Grasshoppers

I know that grasshoppers are not good for the crops but they are great fish bait.  We would catch a couple dozen and head for the creek, Beaver Creek.

I don't remember how often we got to go fishing but it seemed like we got to go plenty of times and it was especially convenient as the creek was just a few hundred yards behind the house.  Fishing is like anything you need to prepare to be successful.  We had two primary baits, worms and grasshoppers but on occasion we would take a seine and catch some minnows, shiners is what we called them.  Grasshoppers were pretty good for catching bass so we concentrated on grasshoppers most of the time.  Dad made it easier by making a special tool for catching grasshoppers.  Basically it was a pole about 10 feet long with a small net made of metal screen like you would get out of a screen porch door.  Come to think of it most of you have never seen a screen porch door.

Just about everyone had two doors at every entrance one of which would be a screen door with a regular door in front of it if you are standing on the inside of the house.  If that makes no sense to you then you had better call for some country logic.  It allowed the air to flow through the house and not let in the bugs.  You see we left all the windows and doors open and covered them with screens so the air could flow through the house and keep it cool or at least cooler than being outside in the sun.  Screen doors were automatically closed by a spring attached to the frame and the door.  When you would go through it in a hurry it would POP really loud and hopefully you would not experience the scorn of Mom for slamming the door so loudly.  For whatever reason I remember the back screen door was painted green.  It was really a shame but after a number of years we replaced all the screens with what we called storm doors and windows which were partially glass and screen but the screen could be closed to help stop air flow and make the house more comfortable in the winter.  The new screen doors stopped the slamming as they had an air filled cylinder to stop the slamming effect and allow the door to close slower.  Some day I will tell you the story about sticking my hand through the door and just about cutting my finger off.

Back to grasshoppers.  Some folks don't like how grasshoppers jump around and kind of stick to you and I will admit they are a little scary sometimes but the cool thing is they have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies unlike humans who have their skeletons on the inside.  Just take a look and you will see what I mean.  Anyway when you bait a hook with a grasshopper bass go crazy and it makes for good fishing and my favorite part CATCHING.  The truth is I don't really like to fish as much as I like to catch.

Now one more thing about grasshoppers that you may not know.  Some folks like to eat them but I am not one of them.  Uncle Snyd as you may recall was a WWII veteran and was a prisoner of war and in fact in the Death March in the Philippines.  One of the stories he told me was how they would catch grasshoppers to get protein and nourishment as the Japanese tried to starve them to death.  The worst part of being a prisoner was not the death march but the slave labor camp they took him to in northern China where the nights were freezing cold and many of his friends died from starvation and cruelty from the Japanese.  I just found it amazing to hear Uncle Snyd tell about catching grasshoppers and bugs to get protein to avoid getting beriberi.

I don't know why my sister, Debbie, didn't like to fish as much as I did but Larry, my brother, has never stopped fishing.  In fact he has been teaching and mentoring my family on the art of fishing even today.  He even emails the grand niece of Debbie as they are fishing buddies.  My oldest son and Larry are now engaged in the art of fishing as well.  It is really cool to see Larry mentoring these young fishermen and fisherwomen (somehow that does not sound right).  Can't fishermen mean boys and girls?

Oh well, what do you learn in the Osage?

• Grasshoppers are not just pests
• Don't feel sorry for yourself, some folks have to eat grasshoppers to stay alive
• The definition of HOPE is fishing with grasshoppers
• planning is good for fishing and everything in life

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

1950 Grainola State Basketball Team

Now who knew about this one?  Grainola had what is considered the 39th best sports teams in Oklahoma!

this is not the 1950 team but it is a Grainola team

I have been trying to figure out who was on that team and would love to have a picture so help me if you can.  Here is my best guess at the players.

Deanie Fulsom (Jim and Clarissa's mom) (Heath)
Mildred Kelly - actually I don't know her maiden name
Wessene  Fulsom (Heath)
Joan Woods (Mildred's sister)
Clara Fay Fulsom (Deanie's sister)
???? Bartgis (June Johnston's sister or cousin, Dee Johnson's aunt (also Marvin and the twin's))
Lois Lane (my aunt and not sure if she was on this team)
The coach was ?  Hartman who later was head coach at Kansas State

From the top 100 sports teams in Oklahoma:

39. 1950 Grainola girls basketball: 34-2
Step aside, Hoosiers. No story beats this defunct Osage County school, which sported only 14 students; all nine girls played hoops and won Class B state title. Three months later, school closed for good.

