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David & Gwen live near the Gheen Corners. They are the parents of five children.

David taught school in Cook for many years, he has constructed many rock fireplaces.

PLAYING FOR KEEPS

The play of words is a neat thing. So many different meanings are worked into our language. Meanings change over the years and not all people keep up with new ideas.

Think of what people do for a living. Some people work at jobs that keep things in order. The principal at a school keeps order by instilling a little fear into the teachers to keep them on task. When that person walks down the hall past the janitor, they both take an unconscious look at the floor of the hall to see if it’s clean. The teacher, who is the hall monitor, glances around to see if some student is running or monkeying around. The cooks in the lunchroom glance up to see if everything is near and clean. The principal gets a little nervous when the superintendent visits the school. They keep the school going. The teacher’s worst fear is getting criticized not keeping the kids quiet, or not staying on schedule or not getting the report cards done on time. There is pressure to keep the kids learning their lessons and passing their tests.

The car dealership people keep the cars coming into the lot and keep them neat. The back of the building is busy repairing the used cars that are traded in and the bookkeepers are taking care of the financial business.

The banker is keeping track of everyone’s money and making sure it is safe. Along with trying to keep up with government regulations and audits and still trying to pay people’s salaries who work there. It’s a business so the bank tries to keep making some money to make all the trouble and headaches worthwhile.

My son works on the high lines in the U.P. of Michigan and keeps the electrical power reliable. My son-in-law keeps the paper mill running in International Falls. I have a son who is a peace keeper on the range.

Another son-in-law is a forest ranger and keeps track of state land. For sure, most people are honest. What would keep people from cutting trees on so much state land? Some could get away with it, but you don’t hear much about theft of trees.

Just like our country, where everyone pays their own taxes. You don’t hear about tax collectors who have to extort money from common people. People just pay sales taxes, real estate taxes, and income taxes without too much protest. We do have the Internal Revenue auditors checking to keep everyone (most everyone) honest.

The farmers keep producing a surplus of food and the truck drivers keep delivering it to all the stores. The grain farmers keep producing a surplus of barley so they can make beer so cheap. They also produce a surplus of corn so we can make alcohol to burn in our cars. The dairy farmers keep making surplus milk. There is no way we can drink it all, so they keep making cheese so cheaply we can us it on pizza.

The loggers keep cutting trees so we can keep making cheap paper and cardboard. The trees keep falling down from old age and the acts of God. It’s either use it for lumber or paper or it keeps piling up and falling down and burning up when lightning strikes. Everything keeps going on an even keep until a “revolution” hits.

That’s when there is a sudden change. A turn around. It seems young people like change. Old people are conservative and seem to not like things changing. They understand the rhythm of life. Some have seen what sudden change can do to society.

When you study history, revolutions really can cause a lot of unexpected, unintentional, and unrewarding results. The Russian people were exploited by the Tsars and change was needed, but a lot of the people who led the fight lost their lives in the struggle for new power. The people who were downtrodden in France needed change but the people who brought down the French monarchy were themselves guillotined in a short time. When the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia took over power, they killed off the college professors and intellects and terrorized the land for years. You’ve heard of the “Killing Fields.”

When Castro threw out the capitalists of Cuba, he took over the American owned sugar plantation and refineries. The people weren’t getting paid a lot, but they aren’t much better off today. Russia still buys their sugar, but they don’t seem to be prospering.

It seems anyone who is receiving tax money for their services are the first ones who’s heads roll in a revolution.

I was a teacher and received tax money for my services. The people who work in all the public buildings are paid by tax money. In our town we have a state forestry office, a federal forestry building, and a county forestry office north of town. The post office is just about defunct because of UPS deliveries, and Email on computers. They are protesting to keep the small post offices open.

It seems about half of the people who work in our county, and in fact, the country, are paid by taxes.

State and county road crews, the welfare systems, the workers who keep government Medicare running, old pensions like social security, and veterans’ benefits are government funded. The police and sheriff dept. as well as the game wardens are paid with tax money. So, too, the armed services and the space and nuculear energy department, as well as the United Nations business.

When there is a revolution there is a blow up in the engine that keeps things running smoothly. When the corporations who keep the financial business of the mining, paper mills, food processors, oil refineries and gas companies, electric power companies and manufacturers of cars and parts, tractors, solar panels, windmills and other vital industries are interrupted, disaster can result.

Where will you be when some stupid person blows up our power stations and airports and highway bridges? I hope these kids in town know how to grow a garden and protect it from armed thieves. They don’t own guns, but the crooks always do.

Don’t hope for sudden change or revolution. Get involved and work for gradual change and stability.

From: Dave and Gwen Hanson

Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:37 AM

THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER

I suppose the reason the “Little House on the Prairie” and “The Waltons ” were so popular is that a lot of people grew up in rural areas and could relate to all those different situations. The same could be true of the kids who went off to work at the Peace Corp. When the present crop of old people die off, the memory of growing up in the country will be gone. No more will there be memories of chopping off chickens heads and plucking those wet, stinky feathers. Few boys will remember peeling the membranes out of a gizzard.

TV has urbanized even most rural kids. So, too, have the computers and hand held games. A lot of times they stay inside homes and are seldom seen playing in sandboxes or riding their bikes anymore.

