Spring is co

One year we had about 13 inches of snow and everyone was trapped except the mailman, my dad.  It always amazed me how Dad would always manage to get out to carry the mail in Grainola.  That year or day was next to impossible but Dad got out the old Alice Chalmers tractor.  It was a WD model as I recall with narrow front tires vs. spread front tires.  He took that tractor and cut a path to Vea Harris's house so he could get the pickup out and carry the mail.  Now you might be wondering why I say "carry the mail" vs. deliver the mail.  Truth is I don't know why except that Dad always said "carry the mail".  Anyway Cac Harrington who ran the road grader and Dad would coordinate clearing the roads and they worked as long as it took.   The funny thing is Cac and Dad went way beyond what was reasonable but they would check on everyone to make sure they were OK and if they needed something Dad and/or Cac would get it for them and deliver.

Dad had a sense of pride about everything he did and he wanted it done right and on time.  I think Cac was the same way about his roads.  You see almost 100% of the roads besides highway 18 to Shidler were made of gravel.  You should probably know that Cac and Sylvia were Harvey Harrington's parents.  Harvey became the barber in Tonkawa and passed away several years ago. Harvey was most noted for playing catcher on the baseball team and a pretty good one at that.


It is no wonder that during Christmas time an awful lot of those mailboxes were loaded with goodies for Dad.  It was really fun for us kids and I am sure Mom as well because we received lots of presents from neighbors because Dad was such a humble servant willing to deliver to the door if someone needed it.  He did not leave a notice at the door telling you to come to the post office.  In fact he would look for you in the barn or field to make sure a registered letter was delivered timely.

Thinking back about all this reminds me of Mom and Debbie as well.  They were and are two of the most servant folks I ever knew.  Debbie would clean an elderly persons house or fix food for them what seemed like every week.  Mom was one of those folks you could depend on to be at the hospital to stay all night with someone sick or dying even when they were not close friends.  I have to admit I never was quit the servant as any of these.   They are great examples but I just never followed in their footsteps.  OK, maybe a little.

Debbie is the consumat servant as she is always making candy or cookies or fixing something for somebody.  She makes and decorates cakes for weddings to parties for any occasion and overall she is just a giver.  Of course if she reads this she is going to get aggrivated as she does not like to get the attention which she justly deserves.  She is the best sister I have, go figure.

Oh well, what do you learn in the Osage?

• serving is a greater reward than being served, try it and you will like it
• doing things right for the right reason is reason enough
• You can say you love someone but when you take action like doing the dishes or planning the details of a date are worth far more than words.  I tried it and it works.

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

A little bit of history

I am setting here listening to and watching a film of an interview with Mom and Dad in 1999 at Christmas in Perkins, Oklahoma.  It is amazing what you learn if you sit down and listen and ask questions.  In summary before I start, what I am saying is you need to take the time to film and interview your folks before it is too late.  And yes Mom and Dad moved to Perkins after living in Grainola for most of 65 years.

Mom and Dad met when Mom was babysitting for Vea and Gordon Harris.  Just for fun that would be Bobby (Bob), David, Janis and Eddy.  Dad was working for Tanny Olsen but spent about a third of his time working at the ranch where Vea and Gordon lived.  Dad and Gordon were very close friends and since Mom worked there it was logical they would meet.  I would have to say that we have never gotten any details about this but Mom was 16 and dad was 27 or 28 when they got married.  Today that might be illegal but it was not back then.  In fact back then it was relatively common for a big age difference.  I will make the point that they had their first child, Larry Wayne, when Mom was 20.  Now I am not saying Larry was their favorite but I am saying ...... anyway.

Mom and Dad's first house was on Beaver Creek 1 mile north and three West about 2 feet south of the house that sits there today which Dad built and I helped (I was about 5 years old).  They purchased the farm and original house from the Almon family who moved to Washington State to work in the defense business.  When they bought the house they purchased the house and lland plus for $100 extra they got the furniture, harness for the horses and all the machinery to run the farm.  Dad said the dining table was a library table about 1 foot wide and 5 foot long.  Don't get wired up about 5 foot and not 5 feet.  Dad said it and I quoted it.  For a kitchen cabinet they took a dresser and turned it upside down, flipped the drawers over and had a kitchen cabinet until later on when they could afford something different.  A little history on that house is it was picked up and moved to Grainola where Mrs. Heath (postmaster of Grainola) made it into her house and the front porch became the Grainola Post Office (74639 or 73649 or 76349 as I recall).  It was funny in that we use to not have zip codes and everyone thought it was a big deal when we got zip codes.  When I lived in Holland during 1970 I use to mail letters to Mom and Dad and would address it:
Mom and Dad
Grainola, OK 74639
and everyone one of those letters got home.

