The plane was
a C46 flying from Seattle, Washington to Cheyenne Wyoming, when
it crashed in the south-east corner of Franklin County near the
Utah border. The Beaver Mountain ski area was operating on this
day Jan. 12, 1953. There were 37 soldiers on their way home from
the Korean war on this ill-fated plane that plunged into the
pine covered snowy mountains of Idaho.
These
soldiers had survived the horrors of war and were returning to
the land they had fought for. Many if not all were from the
southern states of their country and expected to eventually land
in Jackson, South Carolina. Many families were waiting to greet
them on arrival, some hoped to celebrate a late Christmas with
their sons, fathers and relatives on their return home.
According to
the flight log the plane was three hundred pounds over weight,
but C 46 cargo planes are built for heavy loads, and were
considered the work horse of the air force at that time. The
last known contact was over Malad, Idaho as the plane flew at
app.13,000 ft. with its chartered course leading over Cheyenne,
Wyoming.
The plane
went down in a terrible winter snow storm trying to clear the
mountain tops of the Wasatch range. It sheared the tall red pine
trees (Douglas Fir) off near their tops and progressed lower and
lower until it slammed into a small rocky ridge in the bottom
of a dry creek bed. It did not burn. The bodies were scattered
over the ridge and down into the hollow on the other side. The
main portion of the plane’s fuselage with most of the soldiers
were piled in a heap in the bottom of the first draw.
The military
from Hill Field near Ogden, Utah set up a camp near by the
following days. The snow storm continued on for about a week and
completely buried the whole catastrophe. No snow machines of any
kind were available in 1953. They were still on paper, to become
popular a few years later. The military used a tank like all
terrain vehicle called a weasel. Guards were placed to watch the
snow covered site and were rotated every four hours to guard the
buried soldiers with all their baggage, money, souvenirs, and
personal items, under five or six feet of snow.
Ray Talbot
was the sheriff in Franklin County at the time and a good friend
of mine. We graduated from Preston High School in the same class
in 1943 and we both served in the military during the second
world war. Dad was one of the county commissioners at the time
of this event and Ray told them there was nothing they could do
at the crash site until the weather broke but wait. Nothing
could be done by the military without Ray’s approval in
Franklin, County.
Sometime in
late February the snow started to melt and some of the bodies
were exposed. The birds began picking at them, and the sheriff
was contacted to give the go ahead on starting to remove them
from the site. Ray invited my Dad to go with him up to the crash
site but Dad declined. I accepted the invitation out of
curiosity. An adventure like that doesn’t come very often in
Mink Creek, Idaho in the middle of the long winters we had
there.
We drove up
Logan Canyon in the sheriff’s car with Ray’s deputy, early one
morning in late February. All of the other roads through Willow
Flat and Franklin Basin were snowed in for the entire winter. We
climbed into the Weasel with a driver and an officer from Hill
Air Force base in Ogden, Utah. It was about a quarter of a mile
up a small creek to the crash site. I shall never forget what I
saw when we circled the several acres or so of the area on snow
shoes. There were frozen pieces of human beings scattered all
over the entire area. Legs, arms, backs and heads scattered all
over the ridge with broken parts of wings and tail sections of
the plane mixed in. Many of the torsos were black boys. Some had
been wearing painted field jackets with scenes of Korean
landscapes, they were grotesque, torn and blood splattered on
the white snow of that Idaho mountain. Others were wearing olive
drab clothes of the U.S. military half covering their naked
bodies and torn to shreds. A large tail section of the plane
was over the next small ridge and underneath it hung a pink bra
swinging in the wind. Apparently there was an air line
stewardess on board the ill-fated plane that day. The black
back of a man cut off at the neck and the knees was plainly
visible on the open hillside. We covered some of the exposed
limbs with snow to keep the magpies away.
It was a long
and tedious process for those trained in that type of work. Each
person’s personal belongings were collected into piles, and
taken to his nearest relative by military personnel. The people
trained in this kind of work seemed to know where every piece of
clothing belonged, each dollar, shoes, wallets and hats. They
knew where each soldier was sitting and whether he was asleep or
awake when they went down. It was obviously not their first
plane crash. They impressed me with their expertise in this
gruesome work .
The removal
of the bodies started immediately as the snow moved back and
March with warmer weather arrived. Some of the bodies did not
arrive home until late May and June. The clothing and blankets
and all that would burn were burned where the impact was the
most concentrated. All the parts of the plane were taken to Hill
Field except the small pieces that covered the area. These were
soon picked up by curious people as souvenirs the following
summers. The military personnel who guarded the site that
winter and protected their fallen comrades were guilty of a
different tragedy. They were later court-marshaled for pilfering
the bodies and wreckage of those they were guarding. The
temptation was too great, with money both coin and paper
scattered all over the site.
Though ice
and an unexplained decent into the snowy mountains of Idaho was
considered the cause of this Cargo 46 crash, some of the pieces
seem to be missing, in my opinion.
Half a
century later a stone marker marks the spot and is visited by
relatives during the summer months in loving memory of those men
who served their country in time of war, but died tragically on
their way home. Today the site is a thickly forested area like
most places in Idaho’s Wasatch Mountains but; if you look closer
the red pines are still standing with their tops broken off and
the scars in the stumps still remind us of this sad event.
On October 16, 1987 I
started out to hunt elk in Birch Creek Canyon. This Canyon is just east of
my old home in Mink Creek, Franklin County, Idaho. I had been hunting
there my whole life and knowing the rocks and canyons was like heaven to
me.
With much anticipation,
I left my trailer in a wide spot in the canyon road called Little Basin,
also known as Little Horse Shoe Basin. I walked up the north fork of the
Old Saw Mill site, where many years previous, according to Mothers
account, most of the lumber for the majority of the houses in Mink Creek
came from.
Turning west, I started
up an old washed out road toward Horse Basin, an area known to all who
have lived in this area. My Brother Rex told me horse basin was
called that because when colts were allowed on the range with the cattle,
you could always find them in Horse Basin at round up time.
It was cold and the
ground was white with frost. There was ice on the stream that crossed the
road, but the sky was a deep blue an crystal clear. Perhaps being
recently retired from my job of twenty years with J. R. Simplot Co. added
a certain charm to my feelings. I trudged up the trail with my 270
caliber Weatherby Rifle on my shoulder and some extra shells in my
pocket. My mind said, "What more could a man want in life than to be
newly retired and hunting elk in the forest and mountains I grew up
in"? I saw a lot of deer
tracks crossing the road and an occasional elk track. Once when I stopped
for a little rest, I saw where a porcupine had dragged his tail in the
frost across the trail too. When I reached the Horse Basin Pass the
sun was just coming over the Paris Pass as it is known, because it divides
the Birch Creek Canyon from the Paris Canyon in Bear Lake County.
There were several deer
in the Maples off to my right, but no antlers were visible in the early
morning light so I passed them by. Down by Horse Basin Spring there
were literally hundreds of robins feeding on Juniper and Mountain Ash
berries, apparently they were getting ready for the long flight south.
I proceeded west up a
steep rocky hillside which was interspersed with Mahogany, Maple and
Chaparral brush. The ledges and rocks of this mountain are
quartzite, the rubble lays in a jumbled and broken mass as it was left by
a receding glacier many years ago. After many stops, looks, and
rests, I reached an open pass right on the top of this mountain. I
had been here several times before, either hunting deer or searching for
cattle that we had overlooked during the fall roundup.
From this place you can
see all of Mink Creek, Preston, parts of Cache Valley, as well as the
Thatcher and Grace areas on a clear day like this was. I was in
heaven. Having not seen any elk and feeling like this was a good place to
spend a little time, I sat down on an outcropping of rock. It showed
signs of weathering from many years of wind, rain, and snow, and I thought
to myself, "If I were going to write a book, and if I even had the ability
to do so, I would call it Thoughts from a Mountain Top."
My older brother Basil
has written several books. One is called Dust from an Alkali Flat,
choosing a title would be easy for me to do on this day. I have read his
books many times and they have had a profound influence on my life,
especially on my thoughts about how my experiences would sound in book
format. Just maybe I should try to write something about my life
experiences.
This beautiful scenery
and fresh air was getting to me. The Blue Jays and Woodpeckers were
making a lot of noise in the Junipers and Mountain Mahogany trees.
I could smell the distinctive odor of them as well as the Chaparral brush
that was still wet from the morning frost. These are some of my favorite
smells, along with horse sweat and horse urine on a hot summer day!
