls had a package of cigarettes, and we went out behind the barn to smoke them.  That night, when Daddy came home, he looked at me and said, “Your eyes are red. When you want to smoke another cigarette, just tell me, and I’ll get them for you. And remember, they will stunt your growth.”

It is serious business when your father tells you something and it’s already too late.

note from the bloggist:
I was told by my father that coffee that stunted my growth.
It’s a good thing I didn’t snitch cigarettes.

story by Guest Author, my dad

Yesterday (Saturday) I watched the tail end of the Kentucky Derby. I was pleased to see the super bred, expensive, racehorses beaten by the offspring of an $8,000 mare and a $2,500 stallion. It reminded me of the Melville Derby at rodeo time in the 1930’s when the work horse from Ma Franklin’s rake team beat the well promoted Thoroughbred and Standard Bred horses from the Melville area Dude Ranchers.

The area Dude Ranchers had invested in some well-blooded horses in order to beat one another in the annual rodeo races. Thoroughbred and Standard Bred horses were famed and trained to develop their racing ability. Mrs. Franklin’s horse was bred as a draft horse. He was a valuable worker on a hay ranch. He was trained to obey “Gettup and Whoa” when on the tongue of a wagon or hay rake. But his heart was in beating his teammate to the oat box at the barn. The farm hands trained him for that, but they were so impressed with his ability that, CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, they entered their Dark Horse in the Melville Derby. And he won going away.

Fortunately the rider got him turned at the end of the track and he headed back to the rodeo stands and not to the can of oats in a barn a mile and a half away.

My Guest Author today is my dad who tells a story from his childhood.

My Uncle Sparky thinks that a man is hidden inside the big horn on the speaker.  One day he blew a cloud of smoke into the speaker and the man coughed and choked. My uncle laughed and laughed.  Now, when the radio is turned on, he fills his pipe full of tobacco and sneaks over to the radio speaker and blows smoke into it. If the radio company finds out about that, they might send the sheriff out to get Uncle Sparky.

Uncle Sparky was handicapped in some ways, but he was entirely himself.  I learned about his other powers when he had a confrontation with the man who lived in our radio speaker.

The radio took up one end of the main room. The batteries – two dry cells and a six-volt car battery – sat beside the log wall. The 30X30 inch speaker horn commanded a position of importance overlooking the dining table. The main part of the radio sat on a shelf below the speaker. It had three numbered knobs which were used for tuning in KGHL, Billings or KOA, Denver. Sparky wasn’t worried about the knobs and gadgets on the radio – his problem was with the man who spoke from inside the loud speaker.

Every day the radio man gave incorrect weather reports and bad news. Every day he told about people being without work. He described them standing in long lines waiting for bread and soup. Even children were going hungry. When the loud speaker fellow talked, which seemed to be all the time, nobody could get a word in edgewise. Other people took turns. Not that fellow. All considered, I didn’t blame Uncle Sparky for glaring at the loud speaker.  Did the Son-of-a-gun inside the speaker pay any attention?  Not at all.

People don’t like being ignored. Sparky loaded his pipe with George Washington tobacco (which came in a blue can built like a picnic basket.) He  blew great clouds of smoke and shook his fist to vent his feelings. It didn’t do any good. The news report grew worse and the radio man kept talking.

There was just so much this fellow would take. He hobbled over to the radio and stammered, “Sh-shu-shut your du-du-durned mouth.”  He accented his words with a great puff of smoke blown into the speaker horn. The radio announcer gasped for breath and began to cough. The radio was silent. Then music began to play.

“Whoooooppeeeee!” Uncle Sparky shouted. He stomped his feet and grinned from ear to ear. “Th-th-that will l-learn you,” he said.

The next day there was a favorable weather forecast, and the news was better. Some people believed that this was on account of relief programs. I had a different opinion. I had seen the power of a giant wrapped up in a human body!

Sparky kept his pipe loaded in case the announcer backslid into some more bad news. When the evening news came on, we could see him lighting his pipe in a shadowy corner of the room. At times he would leap out and blow a billow of smoke into the loud speaker. No doubt, like a baseball pitcher throwing a ball to the first base to keep a runner from stealing second, Uncle Sparky kept the radio man under control. A fellow like that’s got to be appreciated!  

Too bad he’s not here to control the TV.

I remember when we got our first TV in the early ‘60’s from Guy & Cousin Carol when they moved to California and beyond. I thought we were rich! We got to watch westerns and Mama watched Lawrence Welk.

My Guest Author, my Daddy, remembers his first TV too.

In 1935 I became addicted to outdoor TV shows that we had in the mountains. The Sweet Grass Canyon TV was especially great to watch in July afternoons when the wind whispering in the big fir trees and bees buzzing in the flower garden made a better song than the radio. 

That radio was an indoor feature which spoke from a two-foot horn mounted on the log wall to the left of the kitchen cupboard. The Sweet Grass Canyon TV was outdoors, and it was free. It had top rated programs both day and night. The best place to watch it was from the grassy hillside back of the chicken house. There the hill flattened out to make a bed for deer, or cattle, or boys or girls. In the warm afternoon it became a green sofa where a child could lay down and view the Sweet Grass Canyon TV.

The adults in the log house near the foot of the hill had to be content with a static challenged radio while the children were watching the white puffy clouds become horses, or bears, or elephants, or houses and cathedrals. You never knew what you would see next. The programs changed continuously. 

If you thought that watching TV didn’t happen until the 1940’s, you could think again.  It had been set up ages before. It even had sound. Some days you could hear the echoes of a whisper saying, “This is very good.”