Many times, when I was young I time traveled daily\nwith my grandfather and his storytelling back to that prairie state of Kansas.\nSince he first gave me that office I do it now with no apology and with further\ndetails I could only guess at then. We were both transplanted to Oregon. He at\neighty years old and myself at nine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps my first memory of him though, was when I\nwas younger than three, I tried to swallow a whole chicken gizzard, which\nlodged somewhat sideways in my throat during a Sunday fried chicken dinner. My\nGrandfather, ignorant of the Heimlich maneuver, but innovative none the less:\nreached the three remaining fingers of his right hand into my young mouth in a\nmatter of fact way, while holding my squirming and about to turn blue body by\nthe nape of the neck and with his left hand, he pulled out the crispy southern\nfried portion of innards that had just about shut my own vital organs off, and\nI was alive. Squalling I suppose, but alive. I think I took to him then. I was\ntold that he\u2019d pretty much taken to me when he first heard they\u2019d named me\nafter him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did not homestead\nas his Grandfather had, during Bloody Kansas, but he was born in a sod house on\na homestead of Norwegians who had escaped from mid-19th Century poverty of the\nScandinavian ruling elite, and perhaps like the Irish a potato famine. His\nfather, an immigrant at nine, learned carpentry and built a wooden house on\nanother farm around 1884. He was my maternal grandfather, a second-generation\nNorwegian, had an English mother who happy in anglicizing the name Nygaard to\nThompson, forbade the children to speak Norwegian and loathed her in-laws\nspitting tobacco juice on the dirt floor of their first home on Grouse Creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ross, my grandfather\nwas the second son, and took to cowboy life as soon as he could. He worked for\na former Texas Ranger named Crump. He went on one cattle drive from Texas to\nAbilene and an expedition against small farmers who were putting up barbed wire\nfences and all this after, as a lad, he\u2019d seen prairie chickens fly up in such\nvast numbers as to block out the sun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He broke horses for a living, going on cattle\ndrives, working for men who had been Texas Rangers and knew the pedestrian\nfacts of the day from the fiction that had been the Old West. After my\nGrandmother died, he came to live with us in Oregon when he was eighty years\nold and in his first year as a widower. He was so indelibly a farmer somewhere\nin his soul from his Northern European genes that this indelibility had him\nseemingly poised to reap the fecundity of the earth all his life. I can still see his movements and mannerisms,\nthey can all come back easily, and I can remember how his whisker-bristled jaw\nwould roll rhythmically with its ever-present lump of Beechnut chewing tobacco\nstuffed into one side of a tanned cheek. He arrived on the small Oregon farm we\nlive on in 1960 in his cowboy boots and a tall grey Stetson hat that had a card\non the inside of the hat band that said, \u201cLike\nHell its yours put it Back!\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n I lived in Oregon with my aunt and uncle beamed in\nfrom Kansas from 1950 family dysfunction. When he came, because his wife of\nalmost sixty-years had died, the old man turned the twenty-two acres in less\nthan a year into a small farm that grew all of our food and turned a very\nmodest profit. A couple steers, a few\nsheep, chickens, and a huge garden were all in place before he\u2019d been there a\nyear. Before he came a my aunt and uncle had me in grade school twenty miles\naway where they had a small business they commuted to during the week. After\nhis arrival I had someone at home and began to take a bus to a rural school\ndistrict. Every afternoon I came home to find him somewhere, tinkering,\nfeeding, chewing tobacco and generally when he saw me outside, he\u2019d take off\nhis hat and cry \u201cOh Jimmy!\u201d in a sometimes-high creaky voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Summer days often were he and I and a Ford 9N\ntractor and the border collie on missions of fence building, garden tending,\nand work on the barn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He worked with the strength of a man younger than\nhis years and he worked every day. There was this afternoon that, through the\ninterlude of years, I can see him with his back bent through strands of barbed\nwire to hammer a metal staple into a cedar fence post. His motion was taking\nplace in a valley surrounded by mountains. Now living with his son, he had a\nfarm to tend again. He\u2019d lost his own farm thirty years earlier in the\ndepression. This, however, was Oregon; his home had been the Flint Hills of\nsoutheast Kansas. Often his mind, despite the west coast splendor, would go\nthere unashamedly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the wood resounded with an empty solidity from\na cedar fence post at the last stroke of the hammer fastening a staple to the\nfencepost and he began slowly to untangle himself from the barbed wire,\nremoving his sweat-stained straw hat and wiping his brow with the sleeve of his\nshirt, he spat a gob of brown saliva that slowly dripped from the wire now in\nits place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, Jimmy, bring the water jug,\u201d he rasped in a\nstrong voice that traveled a scale from a shrill attention-getting rift to a\nweary hoarseness. He then headed towards the shade of a tall cottonwood tree\nwith short sure steps from bowed legs which gave rhythm to the hammer dangling\nfrom his right hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ran to the tractor and retrieved from the\ntoolbox a wet cloth-wrapped Mason jar, which clinked with half-melted ice\ncubes. I put it under my arm and ran toward the tree with more energy than I\nhad been capable of all day now that the drudgery of fence-mending had ended.\nAs I raced up to him, throwing myself to the base of the trunk, he had just got\nto the tree and stopped in front of me. He dropped the hammer and stepped off\nto the west and relieved himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After surveying the horizon, with his head tilting\nback for a small upward glance to check the sun\u2019s position, he came back and\nslowly let himself down by clutching the bark of the tree and dropping to one\nknee. I looked at him over the Mason jar, from which I was already gulping\nlarge drafts of ice water. He smiled at me. Then taking one more mouthful, I\npassed him the jar and, as I swallowed, he took a small sip and placed the jar\nbetween us. There was light coming through the rustling leaves of the\ncottonwood tree and as he did, I saw how the landscape was reflected for an\ninstant in the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d he breathed, \u201cI got an idee <\/em>that’ll do \u2018er.