Corn silage always had a good smell to me too, much to my wife Ramona's
dismay.
I sat there for a long
time, it was so beautiful, quiet, and peaceful. A line of Canadian
Geese flew across the sky just barely clearing the high mountain to the
side of me. A moment later, fourteen more almost blew me away right
there on this mountain top. My mind was so alert and I couldn't help
but reminisce about my life and the experiences that I have had.
I think the classes I
had taken in Archaeology at CSI were giving me a whole new perspective on
life. I felt as if I understood a little more about the earth and
the short time we have to live. One of the classes was in
Archaeology and the other in Anthropology. Yes W. E., my father, I
should have gone to college!
I have become an avid
Indian artifact collector of the desert dweller, researching mainly, the
Great Basin Shoshone who lived and hunted in this part of Idaho. I
am not a pot hunter. That is a disreputable vocation to
archeologists. I have however found a fine collection of stone tools
and enjoy showing them around Magic Valley.
I am always looking and
wondered at this time if I wasn't in the same place as some hunter had
been before me. Maybe a Paleo or a hunter from the Archaic period,
maybe a hundred or a thousand years ago. Perhaps a Shoshone man had made
medicine or sought divine guidance from the Great Spirit according to his
beliefs. I knew this was possible from my experience in other
places. I looked around and sure enough there were obsidian flakes
scattered about, but you had to look really close and brush away the
leaves and grass. This kind of rock is not native to these mountains
so it had to have been brought in. The manufacturing of tools and
weapons had taken place right under my feet on this Mountain top.
My mind was so alert
and my thinking was so clear that I thought about the first text book I
had just studied called Patterns in Pre-History. It was
taught by Professor Bob Spier, and traced mans descent from a lower form
of animal. He was a good teacher and had a keen knowledge of the
theories of Archeologists. He had spent many years digging, in all
parts of the world and interpreting the evidences he had helped find.
The first chapter dealt
with the first ape in the proposed human lineage to come down from the
trees. Australopithecine he was named, and from the illustration, no
one will ever make me believe that he was my progenitor. He
supposedly evolved over many millions of years and eventually became
bipedal, or standing on his two hind legs, so he could see over the tall
grass. In this way he searched for carrion, and other food sources,
and warily guarded against becoming a meal for larger predators.
Over millions of years,
according to this theory, he evolved into Neanderthal, and then Cro-Magnon
or Paelo man. Remains of which are found in Africa, Europe, Asia,
and even in North America. All of these and more are accepted as
being in the Homo Sapiens lineage. Myself having been born into an
LDS family, my mind was pretty much set on what Bob Spier called the
Creation Theory. I believed God had created everything, and
that man was his ultimate crowning achievement. Even in his own image.
I questioned Mr. Spier
and he answered as expected, that evolution is based solely on the
physical evidence we have. There is no written record documenting human
creation he stated. Well there is a written record. The Bob
Spiers of this world just don't believe it, and they don't believe it
because it doesn't mesh with their theories. As I pursued this line
of questioning he became quite disturbed and I backed off when I thought
my grade might be changed from an A to an F. This would be
embarrassing if the kids were to see the report card. I probably
could have altered it, I had some experience at this in my younger days.
You see I am the only one in the family without a Degree. I only
graduated from the school of hard knocks.
The Ice Age was another
thing of great interest to me. Because of extremely cold climatic
conditions in the northern portions of North America it became covered
with great sheets of ice, some of them were five miles thick. The
large amounts of water contained in these ice fields caused the ocean
levels to drop by as much as 400 feet below their present levels.
This happened several times, and rapid environmental changes occurred as
the ice ebbed and flowed. Arid California became forested, and a
land bridge 1000 miles wide appeared between Asia and North America. It
was called Beringia.
Thus according to
theory, the big game animals, the woolly elephant, saber toothed cat,
mastodon, horses, camels, and eventually man followed their food supply
and over many years populated North America. The early Paleo hunters
or ice age hunters, as they were called, followed the Mackenzie corridor.
This was an ice free valley that reaches from the Arctic Circle to Montana
and is theorized tp be a possible route for early man. Another is a
coastal route that lasted for many generations. Evidence collected
in Alaska, and along the possible routes, point to a migration period
starting 25,000 years ago. Tools were refined and new technologies
have been discovered during a later period called the Archaic period.
Stone was fashioned into weapons, tools, and milling utensils.
Obsidian was fashioned into arrow heads, knives, and spear points.
Reeds and grasses were woven into baskets and garments.
About 10,000 years ago,
Archaic man is believed to have split into three main groups named
Mogollon, Anasasi, and Ho Ho Kam. From these groups came the Plains
Culture, Eastern Woodland, and the Desert tribes. The Shoshone is
one of the desert cultural tribes and is related to the Comanche, Kiowa,
Ute, Piute, Goshute, and Aztec.
The climatic conditions
and their local environment strongly influenced the cultural development
of these tribes. Their houses, food, transportation, and clothing all
depended on the resources readily available to them. This group, or
groups, eventually separated and evolved into the many cultures which were
here when Columbus discovered America in 1492.
The fossilized bones of
these animals are found throughout North America. The tar pits in
Los Angeles are an excellent place to see all of these animals,
especially the Dyer Wolf, which was trapped in great numbers in the tar
pools as they fed on the other animals rendered helpless by the sticky
asphalt.
I found these theories
and ideas were interesting and exciting and not at all threatening to me.
It was so different from what I had been taught in Mink Creek. I often
went to the books written by LDS archaeologists, and scientists to try and
reconcile these ideas in my own mind. I see no conflict, if we can
agree that there is a lot of knowledge missing on both sides, religion and
archaeology concerning these matters. Religion and archaeology do
not agree within themselves.
The text book
explanation of the creation theory brought up more questions, and I
realized it really didn't matter if I did not agree with Mr. Spier.
This was my first year of retirement, and my future didn't depend on this
class or my grade. Much to my surprise, the Joseph Smith story was given a
paragraph in the text book. In the chapter on Migrations of
People to North America, it told how he had translated writings from
ancient records with the help of an angel. These records told of the
arrival of Israelites in ships which landed in Central America. The
idea of people coming from Palestine, Hebrews no less, was preposterous.
It took the whole next page to explain why this could not have happened.
As I studied this account I had the most wonderful feeling come over me,
peace filled my mind, and my heart swelled within my chest like it was
going to break. I recognized that witness, having felt it before.
This portion of this book was the truth and maybe the only portion.
In Burley, Idaho, when
I was taking this class. I laid down my pencil and told Ramona that I
couldn't be bothered with menial tasks because I had to study for my final
exam. She didn't think it was very important and said she thought I
would probable get a D anyway. I wanted a good score, because I knew
there would be comments a-plenty from my family. Kelly, our youngest
boy, would tease me severely, and the rest would soon know and dole out
their smart little remarks.
Out of the seven of us,
six are college graduates, and six have masters degrees. I lag slightly
behind in formal education, but feel I've earned Summa Cum Laude in the
school of hard knocks and was, after all, in the top ten of my class at
Mink Creek High (class size 11).
This Testimony of the
Prophet Joseph Smith and these thoughts came to me on this beautiful fall
day, while sitting high on a mountain top over looking my home town.
The place of my birth and of my early years. To my rambling mind
came the thoughts of the prophets of old, and even Christ himself.
They retired to an exceedingly high place to be inspired by God. Now
I am not putting myself in their class, but I wonder if we shouldn't do
this more often. I felt free from the cares and problems of every
day living, and felt closer to the Lord in that place on that day.
I had a good time that
day without hunting success. My mind was at peace concerning my
religion, archaeology and Joseph Smith. It all happened on that day
sitting on that hard rock on the top of a High Mountain.
Now if only a bull elk
would have been standing by the trailer when I returned to my trailer in
Little Basin!
In February of 2002 my cousin Dan L. Crane who lives a few
houses up the block told me he was married in 1952. My answer
was “really? So was I”. Dan asked, “What are you going to do
to celebrate this once in a lifetime event in your life?” My
answer was, “I would like to go to Alaska and cruise the inland
passage on a cruise ship.”
I am not too excited about a hand shaking, punch and cookie
celebration put on by my children and grand children. Some
people enjoy a party, watching their grand children perform and
spilling the punch on the recreation hall floor. That is not my
idea of a celebration.