Read more: http://centennial.newsok.com/topteams#ixzz1FOUfBpZM

send your answers and responses to:
The Pioneer Man
12501 Dutch Forest Place
Edmond, OK 73013
or gary@thepioneerman.com

It was not fair!

Growing up on the farm and ranch in the Osage was great but looking back there were a few things that were not fair.  In particular we never had a color TV or air conditioner or riding lawn mower and we had a huge lawn.  In fact you would have thought a weed eater (gasoline powered) would have been a great thing and in some ways it was and in some ways it was not.

You see until the gas powered weed eater we had the Gary powered Idiot Stick which is a tool that had a blade on both sides so it would cut both ways.  You would swing it as hard as you could at weeds and grass and it would cut them down fairly easily.  The problem was that you got tired, hot and sweaty doing this around all the barns (see list of barns from a few weeks back) and after a while you could not pick up your arms because they were so tired.  But being a farm boy you never stopped and you endured the pain.  I suppose today we could say our parents abused us and get some government relief which basically meant the weeds would not get cut on a timely basis and it would take four more people to do the job.  Yes, I am saying the government is not only not a help but inhibits productivity and resourcefulness and the entrepreneurship that comes from a person doing a job and finding a faster and better way of doing things.  More government NEVER helps productivity or creativeness.  Anyway with the advent of a weed eater not only could we do the same job faster but Dad figured we could do more since we had time to spare so now we not only did the barns but the driveway.  For you city folks that may sound like a small add but at our house that was ONE MILE from our house to Eddy's house (home of Vea Harris, Janis, David and Bob and Gordon).  YES, we weed-eated a mile of driveway but luckily Dad and Mom did not insist we do it weekly but once or twice a summer and maybe three times max.  I am not sure if they liked the neatness of the work or if they were creating work to keep us busy and out of trouble or out of their hair.

One side story about weed eating.  When Dad was 87 and two days before he went into the hospital for gall bladder surgery he was at my house at daylight for a cup of coffee.  That may not sound like a big deal except that he and Mom lived at Perkins and it was an hour to our house in western Edmond (The Pumpkin Patch or Clifford Farms as it was later known) and Dad would drive to Edmond and have breakfast at Around the Corner in downtown Edmond and then be at our house close to daylight ready to do something.  Dad use to say, "let's do something even if it is wrong".  Anyway this day he said he was going to weed eat the driveway which was about 1/2 mile long and I told him I would get put in jail if they saw an 87 year old man weed eating my driveway.  He just stuck his tongue out at me and went to work after drinking his coffee.

Well here is the strange thing relative to the title of this story, Dad and Mom moved to Perkins, Oklahoma when Dad was about 61 years old so he could be a rural mail carrier full time and gain a retirement package.  They moved from Grainola and started a new life when Dad was 61 but the funny thing was Mom and Dad decided to purchase a TV and appliance store in Perkins and start selling color TVs and air conditioners and they even purchased a riding lawn mower.  We NEVER had any of these things when I was growing up in the Osage.  NOT FAIR.  Actually I am very proud that at that age they were very willing to start something new and go on a new adventure in life.

My folks made me proud.  Oh sure they made mistakes and everything was not easy but that sense of adventure and courage resonates with me.  Life is not about how much money we made or how popular we are with friends but it is what you leave behind that lasts for a long time which makes a positive difference.  They were pioneers in every aspect and they were free to take chances and free to fail.  They did not depend on the government to pay for their mistakes (Detroit bankruptcy, General Motors or AIG) but they depended on their own actions and best efforts to make it work.  I am so very thankful for a great example from my parents.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• the government does not give you opportunity but you create your own
• you will always feel better about yourself and your country when you work like everything depends on you and you take care of your country, not your country take care of you
• creative entrepreneurship comes from FREEDOM not dependency on government programs or regulations, LET FREEDOM RING

Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com

My brother ran over me with the pickup, true story, but all my stories are true.

Not too many people can say their brother ran over them with a pickup and are still friends but my brother sure did and I can prove it.  Of course this story is like most things, you should ask a few questions before jumping to conclusions and the facts might change your thinking just a little.

I was probably about 10 or 12 years old and Larry and I were hauling corn from one of the barns to feed the hogs.  Like most farmers we had several barns around for different things.