Another important piece of trivia I learned from listening to those tapes is that Gordon Harris could drink a case of bear and not have to go pee.  Now that seems like a bit of trivia that I and you don't need to know but it bares the question, what was Dad doing?  and why would he need to know that?  As I began thinking about all the stories about Tanny Olsen liking a drink now and then I began to wonder how much my dad drank when he was young before he got married.  The one thing I do know is that Mom never let alcohol in the house except for one bottle that was for treating a cold.  That bottle lasted for years and I never did try it except when I had a cold.  Mom would put about a tablespoon in a cup of hot water and give to me to drink.  Burn, burn, burn - a ring of fire.  No wonder I was never interested in drinking.  I suppose I just don't need to know everything.

Also from that video I learned that Mom and Dad liked to dance.  They would go to Big Beaver or to Arkansas City, Kansas and they particularly liked Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.  Mom and Dad's best friend during part of that time was the base fiddle player and his wife.  Now for some reason I never can quite picture Mom and Dad dancing but they were young once.

Some of my most favorite stories are about when Dad, Tanny and a bunch of cowboys would go to Louisiana and round up steers and fill up a trainload of steers and heifers to bring to the Osage to fatten up and then on to Kansas City to market.  I absolutely cannot imagine riding horses through the swamps with all those snakes and alligators to get steers and heifers.

Well, what do you learn in the Osage?

• The whole story is not always told
• Some stories should never be told
• Some stories are not worth telling
• The truth can be lost over time

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Three big oak trees on Beaver Creek

When I was living on Beaver Creek, one mile north and three west of Grainola and one mile west of Eddie's house there were three of the biggest oak trees with the giant acorns on them every year across the creek from our house.  That was a mouthful.  Anyway, they were so big you could not get your arms around any one of those trees especially when I was young and growing.  Even when I was full grown at the ripe old age of 12 when I was 6 ft. 2 inches and 205 lbs I still could not put my arms around those trees.  Now I will tell you I am still 6'2" but the 205 lbs. has rounded over to 262.  In fact you might say I have the chest-of-drawers disease.  That is where your chest drops into your drawers.  Back to those trees:  I cannot tell you how many times I snuck away to lay under those trees to enjoy the thick green cool grass and breeze drifting through the leaves blocking the warm sun.  I can feel it now.  I took a few naps there and dreamed that I would build a house by those trees some day.

We had those giant red squirrels living in those oaks and during the winter there would be huge nests of leaves and sticks built by the squirrels to live in.  Larry and I hunted all up and down Beaver Creek for squirrels during the winter and in those trees especially.  We had Dad's old bolt action 20 gauge shotgun and I generally used a 410 gauge or a 22 rifle.  Larry and I would leave out of the house at daylight and walk for hours up and down Beaver Creek all the way from Chuck Kelley's to the Shumate's which is now David and Jan Harris to the McConaghy's at the old Beaver Creek bridge.   It really did not matter what the weather or distance was but as long as we got the chores done which included feeding the cattle and in winter chopping ice we were free to hunt.  Many of those times we would wind up hunting quail which was loads of fun.

On occasion Larry or I would shoot a squirrel and it would run to its nest which meant we could not retrieve the squirrel.  But Dad always had the answer, cut firewood.  That meant if we killed a squirrel we were not allowed to let it die and not retrieve it somehow.  Dad would instruct us to get the old Homelite chain saw running and spend the day cutting firewood to heat the house.  Actually I kind of liked cutting firewood and watching the tree fall.  In particular I liked taking the steel wedge and splitting that fresh green oak using the wedges and a sledge hammer.   At our house a sledge hammer was 16 ounces and most of the time it was a railroad sledge of 20 ounces.  Let me tell you it was not an easy task swinging a sledge hammer like that hitting the wedge just right and splitting those logs.  As Dad would say, "it will make a man out of you".  Dad always seemed to have a good eye for falling a tree.  He could make it drop in the perfect spot almost every time.  I should also tell you about that chain saw.  It was not like these cheap chain saws today made with plastic.  Everything about it said it was heavy.  It would vibrate your teeth and you sure better watch out for a kickback because it would take a leg or arm off quickly.