Dan and I are not the run of the mill tight wads that our
children sometimes portray us to be. We are just a little
conservative with our meager funds that we have labored long and
hard for. My wife Ramona is much more liberal with our funds,
but she finds it quite difficult to be very extravagant with me
keeping the financial record on the computer.
I work directly under a very expensive accountant from Los
Angeles, my daughter, RoZann who works for Ernst and Young and
does the taxes and accounting for Warner Brothers studios.
In the latter part of February, Dan found a brochure on Alaskan
cruises that would cost $1500 apiece, if we would put some money
down at that time, for travel in July. This included air fare
from Boise, Idaho to Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada,
the point of embarkation. We would sail on the Holland American
line for a week and visit Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and many
interesting sights en route. We then would return to Vancouver
and the return trip to Boise.
We visited Rob Hamblen, an acquaintance we knew, an agent with
International Travel. Rob is a good agent and came up
with a package deal for us. We decided to go for it, providing
our wives did not activate their veto powers which they always
seem to have lurking in the dark recesses of their minds. We
had fifty years each of wedded bliss behind us now, so the risk
was not too great. “We can look into it if you want to.”
Ramona said, with her usual non enthusiasm about some of my
really good ideas.
The four of us left for
Boise
in Dan’s car on the fourth of July, 2002. Customs and airport inspections were a
pain every time we changed planes or crossed the border to
Canada.
We had to have our passports, picture identification, tickets,
transfers, and carryon bags in hand. The authorities in Seattle
took my money clip, which had a small knife blade for cleaning
your fingernails in it. I protested to no avail. I asked the
fat black women searching me, “Does my heavy black beard and
head turban give me away?” She gave me that “just another white
bigot I have to put up with” look.
The cruise ship we boarded was the M.S. Ryndam. It had twelve
decks and twelve hundred passengers, with a crew of two hundred.
The captain and other officers were Dutch, and the working
crews were Thaïs and Filipinos, as near as I could observe.
They also had a staff of professional entertainers. The captain
came on the intercom with a daily report of where we were and
things we should watch for like whales, porpoises, bears, and
bald eagles. The tugboats pulling barges loaded with logs,
several hundred yards behind them, were interesting to me.
Sawmills are big business, with water for transportation along
the coastal waters of this inland passage of Canada and Alaska.
We had outside rooms overlooking the lower promenade deck. Dan
and La Rae were one door aft on this the starboard side. From
our rooms we could see the beautiful scenery on the shore and
also the ocean going past at about twenty five knots. We had a
large window in our room with one way glass. Ramona loved it
but kept the curtains drawn; someone just might have telescopic
eyes and would see her without her make-up on.
People walked past all day long getting their exercise, three
laps around the deck to a mile. It was difficult for me to
watch both sides of the ship at the same time. I didn’t want to
miss anything. The scenery was spectacular. I loved every
minute of it. The pine, fir and hemlock covered snow capped
mountains coming down to the ocean was my kind of scenery.
We awoke the morning of the sixth in the harbor of the Capitol
City of Juneau. The Ryndam anchored at the wharf in downtown
Juneau, Alaska. It was about 100 feet from Main Street. There
are some automobiles in Juneau, but there are no roads going out
or coming in. Everything is brought in by ship. Car theft in
Juneau is not a lucrative business. It is a bit risky with no
place to go.
We took the bus tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. It followed the
beautiful coast line along pine covered mountains that reached
to the ocean. The quaint buildings of the old
Juneau
were clearly visible, but didn’t look much different than the
rest of the city. There were several salmon canneries along the
shore, with bald eagles waiting for some scraps to escape the
cans. There were also other scavengers like mergansers, horned
puffins and other ducks I could not identify.
The Mendenhall glacier is pushed down through the canyons in the
rock formations by 700 square miles of ice resting on the
mountain slopes and plateaus above them. Some of the ice is two
to three miles thick in places, the tour guide informed us.
Over eons of time, the ice has scraped its way along the rock
walls of these canyons until the water from them is like dirty
milk from the rock dust they make. The ice breaking off and
floating away is called calving. I failed to see the
resemblance of the cow and calf operation that I used to be
involved in. It is a spectacular sight to see. I felt like an
intruder into nature’s long process of creating these beautiful
vistas.
After returning to the ship and enjoying large amounts of every
kind of food and drink we could possibly desire, we toddled back
off the ship with picture identification cards and the Ryndam
card in hand. We rode a tram to the top of the mountain that
was almost straight up above the ship. There were bald eagles
and golden eagles perched in the pine trees along the cable trip
to the top.
The two cruise ships tied to the pilings at the wharf were like
miniature boats from this height. We must hurry though because
Dan and I must get back to the ship for more food, especially
those pastries before the nights live entertainment in the
theater. We preferred it over the slot machines, bingo,
auctions and shopping.
We came into
Skagway on the high tide during the
night. I walked around the promenade deck that morning as we
came up a long channel between the pine covered mountains of the
Tongass National Forest. I saw a killer whale (Orca), a sea
otter, and the blows of water from whales feeding on the krill
and small fish. I saw many other interesting things that are
hard to prove by my photographs. Doubtful people do not always
take my word for what is plainly visible on the photographs. I
am referring to son Kelly and his mother.
In Skagway we boarded a slow moving narrow gauge railroad car.
It was built in the late 1800’s and carries tourists to the top
of White Pass. This high mountain pass is where the miners, who
had to be crazy in my opinion, struggled with their heavy back
packs for the gold fields of
Alaska.
They, with all they owned on their over burdened mules, in the
heavy snow of winter, died along this trail. The skeletal
remains of 3000 men and animals who died here, trying to reach
Dawson City. The
Yukon River
would then carry them to the gold fields of the
Klondike.
It was a fun trip for us tourists, and the scenery was again
spectacular. The history, narrated by the always present tour
guide, made a three hour ride a lot of fun. He pointed out the
snow slides of previous winters where the trees were carried
away and the berry bushes took over. This, in turn, attracts
the black and brown bears to the berry patches. We did not see
any that day. Bridal Veil Falls, Dead Horse Gulch,
Inspiration Point and the famous Soapy Smith’s grave were other
points of interest along the way.
Ramona and La Rae needed to do a little shopping, to make their
day, so we stopped on the way back to the ship. Tourism has
tried to take over in these old mining towns, but the old
buildings and shops are still there. I think the short season
will make
Alaska
a great place to visit for many years to come. The climatic
conditions are something people cannot control.
We had to dress for dinner two nights with ties and jackets.
Our wives looked beautiful and the large dining room took on a
whole different atmosphere. The Thai waiters were busy cracking
lobster legs for those who do not know this fine art. At our
table were five couples and one single man. As Archie Bunker
would say, “Four regular white people, two Germans, and five
Canadians.”
They served that terrible tasting caviar to us who ate it,
because that is what prominent fancy people rave about. I tried
all the entrees that I did not recognize as real food, or could
not pronounce. Someone has to like it or they wouldn’t be
serving it. Dan and I usually tried at least three kinds of
dessert, the servings were delicious but rather “small.” I
think we came out pretty well on the food end in getting our
money’s worth. We had paid in advance for it you know!
On July 8th, after traveling all night, we came into Glacier Bay
just as the sun was coming up. The water was still and there
were porpoises, killer whales, humpbacked whales, otters, birds,
and ducks of all kinds in this inland bay. There were two brown
bears sighted on the shoreline searching for Carrion, but they
looked rather small, even through my telephoto camera lenses.
This bay is surrounded by high pine covered, snow-capped
mountains again on all sides. There was not a house, car, road,
or anything but beauty on all sides of the ship.
After several hours, we reached the head of this land locked arm
of water where two huge glaciers came down to the water’s edge.
They are known as the Marjory and Pacific glaciers. The one on
the starboard side was entirely black from the soil it had dug
up as it moved slowly down the valley. It was probably one
hundred feet high at the waters edge. The glacier on the port
side was at least five hundred feet high and talked to us with
squeaks and thunderous moans of the shifting ice. Tons of ice
calved or broke away and fell into the water. The ship was
maneuvered very close and then turned to the side far all to see
this spectacle. We stayed for an hour and took pictures of the
icebergs and wildlife that lived in this very secluded place.
The bald eagles soared above the rocky ledges waiting for the
water birds to venture out of the holes in the rocks where they
nested.
We stopped at the buffet on the way to our cabins for a short
snack. Our cabin boy had our room tidy and clean with clean
sheets on the bed, ice in the container, pop on the dresser, and
a reminder that the dining room would be open at six and eight,
but formal attire was not required. What decisions we had to
make, buffet or dining room. Should we eat at
6:00 or
8:00 and where? We must decide before the nightly performances
that coincided with the dining times!