\u201d His gaze came down\nto the fence that stretched across the field and disappeared over the hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLeast as well as needs be done,\u201d he added, then\npulled his hat down over his eyes and settled into the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My thoughts moved from the coolness of the water\nto all that I had missed while being detained by the chores of the day\u2014endless twelve-year-old imaginings: catching\nbullheads in the slough, skipping rocks on the river. After the trout quit biting the grasshoppers,\nI\u2019d float down riffles, or get the dog to dig out muskrat holes, or play with Junior\nJohnson in his fathers’ hay barn. Sometimes there would be a pickup baseball\ngame with Junior and the four Medina brothers up the road from our farm, but\ngenerally that only happened on Sundays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was a time,\u201d he began from beneath his hat,\n\u201cwhen there weren\u2019t no fences. When I\u2019s yer age back in Kansas, why, you could\nride miles an’ miles over the prairies an’ not see anybody all day. I seen <\/em>prairie chickens fly up in a\nflock that\u2019d block out the sun! Then came more people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He paused, laughing, straightened himself, pushed\nhis hat back from his forehead, reached into his back pocket for his package of\nBeechnut chewing tobacco, stuffed a big handful into his mouth, and I smelled\nthe acrid sweetness, of those black shiny shreds of tobacco being positioned\nwith his tongue as he continued in a muffled tone that let the juice begin to\nflow around his gums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, that changed everything,\u201d he held forth. \u201cPeople\nnever quite figured out the best way to control yer cows or yer horses was jest\nto let \u2018em have a big open prairie to run around in\u2014people\nain’t a hell of a lot different. When all the towns started to grow an\u2019 all the\nfences started separating all the land well, it was jest all beginning to\nchange when I\u2019s bout yer age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOnce, well, I couldn\u2019t have been much older than\nyou, a-riding into town to get some nails fer my Pa an\u2019 there\u2019s two fellers\ncome rid\u2019n up to me where the road forks back towards Cloverdale…\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Misplaced from my daydreams, I realized that he\nwas beginning a story, one which I had heard before and, though I would most\nassuredly hear it again, I became awake to his words. I listened to his stories\nas no one else would. Though, through the years, various sons-in-law would\ndoubt this one, it was filled with enough detail to be true as far as I was\nconcerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we sat in the heat of the afternoon, I moved\naround to face him squarely, and all the antecedent memories became, through\nhis eyes and words, my own eyes and words to cut through time, to fuel my\nimagination to reality. I could feel the\nundulation of the horse as it began, through its movement, to bring back a\ndusty Kansas road. By now I could hear the horse\u2019s hooves: to my right,\napproach two riders whose indistinct forms become a focus of attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHowdy,\u201d one of them says with a smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHowdy,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The taller one with the mustache wipes his nose\nwith his hand and pays no attention to me. I eye their handguns slung low and Winchesters\nrifles strapped to their saddles. The younger one with the dull face continues\nto smile as the motion and sound of the horse brings them abreast of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s a fine horse,\u201d says the one that\u2019s been\nsmiling at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThank you,\u201d I reply with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBill, ain’t this here a fine lookin\u2019 sorrel\nfilly?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYep,\u201d grunts Bill, not taking his eyes off the\ndistance down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, now my name\u2019s Bob and this here\u2019s Bill, and\nwhat might yer name be?\u201d Bob asks as he\nleans in his saddle toward me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRoss,\u201d I hear myself say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell now, Ross, where\u2019d a farmer boy like you\ncome by such a fine piece of hoss flesh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPa give ‘er to me,\u201d I blurt out defensively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy, my, such a fine filly,\u201d says Bob again as he\nslows his horse and rides around to the rear of me, looking at my horse all the\nwhile, and then, riding to the other\nside, placing me between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom back there,\u201d says Bob to Bill, \u201cthis filly\nreminds me a little of a woman I know.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill for the first time smiles not leaving his\nthousand-yard stare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou fellers going\u2019 to Burden?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYep,\u201d says Bill, who is now looking at me. \u201cHow\nfur is it from here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAbout a mile,\u201d I reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell now, Mr. Ross,\u201d Bob says, \u201chow\u2019d you like to\ntrade this filly of yers? I bet she kin run a fur piece and I’d make it worth\nyour while.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPa would take the buggy whip to me,\u201d I say\nuneasily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI \u2018spect he would,\u201d laughs Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pity,\u201d says Bob, shaking his head from\nside to side, \u201csuch a fine filly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n