Quanset on the left and the old house on the right

• There was the hay barn for storing hay from the weather and it is the barn where I shot wasp nests and it is where the feeders were for the cattle to come in out of the weather and eat hay and feed.  
• Then there was the milk barn where we milked the cows and stored the milk in the large coolers.
• There was the corn bin / barn where we stored corn for the hogs.
• There was the cake barn where we stored the cattle cake in gunny sacks to feed the cattle in the winter. 
• Everyone had a chicken barn and we had two for many years until we tore one down that was just north of the house.  I bet Dee Johnson did not know that.
• There was a garage and work barn south and west of the house not too far from where the fuel tanks were.
• The Quonset was a metal barn that was the shape of a half moon with one side cut off and doors all along the front.  It is the one where Debbie drove the tractor through the barn.
• We had a barn where we stored the tractor and it was right next to the garden and on the east side of it is where we grew the rhubarb.
• A couple hundred yards east of that barn was the show barn.  That is where we raised the show calves.  Show calves means for show at livestock shows.
• The sheep barn is where we kept the sheep for show and those had their own pin where we also kept the ewes and raised the babies.
• Most folks had a hog barn and we of course had one and it was short in height but long so that there were several pins for the sows (mother hog) to have their litter (baby pigs).

I think that pretty well covers the barns but I might have missed one.  Well there was one but it was before me and it was an outhouse which went away when indoor plumbing came in.  I never got that privilege.   One I forgot, the club house which was kind of a barn but it was built just for cub scouts and it was north of the house where the old garden was and across the big ditch north of the house.

Now back to getting run over.  Larry was backing up the flat bed pickup and I thought he was done so I started to jump into the barn to save time and get to work.  MISTAKE!  I got crushed between the barn and the pickup just above the knee about 5 inches.  Larry hurriedly moved the pickup away and I of course fell to the ground.  I don't remember going to the hospital but I can tell you today I have about an 8 inch dent in my right leg that reminds me of that day.  Larry was worried sick and ran to get Mom as Dad was working somewhere else.  The good thing is I got to take the day off from work and the bad thing is I hurt for a while.  It is strange how something like that leaves this giant mark on my leg which cannot be easily seen but if you put your hand on my leg you can feel this big indention on my leg.  The only thing I can remember about that event is how much my brother cared for me and just laying on the ground hurting.  I don't remember crying but just hurting really bad.  It really makes a good story when I just tell folks that my brother ran over me and I lived.  

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• there is truth in about everything a person says but most of the time it is not the whole truth, so check the facts
• it is easier to go to work than to sit around and feel sorry for yourself and it is not worth getting run over

• if you are not sure your brother really likes you let him run over you and see how he reacts

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Gardening 101

I know that I started to write about this but got side tracked so forgive me or get over it.  It all depends if you are the sensitive type.

Anyway, Shouna's mom went to the store often but my Mom hardly ever went and there were many reasons:

• the store was at a minimum 14 miles away in Shidler and even when there was one in Grainola it was 4 miles away and gas was 11 cents a gallon, pretty expensive gasoline.
• we grew a huge garden -  we raised green beans, corn, radishes (I dislike those red radishes almost as much as I dislike celery), white radishes (also a bad choice), tomatoes to die for, potatoes, rhubarb, carrots, cucumbers (we did not raise pickles even though David from New York thought we would), cantaloupe, watermelon (not too many), squash (yellow mostly)
• we would go to Ark City (Arkansas City, KS for you non-locals) each year and purchase peaches, strawberries, apricots (Mom made the best apricot cobbler ever)  and apples to put up for the winter plus some extra Mom made pies during the canning experience.  
• we raised our own meat - pork from hogs, chickens, beef, an occasional mutton (lamb) and sometimes we would have meat from hunting quail, squirrel and rabbits with a good supply of fish which came from the creek and ponds.
• milk and butter from the barn, not the store and it was whole milk less the cream we used for butter or other things Mom dished up like HOME MADE ICE CREAM
• Chickens provided meat but we also got our eggs from the chicken house and we could trade eggs at the grocery store for other staples (staples are NOT those little wire things you put  in paper to later on jam up your scanner but it is the basics of cooking for a household like flower, salt, pepper, etc..)
• There was too much to do to spend your time going to the store.
• It was a waste of time and money and NOT good for the environment to go to the store everyday when you lived out like we did.  I threw out the liberal environmental thought just to make you choke.  We really did not think about those things much back then but there is a balance of taking care of God's creation and doing the right thing like not throwing trash out for someone else to have to pick up or look at.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• Commitment vs. involved - a chicken is involved when it provides its eggs for the house but is committed when it provides meat
• We can save a lot of money if we plan our meals and raise our vegetables and our fruit and we can save a little on the environment by not needing another plastic bag or trip to the store.