After the performances at the theater each night, the house
keeper had the bed ready for sleeping with a foil wrapped
chocolate on our pillows and tomorrow’s itinerary under the
door.
It was tough sledding for the four Cranes in Alaska on those
days. We arrived in the old mining town of Ketchican next
morning. The whole town is two streets wide with short streets
running to a dead end up the mountains. The only flat place in
town was made from the dirt and rocks dug from the hillsides by
miners years ago. It is possible to drive to Ketchican from
Canada in an automobile.
We watched the lumberjack’s demonstration of sawing logs,
climbing poles, walking on logs in the water, and exhibiting
their skills with chain saws. The town tour in a double decked
bus was fun. We stopped at the
Saxman
Village with its Totem pole display and the carving shed of
totem poles. The natives of this beautiful land were the
Tlingit, Haida, Nootk, and Salish. We followed “The Married Man
Trail”, leading from the old part of town to
Crick Street,
(the Red Light District of old
Ketchikan).
The call girls out in front of Dolly’s house had dollar bills
protruding from their garters as they posed for the many
photographers, including us.
On the last evening on board, our table waiters and head waiter
sang happy anniversary to us as they surrounded our table and
presented us with a small chocolate cake. We had a great time
on this cruise. I personally enjoyed every minute of it. If at
all possible, I will make this same trip again in two years.
Our luggage was placed outside our cabin door before we retired
and was transferred to the plane in
Vancouver,
then to Seattle and Boise without incident. With our eating
habits entirely disrupted and after being pampered for a week by
cruise personnel, we stopped in Mountain Home, Idaho for a
hamburger and fries.
We came home
from our Alaska Cruise and were enjoying the life of retirement
for almost two weeks when our oldest grand daughter, Megan
Northrup, called from Provo. We were sure the celebration of
our golden wedding was all over for the next fifty years and had
no plans for the next fiftieth celebration.
There was a
write up in the Burley daily paper of our cruise with Dan and La
Rae Crane with a photo of the four of us standing by the ship.
The whole article was about the size of a postage stamp, so I
assumed our celebration of the year died at that point.
Damon Crane
Gene the oldest grandson flew into Twin Falls on August 8 to
spend a few days with us before entering the mission home. We
really enjoyed having him here, we even enjoyed listening to his
answer for all questions with “whatever” from a finally grown up
teenager. He had spent the past year at BYU and was on his way
to Taiwan. He needed to be in Provo on August 14th
for two months to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese, his grand
father’s native language.
Damon had a
good time playing in the water and jet skiing on the river with
the Gilbert and Lucy family. They are a great asset to us in
the entertainment field for all of our extended family. Tracy,
Gilbert and I gave Damon a lot of “really good advice” about how
to conduct himself in the mission field. I noticed he looked
off into the azure blue sky quite often while we were giving
it.!
The number
one son in the family, Tracy, along with wife Joni and family
from Windsor, Colorado, were vacationing in Utah and came up to
spend a few days in Idaho and see Damon before he left for
Taiwan. They arrived Sunday afternoon August 11th in two
vehicles, necessary for their split vacation.
Megan invited
us to Provo to attend her graduation exercises from the David M.
Kennedy Center for International Studies. She graduated Summa
Cum Laude in three years and gave the valedictory address. She
had made reservations in the Howard Johnson Hotel for us and her
whole family was coming from Napa, California to see her
graduate. RoZann was going to be there for education week at
the “Y” the following week and we could have a real family get
together. Little did we know what was really going on.
We took Damon
from his last day’s in the real world, with his luggage and left
Burley for Provo. We had a great time with the California
members of the family in the hotel, swimming, visiting, eating
out and enjoying Lisa, Dan, and the grand kids.
One day
Ramona and I visited Mapelton, Utah, where she taught school her
first year, after her graduation from Utah State. Things in
Mapelton had changed considerably. We could not even find the
school house where her teaching began.
We then drove
to Midway, Heber City and Park Valley but failed to find the
sheep herding area Dad Crane referred to at times. The summer
homes that stair cased up the mountain sides have completely
obliterated, and have ruined the sage brush valleys of Dad’s
days of the early nineteen hundreds.
On the 15th
we met RoZann at the SLC airport and spent the day around Temple
Square, ZCMI Mall, and the Legacy Theater. We saw the LDS
production of “The Testaments.” It was a great show and
we enjoyed it very much.
Education
week did not start for a few days so RoZann planned to go with
us to Burley for the week end and see her brothers. Thus we
said good bye with hugs and kisses for everyone, even those who
didn't like to be kissed. They all got zapped by Grandma and
Grandpa. Everything was going so smoothly.
While we were
staying in Provo, Joni had cleaned the whole house for Ramona,
changing the sheets and taken care of the laundry. Ramona was
surprised and pleased to say the least. Lucy had confiscated
our old photo albums for pictures while we were cruising the
In-Land Passage of Alaska. She and Joni created a “This is Your
Life” movie for the occasion. They also made an appointment at
the local photography studio for family pictures on Saturday.
We arrived in
Burley about five o’clock and stopped at Gilbert’s house so
RoZann could see her brothers and the grand kids. Lucy
suggested we hurry home and rest a little as they were inviting
us to a “little” picnic later that evening. I called Lucy later
and asked, ”What picnic area are we going too?” “Well, why
don’t you just meet us at the Pomerelle Ski Lodge at 7.00 p.m.
and we’ll go from there?” she answered.
We entered
the lodge and there was the “entire family” all smiling and
thinking, “For once we fooled Keith and Ramona.” The Dan and
Lisa Meikle family we had just kissed good bye in Provo as they
left for California! Kelly and Sara from Oregon, Tracy and
Joni, Gilbert and Lucy and RoZann who rode with us uttered not a
word. Talk about a cover up, they should all work for the
government. All of our grand children were there except Damon
who was now in the mission training center.
Thee cars
from California and Oregon, bearing out of state license plates
were all hid out in the pine trees, I discovered later in the
evening. We enjoyed a catered steak dinner with all the
trimmings and then watched the home movie Lucy and Joni had made
of our early years together. We looked so young even at 23 and
27 that I hardly recognized us. We had a great time with the
whole family together. I didn’t think it could happen.
I hid my face
and cried a little in one corner of the lodge when no one was
looking. What a wimp I have become in my old age. I used to
try to cry at some funerals and couldn’t. We were totally
overwhelmed and happy as they all loved us and greeted us. Hugs
from your grown up children takes on a whole different sensation
than regular hugs, I learned that evening. To have your grown
boys hug you is a tear jerker to say the least.
The following
day after many trials and attention antics by the photographer
with Mitchell, Briggs, Justin, Kelsey and Jessica the youngest
of our cute grand kids, we had a family photo taken. We
finished the day with a real family reunion in a shelter behind
Gilbert and Lucy’s house. The dinner was catered by Price’s
Cafe and the afternoon was spent at the “Crane Family” private
boat dock on the Snake River.
Ramona was
totally out of her element as she did not have to cook a thing,
or wash the dishes for either party. I loved it, no food to
carry in one door and dirty dishes out the other for me. The
next day everyone was on their way back to their own homes and
jobs and the surprise of our lifetime was over.
Bear and Deer in the South Fork of Dry Creek
It is a
long horse back ride from the Forest Boundary in Birch Creek
Canyon to what is known as the South Fork. There are
several ways to get there, but shortest way is up Graham Hollow
and then around a Forest Service built trail into the bottom of
the canyon. You have two options, you can either ride a
horse, or walk, and at certain times of the year, if you ride,
you will wish you had walked.
The
trail is rocky, narrow, steep and over grown with trees and
brush. This is just the lower end, where the terrain
slowly climbs to the head of Graham Hollow. There, a small
spring of cold water is piped into a watering trough for cattle,
thirsty cowboys, and hunters lucky enough to have made it this
far on the trail.
From
this point, the trail goes north around the steep side of the
mountain, over many small canyons that run straight up and
straight down, into the main Dry Creek that can be seen far
below. It is a sight to behold! The trail here gets
much worse. It's ledges and rock outcroppings could not be
cut through by the pick and shovel method of the trail
builders. If you shoot anything below the trail you are
pretty well out of luck as far as retrieving it is concerned.