Once we got back home we had to clean those squirrels which was not an easy task.  Skinning a squirrel was hard work but Dad made us a special tool to make it easier.  It was a board that we could tie the legs to and hang on a nail at the barn just west of the house.  Just for you who have read my stories that is where I saved Denise Logue's life when she and I were about 5 years old.  There was a dirt devil coming and I told her it was a tornado and I took her to that barn for safety where she held my hand until she was safe.  I guess I was her hero from that day forward.  Anyway, once we got the squirrels cleaned and washed Mom would fry them with a little bit of Crisco and flour then she would make gravy with the grease.  Boy that was some good eat'n!  Gravy over home made mashed potatoes from the cellar and fried squirrel.  It just don't get any better than that.

Well I had better go.  So what do you learn in the Osage?

• It is your choice on what you make of your time and opportunities just like when you kill a squirrel and it dies in a nest you get to cut wood.
• If you stack up all the bad on the left side of a paper and then on the right side write down all the things you were able to do because of that bad you will find the good is better to live with
• I always wanted to be a hero

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Now I don't know about you but there are a few people who make a big difference in our lives that just never got a lot of recognition and certainly not a lot of money for their efforts.  Gladys Snyder was certainly one of those but I would also say she loved what she did and she did not sit around and grip about her situation.  I would consider Mrs. Snyder one of the greatest all time teachers, encourager's, patriots, and Shidlerites ever to darken the door of a high school or any school.  She had a passion for learning and teaching.  Every year and I do mean every year she would chose one topic and study it for a year.  

One year she studied bugs while taking classes at OSU on the subject.  Do I need to get sophisticated and call it entomology?    Another year she studied fossils and another was Oklahoma History then there was archeology and the list went on and on for somewhere over 50 years.  She was not much for TV or even the Beatles (not the bug) which Susie was crazy about.  Now that I think about it Susie was the same as her mother, she studied bugs.  

Mrs. Snyder (Aunt Gladys to me) was absolutely amazing.  She had the most active of minds and could remember everything.  There was not a bug or leaf of a tree or plant that she could not identify.  She had every National Geographic since I don't know when and she read every one of them.  One year she came out to the farm many times to catch bugs during the day and at night.  She had all kinds of nets and then Dad even made her a net of screen wire on the end of a very long pole so she could catch bugs.  I bet you she had hundreds of bugs that she preserved and put in giant cases with glass fronts and special pins to hold the bugs in position and then she named each one.  The challenge about all this stuff she learned is that she would then take it to dear old Shidler High School and expect us children to learn all this stuff.  It was actually very fun and interesting.  She brought education to life.  

I don't know of any awards that Aunt Gladys received for her dedication to learning and teaching but she gets my award for the best and greatest.  She gave of herself and she gave it with a positive spirit and a dedication like no other.  She rooted for the underdog and I suppose that is because she was raised without a lot of money (we call that poor) but she was never poor in spirit or drive or ambition or love for her students.  Could she yell at her students?  You bet!  She expected great behavior and she expected you to learn.  There was something very special about her that was hard to describe or understand and that was a special caring about certain people.  For me it was David Howell who was in my class.  Aunt Gladys always took a special liking to David and I think it was because David's mother had passed away at an early age and she saw something special about David.  She had an eye for people with a special liking of science or a special curiosity and David was one of those.  

Not to get too far off the subject but David was a really cool friend.  In the 8th grade he built his own club house, made a still and even brewed up some beer.  He would read all of his books for all his subjects the first week or so of each semester but then he would put them down and move onto reading everything he could get his hands on.  David could fix about anything and would help about everyone who needed help.  You know I guess I just idolized David.

Anyway, back to Aunt Gladys.  After moving away from Oklahoma for many years when I moved back and after we had our children we called her up and asked her about helping with some fossil hunting and rock hunting.  She was excited to go and she knew of about every place in Oklahoma to go and look for fossils and rocks.  I am not sure how old Aunt Gladys was when she passed but well into her retirement she was still learning and going and going like the ever-ready bunny.  Aunt Gladys collected and documented large volumes of information on each branch of the family going back generations.  She and Beth Shumate (3rd, 4th and 5th grade teacher of mine plus Sally and Janie's mom) traveled all over the United States visiting court houses and cemeteries digging old (a little bit of humor) archives of information about the family.  She traced our family back to John Wesley in England and one of our great (super-great) aunts who ran with Bell Star the outlaw to one woman in the family that was in the early 1900's who was the leader of Women's Rights in America.  One of the items that really surprised me was when Beth Shumate and her visited a commune and sat and asked questions and interviewed them about what they were doing and why they were doing it.  Aunt Gladys just was not intimidated by anything.  In fact I would say she was pretty intimidating at times.

Oh well, it is time to go back to work.  So what do you learn in the Osage?

• The measure of a person and their success is not how much money they make but what they make of their life.
• Leaning is something that never stops but should be embraced as a pleasure of living
• If you keep moving death will be slow to catch you

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com