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Gardening 101 or maybe the trash dump!

This morning I was asking my wife, Shouna, how often her mother went to the store when growing up.  They lived in a small town, El Reno, Oklahoma, where the store was about 1 mile from their house so they went often and in fact Shouna said her mom did not make a grocery list because it was so convenient.  But at our house it was a big deal to go to the grocery store, Dehl's Foodliner, in Shidler which was 12 miles South of Grainola and we lived 4 miles from Grainola.  Small point but we could cut two miles off the trip by taking a gravel road by the Custer's house and it was only 14 miles total one way with four miles of gravel roads to the grocery store.  That was a mouthful.

In Grainola Ruby's Store was about 12 feet wide and 40 or 50 feet long but it had a garage attached for tire repair or oil changes or anything else that was needed.  Goldie's was a big store and it was probably 40 feet by 60 feet, just guessing as it could have been 60 by 80, with an area in the back where Goldie made coffee and breakfast with tables for talking and eating at.  This area was especially cool because it had a pot bellied stove that burned coal and warmed the store and all the farmers would wind up there on bad weather days for a short break.  The reason it was always a short break is when the weather is bad farmers do not get a day off but rather that is the day they fix things (repair equipment for you city folk).  If you ever thought there was nothing to do you were not thinking.  There were times when we even cleaned the junk piles and swept the dirt floors in the barns.  I even remember cleaning up the trash dump.  One last thing about Goldie's store, it had a wooden porch not cement and it was covered with benches on the front porch and it had an out-house if you needed to go to the restroom.

Now that I think about it I bet no one even thought about what you do with trash in the country.  So for an excursion from the title of this story here is what we did with trash.  First off we did not have  near as much trash because we recycled as much as possible.  We had milk bottles made of glass and the milk came from the MILK BARN which was where we milked the cows.  After we stopped having a dairy we had one old cow named Jersey that lived about 18 years and she raised our family and friends plus 24 calves, two sets of twins and some grafted ones (adopted).  All our fruit and vegetables were put up (canned, see the old story) in Ball jars (glass).  We had NO plastic!  Now that I think about it if all the environmentalist would stop drinking water from a plastic bottle we might save the earth.  Left overs were either eaten at the next meal or fed to the dogs and cats or pigs or thrown into the garbage pile which was by the gas tanks in a dry creek bed.  On occasion we would burn everything and all the egg shells and plate scrapings the animals did not eat would essentially be composted or eaten by wild animals.  What a novel and new age kind of thinking? RECYCLING!  I guess it was some farmer who figured that out.  I guess we could put it all in plastic containers to sit along side the road for a big truck that burns hydrocarbons to come along to haul it to some land fill that is regulated by some environmentalist who can generate thousands of pieces of paper to comply with laws to protect the environment because we now recycle very little and we put everything in plastic bottles and bags that NEVER decompose while all the environmentalist drink out of plastic bottles which they throw away to  put in those plastic containers along side the road that are so pretty to look at.  Just a little tongue in cheek.  OK, I do know that in towns it is not so easy to get rid of the trash but in THE OLD DAYS folks had a 55 gallon drum in the backyard where they burned their trash.

Oh well, I guess I will write about Gardening 101 in another story.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• how to recycle
• how to take care of God's creation
• how to respect other people's rights
• everyone gets to have an opinion and mine is not the only one

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

What I valued most growing up

Occasionally I try to look back and see what was really important and I have found some revealing things that affect my life today.

What was most important and why?