Above
the trail, well you have a chance if you are crazy enough to
try, and we were. The trail enters the bottom of South Fork
after a long stretch of a perfect view of the other side of the
canyon, which is covered with Maples, scattered Pine and Aspen.
A hunters dream, to say the least. This mountain side
reaches clear to the Bear Lake County line and the very top and
backbone of the Mountain chain, known as the Wasatch Range of
the Rocky Mountains.
The
trail follows up the small meandering creek for at least a mile
and has been improved in recent years. Before my time, W.
E. told me it was a nightmare to get cattle in or out of this
canyon. He knew, he and another rancher, Lee Hansen,
Molly's Dad, spurred their horses into some heavy willows along
this stream and had to cut the willows down with their pocket
knives to get them out. The trail leaves the canyon at the
top of a long ridge that runs every direction. Here the
trail forks. One trail goes over the mountain to Dry Basin
and the High Line Trail, another goes back down the mountain to
Horse Basin, the third fork goes south to Cribb Spring and Paris
Spring and the German Dugway.
In my
early teens, Vaughan Larsen and I shot a nice buck deer where
the trail enters Dry Creek from Graham Hollow. In as much
as we already had two strapped to our saddles, we cleaned it out
good and left it in the bottom of one of the side canyons on a
skiff of early fallen snow. The next day, about noon, a
big black bear was feeding on this nice buck as we came back to
get it. Talk about Buck Fever, well we had Bear Fever and
we spent all day trying to get to even see that bear, without
success. We were so excited to get back home to tell our
story that we could hardly wait.
It was
then that I heard Dad relate some of his sheepherder stories
that put my experience to shame. Like the time Uncle Alf
was chased by a bear in this same place. It went like this:
Alf was walking down the trail after dark going back to the
sheep camp when he heard this woofing and heavy breathing coming
down the trail behind him. He knew it was a bear, but it
was too dark to see. It got closer and closer and finally
he climbed up a small Aspen tree and sat there till morning.
It was then he realized the sapling had bent over and he was
barely off the ground by a foot or two, and his big wooly sheep
dog was asleep near by.
Some
years later, when I had the job of salting the cattle, I made
the long ride into South Fork on old Denver with a pack horse
with four blocks of stock salt. I dropped one block off on
a small butte near the trail head, in the bottom of the canyon,
and continued on up the creek to make a loop out of the South
Fork and into the Cribb Spring and Horse Basin area. Old
Denver started to act weird. He did not want to go up the
trail, he snorted and blew and the pack horse was determined not
to go either. Then I heard a lot of noise and I saw
through the trees an Aspen really shaking and the leaves
falling. Branches were breaking like something big
had run up the trail. It seemed to be about as scared as
the horses were. I finally got the horses up to the
tree. Apparently the bear was up in the tree when we
startled it. That tree was covered with claw marks from
top to bottom, and the small branches were broken and laying all
over the ground. There were several wallows up the creek
where it looked like a pig had been wallowing. But I never
did see that bear!
My
brother Rex and I had a very successful deer hunt one fall in
the South Fork area, near the creek, where the trail turns east.
The whole other side of the mountain is visible and you are just
high enough to look down on the brush covered side hill.
It looks fairly open but once you get over there, believe me, it
is not open. The game are pretty well hidden unless you
take the time to rest the sweaty horses and sit on a rock for a
while. This day of all days we sat on the trail and shot
two bucks and possibly a third, across the canyon. After
much work and exhilaration of which most people do not
understand, we had them ready for the long haul home, lying in
the bottom of the canyon on a frozen ground strewn with broken
lime rock. It was at this point we made the best decision
of our lives. We decided to make one more little drive before we
loaded up and headed home.
We
started up a steep little draw that later became known as "the
trap", because of the predictability of where the deer would
run. Rex made his way up the ridge top, just out of sight,
and I followed just under the brow of the ridge. It was
steep and hard going. Rex with a five minute head start
came over that ridge just as I reached a ledge where I could go
no farther. At least thirty head of big mule deer came out
on the other side into a fairly open side hill. At that
moment the mountains rang with two 30-06's like the battle of
the Little Big Horn. The adrenalin kicked in and choosing which
was the bigger buck caused most of the confusion.
I had
no idea which one Rex was shooting at and ditto for him. "Oh
Glorious Moment." It was already dark when we left South Fork
that night, but what a day. We were so tired we could
hardly ride, but the horses knew the way home. We didn't
pack any deer out that night, we left two in the bottom and six
on the side hill. They were all bucks, we agreed to come
back in the morning, if W. E. would milk the cows.
The
next morning found eight of us mounted, with rifles, and tags
riding up Graham Hollow to get the previous days kill. We
had lots of neighbors who really didn't like to hunt but they
did like the venison for the winter meat supply. I recall
there were Tommy Jensen, Dwight and Faye Wilde, Delbert Keller,
Bill Bell, and Monte Larsen. About three inches of new
snow was on the ground, but the sun was shining, and the
prospect of filling all the tags look extremely good.!
The
trail was steep and slick. We had to walk both into the
bottom, and all the way home. We saw a few deer that day,
and some of the guys wanted to shoot; the deer were way to
small, and besides they were only allowed one deer apiece per
year! We didn't take any pictures, and Rex is gone, so
you'll just have to take my word for it. Scout's Honor!
You know that trap, that little ridge at the end of the Graham
Hollow trail, never failed to produce deer as long as we hunted
there.
Some
time later, in the late 1950's, in the same area, as we sat on
the trail across the canyon in that heavy brush, Rex spotted a
Black Bear eating Mountain Ash berries. Rex was a long way
down the slope from me when I heard one lone shot. I said,
" Oh no, not another buck to get off the mountain." It was
almost dark then. Rex was pretty excited when we got together,
and he said, "It was a huge black bear. I know I hit him
because he came right straight down the mountain toward me, into
the bottom of the stream bed."
Well he
was hit alright, blood in two trails on the snow for three or
four hundred yards off the hill was a sure sign that the 30-06
bullet had gone all the way through. He couldn't go far,
but it was dark, and I didn't think it was a good idea to go
looking at this time. In fact, I was all for getting out of
there, but Rex had bear fever. The Indian blood was
flowing in his veins, as Bill Oliverson used to say. The
younger but cooler head prevailed; and we rode the long ride
home, tired and wet and loving life.
The
next morning we were back. Orvid Christensen and Albert
Andersen were with us, and we excitedly picked up the bear
trail. There were still two trails of blood on the snow.
He could not be far. We hiked over one ridge, then
another, always ready for the unexpected. Finally we came
to a small spring, and there, the bear had spent the night lying
in a mud bath covered with thin ice. We had spooked him
some time after we entered the canyon, but the trail had no sign
of blood. We followed his tracks down into the main Dry
Creek. It was steep and rocky but a what a beautiful
stream of water. We were very near the head of Dry Creek.
What a place to be, and to see that clear stream as it flowed
down the rocky bottom of the stream bed.
No man
in his right mind would ever walk and ride that far to see such
a sight. We were at least seven are eight miles from the
nearest road and in the wildest country in the state. The
bear, that is not the name he was being called at this point,
had walked first up the creek and then down. His claw
prints were plainly visible on the rocks in the bottom of the
stream. Then he turned out on to the south slope of the
big mountain that goes over to the head of Mink Creek. Here
the snow had melted, and the bear tracks were not visible.
The hunt was over.
When I was
growing up in the small community of Mink Creek, in
Southeastern, Idaho, we never ever went to a Doctor. This
is unbelievable living now in the nineteen nineties, but it is a
fact. We practiced home medicine, at its greatest height and
form. Epsom Salts, and Castor Oil would cure anything.
They were both so nasty it made you sick to know you had to take
them. If your stomach ached, take salts, if your head ached take
castor oil, what a choice.
Mother usually had
salts on hand in large paper sacks. We used it for the sick cows
also. When a cow was constipated we gave her one pound of salt in
a quart of warm water. Did she ever fight us when she saw us coming
with that. The sickness was never as bad as the medicine.
I remember when Rex
would not open his mouth when mother came with the castor oil.
When Dad came in and got hold of him, it went down without a whimper.
I learned a valuable lesson along with Rex. When mother came with
that big tablespoon, full to the top with a cure-all just for you, close
your eyes and it will soon be over. From then on, my Brother Rex
was always telling me how you could disguise the taste if you were
smart. I fell for that bull at least twice that I remember.
I came down with the
mumps, and was not really looking forward to the inevitable, when Rex
told me to mix the castor oil with raspberry juice and you will never
know your taking any medicine at all. Well, under Mothers
supervision, I put the two ingredients in a small glass and tried to
drink them. Well, they would not mix, the oil floated on the top.
It all stuck to the top of my mouth and it was a lot worse than taking
it the old fashioned way.
The other method was
to take the salts with a large amount of peach juice, you will never
know your taking salts. “Bull!” All that did, was make more
of it. I was gagging on a tablespoon full, now I had a whole glass
full. Next advice from Rex; mix the castor oil with worm medicine,
it tastes like licorice. With "you will never know your taking
medicine ringing in my ears,” have you ever tasted kerosene with
licorice flavoring? It's worse than the castor oil!
Rex returned from a
mission in the Kentucky West Virginia area in nineteen forty one.
He was the apple of every girls eye in the surrounding area of Mink
Creek. Every girl from his age down, thought he was so handsome,
and a returned missionary besides. He was a handsome young man
with black curly hair and polished in his manners, with both old and
young. Even his blood cousins had a crush on him.
I was sixteen going
on twenty at the time and he gave me some advice that lasted through my
growing up years. I remember it well. The words were elaborate and
well placed and I remember them to this day. When you are out with
girls keep your zipper up or you will be sorry the rest of your life.
You will never be able to go on a mission, for those General Authorities
that interview, can look right through you if you lie to them. You
will carry it with you the rest of your life. It’s not worth it.
Rex became a
Pharmacist's Mate in the navy during the second World War and spent a
long time on the Island of New Caledonia, doing emergency work on
sailors. Among other duties, he patched up those who were wounded
while on leave celebrating time off.
I always felt kind of
sorry for those Swabs. They probably never knew they were taking
it! Or “This won’t hurt at all.” Rex is gone now, and I
still miss him, he was a good brother to me.
I think it was in
about 1934 when Dad took Rex, my older brother, and I to the Fat Stock
Show in Ogden, Utah. Dad had just finished fattening some Duroc
hogs, and they were ready to be sold.
This occasion
happened annually on our farm in Mink Creek, Idaho. Usually, we
sent them by truck to Ogden, and the truck driver brought a check
back. Mads Andersen, who owned the Black Smith shop at the end
of Birch Creek, was the trucker, but Henry Christensen and Sons had a
New International truck, and were anxious to make a little money with
it.
We left early in
the morning and it was a long way to Ogden. The truck probably
maxed at about 40 miles an hour, and Allen didn’t always operate at
maximum speed. There were plenty of interesting things to see
along the way. I was ten years old and my brother Rex fifteen.
This was probably the first time either one of us had been out of Mink
Creek and free of the night and morning cow milking chore. We
were excited to be embarking on this new adventure.
This had to have
been Mothers idea, that Dad take his boys on a sight seeing trip.
She and the girls were probably stuck with the cow milking chores.
We unloaded the hogs before dark. We walked on the board
sidewalks built on the fence dividers among the many corrals and
alleyways. I had no idea there were that many cattle, hogs,
sheep, mules, goats, and horses, in my whole life. To me the
corrals at the Ogden, Utah, stockyards were bulging with livestock.
It was an ordinary
day at the yards. Some of the companies that bought animals
there were Peck Brothers, Clay Company, and Producers Livestock
Company.
We had supper in
Ross and Jacks cafe. Their last name being Crane. They
were shirt tail relatives of Dads, and of course he looked them up
immediately to make their acquaintance. He also introduced them
to us, they didn’t seem very impressed but we were. The food was
good and was entirely different from Mother’s cooking. We had a
large bowl of soup, with little crackers that were new to me, and we
could have all of them we wanted. Allen put a couple of handfuls
in his pocket as we left. “You don’t get free things like that
in Mink Creek,” he remarked to Rex and I, so we took some too.
Twenty Fifth Street
was a wild and wooly place at that time. I could tell by the
way Dad and Allen were talking and looking in the store front windows
as we walked to the “Broom Hotel”. Things transpired on twenty
fifth street that we were to young to know about, or even heard of,
until some years later in life.
We spent all the
next day at the fat stock show and it was an eye popping experience
for us two country kids. With all the fat cattle, pigs, concessions,
hawkers, and Auctioneer's, we had a fine time. It was beyond my
wildest dreams that anything so entertaining existed like that. Those
fat cattle, pigs, and horses, were being washed, their flanks curled
and their tails brushed to perfection. None of our livestock
ever looked like that at home in our barn yard.
Dad let me buy a
white handled pocket knife which Rex assured me was genuine Pearl!
We visited with a farmer from Iowa who had a real fat Angus steer he
was showing. Allen said, “What on earth did you feed that animal to
get it so fat?” "Well", he replied, "mostly cattails and cheat
grass". But Allen thought it must have gotten a little more than
that! It was a black ANGUS and it was so fat they had to help it
stand up from it’s belly deep straw in it’s individual pen.
We also toured the
Swift Meat packing plant, another wonder of the world. I thought
to myself, "so that is where all those steers and my favorite little
pigs that Dad gave me eventually ended up." There were hundreds
of them hanging on hooks by their hind legs. They were shot with
a little 22 caliber gun, like ours at home, before they were attacked
with the butcher knives of four or five men in rubber suits.
A man gave Rex and
I each a little souvenir mirror made by a company that sold ear tags
for livestock marking. On the back, it had the picture of a mule
kicking and said, “Should I the tag not hold, and it should come to
pass just kick my ass”. I wonder whatever became of that
mirror?
We arrived home to
get back to the chores, much smarter and wiser and real world
travelers. I could hardly wait to tell my friends about my trip.
Show and tell would never be the same in school again.
Our
fishing poles consisted of a green flexible willow about six
feet long, however a Red Birch willow was really our choice.
They grew along the creek we were fishing in. Sometimes we
peeled them and made them quite permanent. In early spring, we
usually fished in Birch Creek, it ran in front of the house and
on up the Canyon. It had lots of fish in it, all the time,
but they were more active in the spring of the year. There
were a lot of spawners (large fish) that came up out of Mink
Creek as well as Bear River, mainly cutthroat and eastern brook
trout. Occasionally, we caught a real speckled
beauty, called Dolly Varden. They were just plain old
natives to us.
We also fished for
herring or white fish on Bear River in later years using maggots,
retrieved from cow manure in the pasture. Mother always made us feel
good when we came home with some fish, she cleaned them and cooked
them for a family meal. We always had to keep a lookout for the
Game Warden but that made it more interesting. We never
considered buying a fishing license. As Paul Hansen used to say
anyone can catch fish if they don't have to watch the road.
We never pre-dug
any worms or used anything but angle worms for bait on trout, we just
turned over a rock or board along the creek, under it there were
always some worms. When we finished and started to walk home, we
just wrapped the line around the very tip of the pole and broke it off
and put it in our pocket. We strung our catch on a forked willow
limb, inserted through the gills. They were easy to carry. The
next time we went fishing we cut another willow and we had a new
fishing pole. Those were the good old days of my youth.
I remember one time
when Russell Smout threw his string of fish clear out into a big old
thorn tree because he thought the pickup coming up the road was the
Game Warden. We had a hard time finding them again. The
driver of the pickup was his Brother, Felix. He stopped and asked if
we had caught any fish. Russell was so mad he wouldn't answer him. It
was not an easy task retrieving them out of the thorn tree again.
After the snow was
all melted, and Birch Creek was low, we would spend hours on our
knees, on those slick rocks catching fish with our hands. Under
Dads old wooden bridge, was an ideal place for hand fishing under the
rocks.
When we irrigated
the lower pasture, sometimes trout would be laying flopping out in the
grass. All the water that we used for irrigation and culinary came
out of a beautiful spring by George Bennett's place. It is a
beautiful spring coming out of the limestone formation there. It was
so cold and good. Sometimes you could find a bottle of beer there, or
a bottle of Old Mr Boston.
George kept a
pretty good watch on it because you never knew when his best friend
Willis Oliverson might stop by for a chat. Fishing on Mink Creek was
a lot different than on the smaller streams. We had to ride a horse
all the way up to the ball park. We didn't have enough time out
from the cow milking process to do that. The few times we did,
we used bull heads out of Birch Creek for bait, and were rewarded with
much larger fish.
George Glade,
Junius Larsen, Ezra Larsen, Leo Nelson, Harold Baird, and others were
the real fishermen in the town. They used split bamboo poles and
use automatic reels, hip boots and all the niceties offered at the
time. My Brother Rex could imitate George Glade with his fancy
fly rod using a birch willow pole and drying his angle worm over head
in a crazy manner.