• Mom's cooking - it was fantastic and it told me everyday how much she cared.  One of the fun things I enjoy is hearing her tell about Jon Tanny (Olsen) and Eddie (Harris) is how they loved to come to our house and eat her cookies.  She really enjoys telling about Jon Tanny and how much he liked her cookies but if you want to hear that story you have to call her.
• An occasional paddling on the butt taught me the difference between good decisions and bad.  Well, maybe they were not so occasional.  Janis Harris always thought Eddie and I deserved more but she was wrong.  Just like the time she complained to dad about Billy Snyder driving too fast.  She then told dad Billy was driving so fast she could not pass him.  Go figure?
• Debbie's watching over me (my sister) and always speaking up for me as she was older (still is).  It told me she cared and that she was proud of me.  She was and is special.  She also was a great cook.  I think she was almost like a twin sister to me.  I was always loved, still am.
• Larry Wayne (my brother) who took me hunting and fishing all the time even if it meant he was baby sitting me.  He was an example of discipline and doing the right thing.  I don't think he ever made a mistake.  At least I got in trouble more than he did.
• Dad and how he worked so hard and his play was work.  He enjoyed whatever he did but it was what most folks called work.  I think he would have done anything for Mom as he spoke of how great she was, often.  That taught me that she was important and his first priority.  He also bragged on what a good daughter Debbie was which taught me he noticed how we acted. 
• My folks taught me to work was a good thing and I should appreciate having a good job.  They taught me that depending on the government or someone else was not right and that I had a responsibility to take care of folks in need.  How do you build a desire in folks to do better with their life if you don't let them experience what happens when they don't?  
• My folks taught me Cheating is never rewarding if you know you cheated.  How can a person feel good about themselves if they know they did not work for what they got?   I suppose this is one of the hardest things for me to understand today when I see so much government handouts at the expense of those who pay the taxes.  In fact if a person wants to give money away to those who do not deserve it then they should donate their money to the government as a tax deduction and not try to donate mine as well.  
• Penalties - my folks and my community taught me that there is a penalty for doing bad like when I got arrested for making a dumb decision.  You will have to dig back through my blogs if you want to know that story.  Penalties can be temporary and short or they can be permanent and last a lifetime.  I told my kids when they were growing up that sometimes small bad decisions can change your life forever for positive or negative depending on what you do with your mistake. No matter which way you go there are still consequences.

Last but not least my family and many friends taught me, "If you help enough other folks get what they want out of life, you will have more than you ever dreamed".

Thanks for listening,

Gary@thepioneerman.com

Why did I go to college?

Today I was talking to a good friend, Melinda Olbert, and I told her they were re-roofing my house due to the storm damage.  Do I need to tell you there was storm damage in May in Oklahoma in 2013?  Anyway, Shouna was telling me she could not believe those guys were doing all this work during such hot weather.  I told her, "well I did it!".  Yes, when I was growing up in the Osage I re-roofed and roofed a house many a time starting before daylight and ending after daylight.  Those shingles are like soft butter in this heat and they gather heat so when it is 100 degrees out and the sun is blistering hot those shingles are so hot you can hardly handle them.  To make things worse nailing in those shingles you got tired swinging a hammer all day not counting the fact that your thumb was blood blistered from getting hit by myself multiple times.  I sweat like crazy in this weather but as I remember it was so hot that I could hardly drink enough water to sweat and you never needed to relieve yourself of the water because your body used it faster than you could get it in.

I really appreciated one summer when I helped re-roof Mr. Fulsom's house (Jimmy and Clarissa Heath's grandma and grandma, great folks who loved Christ) in Grainola and he told my dad that he wanted me to do all of his handyman work.  From then on Mr. Fulsom would call me instead of Dad and then usually I had to get Dad to help me.  Mr. Fulsom gave me encouragement and confidence.  Why don't you do that for someone today?

Melinda told me that working on the farm is what made her husband Mark (family is from Marlin near Ponca) go to college.  As I recall that is precisely what drove me to college plus the fact that every time I worked so hard Mom would say, " are you going to roof houses or are you going to college?".  Each time she would just change one word in that question to drive in the fact I needed to analyze my motivation on what I wanted to do and should I think about the alternative of going to college and being like Uncle Bill Heath who got to work at Conoco in the computer room where it was 68 degrees everyday all day long.

Kenny and Don Kelsey and me hauling hay 1969

So here is my list of why I went to college:

• roofing
• hauling hay
• digging ditches
• working cattle and getting kicked and slapped in the face by a tail covered with manure
• pulling calves
• raising chickens and cleaning the chicken house and snakes in the nests
• feeding cattle in the winter
• and the list goes on if you read my over 200 stories in this blog

Now, here is what I loved about the country and doing those things:

• getting up early in the morning and getting a good start on the day like roofing
• being outside to enjoy the air and sun and animals and nature and God's creation, hauling hay
• knowing about the soil and how it is layered up and what soil types are best for growing things, kinda like digging ditches
• knowing I was tough and could handle anything in spite of the nastiness of the effort, working cattle
• helping a life into the world and knowing what to do in an emergency, pulling calves or pigs or lambs
• eating fresh eggs and having fresh fried chicken, raising chickens
• enjoying the fresh air of winter and sledding in the snow and watching the wild animals and hunting, feeding cattle in winter
• being able to tell stories about the fact I did those things
• knowing the best folks in the world are those who work hard, play hard, do the right thing even when it is not easy 
• having folks I can depend on without having to even question it

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• go to college
• when the going gets tough the tough get going
• everyone should move to a small town and 

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com