Our first steel
poles were of the telescoping type, perfect for reaching through the
willows. They were considered expensive at three dollars each
with the hand crank reel. The inevitable followed, baskets,
tackle boxes, worm cans and such non essential items as licenses and
hip boots. Fishing was never the same after all this
paraphernalia came into our lives.
In the early
1990's we visited our son Kelly in south-central Wyoming. He was
doing a study of wild horses and their effect on the range habitat, on
what is called the Whiskey Peak Allotment in the Green Mountain Range.
This was for a master's degree in range resources.
The private land,
as well as the government land, was supporting a large number of wild and
feral horses. It was a two year study, and was sponsored in part by
the Sun Ranch in that part of Wyoming (another story).
Kelly practically
lived with the wild horses for the two year period, both winter and
summer. The old ranchers still refer to him as Wild Horse Kelly.
The Sun Ranch furnished him saddle horses to ride, and a line shack to
live in on their land. There were mountains, rolling hills, flat
desert, timber, sage brush flats, and many acres of the same, making up
the landscape.
We left our car
at a turn out on the highway near Jeffery City, Wyoming. Muddy Gap is a
town nearby, and has a service station and store. Kelly could get
communications from the outside world at the store and post office.
Ramona and I rode with him in a university pickup to take a look around
his new home. We drove for several miles up a gentle slope of rocky,
gravelly ground on a dirt road. It was mostly scrubby sage brush mixed
with a few juniper trees on the north slopes and many other types of
plants and grasses.
Kelly was telling
me all the scientific names for them and the different types preferred by
different animals. Off the road a mile or so, we saw a small band of
wild horses that were keeping a watchful eye on our progress. Finally
coming over a low ridge, I noticed a television antenna on the top of the
hill above us with the cable lying on the ground, looping from one sage
bush to the other. Down in the bottom of the draw was an old log
Cabin. It had withstood the blizzards and storms of many Wyoming
winters. Beside it stood a fairly new small trailer which was home sweet
home to Kelly for at least two years, or as long as the study would last.
As we got closer,
it looked like a movie set from a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood
movie. I could not believe what I was seeing. Kelly said, "It gets
better the closer we get." This portion of the three hundred and fifty
thousand acre Sun ranch had been purchased, by the Sun Ranch, many years
ago from a confirmed bachelor by the name of Bill Grieve who had passed on
to the happy hunting grounds. He was known as Whiskey Bill from
Whiskey Peak. He had lived here in this small log cabin most of his
life and was considered a little short of a full deck by some of the
surrounding cow hands. He had owned about 300 cows and probably
enjoyed his life style miles from any one or anything. He had a
barbed wire fence around the yard and a pole corral where Kelly had one of
the Sun Ranch's saddle horses at that time.
A small stream of
clear water ran past the corner of the corral. As we entered the
gate I noticed the fence for about one hundred feet was of a special
design. The posts were three inch pipe planted in concrete and were
spaced four or so feet apart and ten barbed wires high. The wires
were spaced about six inches apart, then welded to the pipe post and I
could not help but wonder what he was trying to keep in or out. When
Mr. Grieve stopped stretching the last wire he welded the stretching tool
to the gate post!!!
Their were
several other tools that had been used in the construction of this fence
also welded in the place of there last use, a crow bar, fencing pliers,
and a steel hammer of a peculiar make, never to be used again.
Nothing was going to get through that fence in that particular place.
When I looked
down the fence line several hundred feet, I could see the fence was only
three wires high as most fences are. We entered the old cabin at the
front door and stepped over the T. V. cable that also entered the front
door from the ground. There were pieces of old news papers laying
around. They had been used for the wall coverings from the nineteen
thirties and some were even older.
In the center of
this one room mansion was the remains of a modern water bed with a
ruptured mattress. It seems that Bill had taken a fancy to water
beds through a catalog and ordered one through the mail. Over
several years Bill had gotten a little heavy in the lower portion of his
body and discovered much to his anger he could not get up one morning.
Bill had sunken down in that mattress so far he could not get out.
After several desperate tries he reached over on the head board and
grabbed his hunting knife and stabbed the mattress. After the water
had all run out on the floor and then out the front door, no problem, he
climbed over the side board a bit wet but on his feet.
Bill irrigated
about forty acres of pasture on the other side of the house and corral
with a small stream of water coming from a spring high up on the mountain.
The pasture was divided into five small pastures for convenience in
working his cattle. He did not hire any help; he was the only cowboy
on this spread, he did it all. He branded, vaccinated, dehorned and
treated the sick cows and calves himself. Bill did not own a hand
shovel but, he had a D6 Caterpillar bulldozer tractor parked by the front
door for winter as well as summer use. It also substituted as a shovel as
he turned the irrigation water with it every day or so.
Bill had friends.
The ranchers in the area knew him well and invited him over to their
ranches on Christmas and Thanksgiving, but he did not have many close
friends. Once a year or even on occasion twice in the same year they
met at the local Split Rock Bar in Rawlins. Bill was a binge drinker
and the party usually lasted from four or five days to two weeks. He
sold a bunch of cattle in Omaha one fall and didn't come home for several
weeks. Upon his arrival, he only had six dollars left in his pocket
from the cattle sale.
Bill's brother
was the Mayor of Rawlins at one time, and he had a few problems with
brother Bill when he came to town. He said, "Whiskey effects Bill
like it does an Indian, it lasts a long time and at a fever pitch."
Several times the mayor had Bill put in jail as soon as he arrived in
town. Bill didn't mind the wait with free meals and the hospitality
of the law men.
On one occasion,
Rawlins' Mayor admitted him to the local hospital as soon as he entered
town for observation, and took all Bill's clothes home with him.
Bill called the town men's store and had them deliver a new complete set
of clothes, including a necktie to his hospital room. Dressed up in
his new apparel he drove to the Split Rock Bar and was hardly recognized
by his friends. They wanted to know what friend had died, or whose
funeral he was going to attend. Bill sat at the bar for many hours
buying drinks for himself and all others who were present. He liked to let
his change pile up on the bar in front of him. Then he threw it by the
handfuls on the floor. He laughed and said, "Look at those drunk
pigs scramble for my small change."
Bill's friends,
both male and female, knew he was a rancher with a spread someplace up in
the Muddy Gap area but none of them had ever been there. He had lots
of girl friends wherever he partied, but he had a special gal he had known
for several years. She was his constant companion when he was in
town for a couple of days or so. She was called Beaver Toothed Mary.
She was a little on the plump side with a beautiful smile. Her smile
had been enhanced recently with a little help from Bill. She had
wanted a diamond set in one of her front teeth for a long time.
Surely Mary was worth two thousand dollars for such a fine piece of dental
work. Bill gave her the money for the job. Now Mary always has
a bright sparkling smile to go with her pleasing personality.
Some years ago
Bill put a real fine porcelain toilet in the one corner of the bed room
and a wash basin with a small mirror beside it. It was still in fine
shape even when Ramona and I were there. It had a few throw-away
items in it but certainly no hard use. Bill all ready had a good
two-holer out by the back door that seem to fit his life style adequately.
Someday he would definitely pipe water to it, but it made the room look
so modern just sitting there. Bill Grieve is gone now, but those who knew
him still talk about him around the camp fire.
The Island of Honshu is
the largest of the Islands that make up the Japanese Empire. The
Atsugi Air Base is in the South Central part of the Island but not far
from the shore of Tokyo Bay. The country is made up of mountains and
covered with an extensive growth of trees mainly bamboo. From off
shore you cannot imagine where all of the population live, in this land of
our would-be-conquerors.
The cities of Japan
were pretty well leveled from the American bombing, especially Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. They were utterly destroyed. One smoke stack was
standing in the whole area of what was, weeks before, an industrial city.
The lower lying areas are very productive and they raise sweet potatoes,
many varieties of green vegetables and lots of rice. All of my
observations of course came following the Japanese surrender in 1945, and
they had been at war for many years. Maybe this was not a completely
accurate picture of the land but; as I saw it in 1946.
A closer look and there
were millions of houses lining the narrow road ways, winding in and around
the valleys and lower hills. The houses and shops were standing side
by side with the thatched roofs almost touching each other. The
countryside was made up of small towns running together with short
distances in between. Farming was very primitive, all the work was
done by hand, men and women and all the children worked together, with
heavy hoes and rakes.
Occasionally they would
be using a single horse or cow pulling some kind of implement that my
Grandfather would have thrown away fifty years ago. Sometimes a horse and
a cow were hitched together. What a combination, I could not believe
what I was seeing! Fertilizer came from their individual septic
tanks and it was called night soil. The fields reeked of human waste
and if you could read Japanese, bits and pieces of the daily newspaper
were scattered across the fields. They hauled this high smelling
fertilizer in large wooden buckets on two wheeled carts to and from the
fields pulled by a horse or cow. They dipped it out on to the plants
with large wooden dippers. These (honey bucket carts) as we called
them, indeed had the right of way on the narrow roads. We ran over
everything in our path except them.
I remember when we were
walking along a road near the air base one of these honey bucket carts
crossed the road in front of us. It was being pulled by one horse and one
old bony cow. As they crossed she let go with a green row of
reconstituted grass. I stopped and put some of it on my finger and
it smelled just like home !
The standard truck used
by the military was called a six by six. It rode high in the air and was
indeed powerful, it pulled with all ten of its wheels. The front
bumper extended out in front several feet and held a large powerful winch
in the center. We usually traveled in convoys, mainly for safety and
to help each other in case of any emergency. They had canvas tops
over the cabs and a thirty caliber carbine stood on the left side of the
seat.
Mine had Idaho in bold
letters painted across the front of the hood. Sometimes we traveled in
groups of ten and sometimes as many as one hundred. The roads and streets
could not begin to handle this kind of traffic. Both the weight and
size turned them into a mess of broken buildings and mud holes of major
proportions. We were the conquerors, and we did not spare the
destruction of homes and shops along the way. The first trucks in
the convoy might turn out around a house or shop but by number fifty are
sixty the house was a pile of broken boards. We took anything we wanted or
saw, and never thought about payment or personal feelings. It was
not right, but that is the way it was. Many of the military men had
reasons for this, I suppose; but I didn't. These people were not the
guilty ones anyway. S o all of the American soldiers were stereotyped as
the ruthless conquers of the mighty Japanese Empire that could never fall.
Well, it did fall and the common people suffered. The families, that
are always so easily led by their leaders, Politicians, Emperors, Kings,
or Dictators, pay the ultimate price. "Young men fighting old men's
wars," is a true observation.
During the summer
months, it gets really hot and humid in Japan. One of my jobs was to
haul ice from a little town called Fugisawa, right on the edge of the
ocean. The officers and enlisted men's clubs needed ice for their
beer. Consequently, three days a week, I would drive about fifty miles in
a two and one half ton truck to get a three hundred pound block of ice.
My orders were not to buy a block of ice but to go in that ice plant and
get some ice!
The factory personnel
gave me some weird looks before they bowed their heads and proceeded to
load a three hundred pound block on the truck. There was no way we
could use that much ice, so I shared some of it with a few very thankful
people on the way home. I enjoyed looking in the small shops that
started to spring up as time went on. They always wanted to pay for
the ice with silk scarves or cheap jewelry. I felt like someone
ought to treat these people like human beings for a change, and it paid
off in smiles and greetings on the following trips.
One summer afternoon a
group of officers, pilots, navigators, radar techs. etc. asked me if I
would drive them to another air field some distance away. They were going
to get together with some of their old buddies they had not seen since
Okinawa! I had been in the service long enough to know what getting
together meant. A big drunk, that is what it meant, with all the
trimmings! I felt a certain amount of pride to think they chose me to
break up their fights, hold their wallets, and get them home again, when
they were completely out of control, having all this fun.
We arrived at the
officers club in Tachakawa about nine o'clock and the party started to get
underway. I was not allowed in the club because I was not an officer
and that suited me OK. My officer pals would have none of that so,
they pinned a pair of captains bars on my shirt collar. They then
took me inside and as the night wore on they dared any SOB to take them
off me. I sat at the bar with them all night; but being the driver
and for other reasons, every round of drinks brought another coke.
You can only drink about five cokes in an evening and that is too many.
You see when a soldier gets drunk, he is always afraid of loosing his
wallet with his ID cards. The possibility of getting rolled (robbed)
for what little money he has left by some gal whom he did not pay for her
companionship to start with, is definitely a possibility.
It was about two
o'clock AM when we started for home. I gathered up the wallets and
put them under the seat, threw the coats and flight jackets in the back
and helped the worst ones into the back of the truck. What a sight,
the elite, the officers, the examples for the enlisted men to follow,
being taken care of by a poor dumb corporal. Before leaving the club
we all agreed that the 7th, Cavalry were a bunch of S.O.B.'s and that the
5th Air Force had definitely won the war with Japan !
In about twenty miles
all was not quiet in the back of that truck! "It's cold back here!
Where's my coat? Pete's puking on me! Tell that damn driver to slow
down! Next time let's go in an ambulance!" Riding in the back of a two
and one half ton truck with a steel bed, in the middle of the night, over
a dusty, dirty road, with a hangover, can't really add a lot to a party of
this kind. As we left the Tachakawa Air Base, one of the M.P.'s
checked my drivers permit and said, "Good luck, it looks like we all had a
wunnerful time." The very next day we got the bad news that the Colonel
of our base was lost and presumed down somewhere between Japan and the
Philippines. He was never found and the plane lost, apparently to
the bottom of the ocean.
Major May, became the
Big Wheel at Atsugi Air Base in south central Japan in 1946 and actually
had a big wheel painted on the tail of his A26 dive bomber. He came
to the motor pool one day and asked if he could get a truck driver to
deliver some "stuff" to some people up in the mountains south of Atsugi.
Of course he could, he was the base commander. He said it would take
a couple of days, maybe longer, to make the trip.
All the arrangements
would be made for the truck and drivers. They would have
authorization to get gas, food and whatever they might need at any of the
military bases along the way. Life had become pretty boring hauling
garbage and supplies from Yokohama at that time so. . . I knew better than
to volunteer, but I said I would go if they wanted me.
Truck drivers don't
make decisions, they obey orders. There seemed to be a little bit of "You
don't have to but." The Major all of a sudden seemed all too friendly
with these lowly enlisted men. We all agreed that two drivers should be
sent, mainly because we had no idea of our destination and the Motor
Sergeant was a little concerned about the whole thing. The base
Commander can get whatever he wants, after all, he gives out the ratings,
which translates to the pay check. So we loaded the truck with about
a ton of food supplies from the store house, approximately fifty cases of
beer, a case of Old Sunny Brook (booze) and a case of cigarette cartons
from the P.X.
A jeep with four
officers including Major May, preceded us out the gate and onto the main
road connecting all the main cities along the coast south. At a
certain town, we turned off, onto a dirt road, and traveled all the rest
of that day to an army base I had never seen before. We stayed there
that night and proceeded on the next morning. All day we traveled
over one mountain range after another. The roads were very narrow
and winding over hill and valley. At about dark, we came to a
tourist type Japanese Hotel where we stayed until morning.
The people whom we met
the next morning, down the road about twenty miles, were all tall, blonde,
blue-eyed Germans. Where in hell did they come from was the question
of the day for two truck drivers? This was a village of displaced
Germans, who were in Japan at the beginning of the war and did not want to
go home, or did not have that option. All the houses were of wood
construction and painted white. They did not look like Japanese
houses in any way. There were approximately thirty houses scattered
across this saddle or bench area well hidden from every one.
There were no trees,
only tall, dry grass, and the houses were nestled on at least five acres
each. Each house had a cultivated garden spot and all of them built
exactly the same, except one. It sat above all the others and that is
where we unloaded the "stuff" as it was called.
We were introduced to
the tall white haired man who lived there. I think he was at least
seventy years old and also to his blonde, blue-eyed wife of about thirty.
We had not seen anything other than short black haired people for over a
year. This probably enhanced her beauty by several degrees.
This house was elegantly furnished, in my opinion. The one thing
that attracted my attention were the large porcelain china plates that
adorned all of the walls in every room. Some of them were three or four
feet across. I didn't realize at the time but later found out, this
was a typical upper class European style home.
These people spoke only
German to any of us, so the old hand signal language was used. There
was a lot of hanky panky going on here that was kept very secret while we
the drivers were there. We unloaded the stuff at this house. My own
conclusions were that a real black market of military stuff was changing
hands here either for money or love or whatever. I never found out
the truth, in fact I never tried. We made it back to base in a
couple of days and found out the big day was about to arrive. A
processing date was set for some of us to return to the good old US of A.