There are few, if any, perfect homes. I know some seem to be, but when thinking back at a few I know, things have changed over the years. I remember a man who blew a tire out on his Model A Ford when he hit the blade of a grader while he was passing. He swore pretty bad for a long time. He became religious and was devout the rest of his life. Some of his family were religious, too. But there was heart ache off and on, too.

Another family had memories of their father drinking so bad the mom and kids hid in the woods because they were so scared. Just like Alex Haley’s “Roots”, those stories were told and retold for years.

Others, especially those who came from the Old Country, beat their wives and kids. I knew a man who said he was beaten with his dad’s leather belt every day whether he needed it or not.

In the 1950’s we saw shows like “Father Knows Best” or the “Nelsons”. I remember the dads never going to work. Some wore suits and neckties to the table for every meal.

We saw out dads with dirt under their fingernails and sawdust in their hair eat and rush off to what seemed like a job that was never done.

One thing about farming is that it never ends. You get up and get dressed and go out and feed the cows and milk them and come in and wash up and eat breakfast and go out and clean the barn and go off to the woods to make some extra money to pay the taxes and get back home and wash up and eat a bit and go back out to the barn to clean and feed and milk the cows again and come in and clean up and snack and go to bed and get up in the middle of the night to see if the cow had a calf or if it had died. The same thing happened the next day. Even on Sundays the cows had to be milked. It had to be timed to be able to go to church.

Those who didn’t go to church had to time it so they could drink at some party or tavern on Saturday night. But they still had to do chores even with a hangover.

The same cycle of life went on with plowing the fields, disking, planting and harvesting. The same cycle of mowing the hay, raking the hay and getting it into the barn had to be done every year. Over and over and it had to be repeated every year in and every year out. It never ended. No end in sight.

The same with the trudge to the mine and eat out of the same lunch box day after day, year after year.

The same with the lumberjack. Or getting done with one car and then another is driven in to be fixed by the mechanic.

Moms had to get up early and get breakfast made, wash clothes, clean the house, prepare food for winter and keep the fire going until old age crept up and put a final stop to it.

Modern life with its non stop frenzy has changed with something different all the time. Where will we eat out tonight? We have to get the kids to this game or that practice. We have to buy new clothes for this or that event. What kind of new hair style will I get or a new purse or pair of shoes? Some like to be going somewhere to see or be seen. Some stay home always and never venture out. The remote is worn out clicking channel after channel for something more exciting.

We went to a football game in International Falls last night and in front of us sat a group of Special Olympic people from the area. They were having a wonderful time not watching the game. They were visiting with people and wandering around. Even as adults they were not interested in the game and were doing the same antics as the kids having their own game on the grass on the far side of the field. Some were smiling and teasing just like the little children in the crowd. I remember the same child like people sitting down in the front row of the crowd at the Shrine Circus in Hibbing each year. They seemed ageless and were still there in the front the last time I went.

The same thing sometimes happens to old people when they get to the nursing home. They get a certain innocence, and what we call a second childhood. Memories are gone and worries disappear. They forget family and friends and have no more fear of anything. Just like the lady who looked after the group, and made sure all got on the large van when the game was over, and had a few hugs and smiles, those old people get tucked into bed at night in the nursing home by someone.

When the lights go out, the same old, same old routine stops.

From: Dave and Gwen Hanson

Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011

WILL MINING ON THE RANGE DIE?

I was visiting with some people in Virginia the other day and a man told me the man who owns Inland Steel also owns 50% interest in Hibbing Tac. I think he is from India. I’ve heard he is trying to control all the iron production of the world. Will taxing the rich and the corporations cause him to pull in his horns and close up shop?

How will the people on the range vote in our next election? I’d like to hear from our politicians on their take of the situation. Our state representatives must have the same information as you and I do.

When I was a kid the Willow Valley Farmers Club here in Gheen had the politicians come and give their speal at our hall. The place was packed with spectators. We got a good turnout with county and state people giving their talks. Some of those old time men didn’t need loudspeakers or a megaphone.

Just like the olden days when Teddy Roosevelt bellowed from the caboose of a train, Widstrand and Hulstrand roared from the front of our hall to the crowd. The county sheriff and even the county school superintendent was elected in those days.

According to the information I’ve seen on the computer, the largest deposit of iron ore is in Canada. This high grade ore is estimated to be 4 billion tons and worth $180 a ton.

The largest steel making company in the world is Arcelo Mittal acquired a 70% controlling interest in Baffinland Iron Mines. Mittal, the largest steelmaker in the world, now controls the largest iron deposit in the world. Once they get going they say they can produce ore for $50 to $60 a ton.

London based Rio Tinto claims that Simandor deposit in West Africa is the largest deposit in the world. This deposit is only 2.24 billion tons.

The African deposit is in the tropics and the Canadian is above the Arctic circle and is a lot colder location.

Australia is predicted to over supply mining of iron ore by 2016-2017. They are expanding existing mines and will over produce major markets like China by that time.

Along with Australia, Brazil is the largest exporter and producer of iron ore in the world. These two countries contribute 64% followed by Canada.

Venezuela, Chili, and Peru produce iron ore, too. Russia is ranked 4^th in iron ore production behind Brazil, Australia, and China. Russia has been expanding mining. Russia has 25% of the world’s ore deposits, but much is in remote areas.

From: Dave and Gwen Hanson

Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011

As everyone thinks in their own way, no one agrees one hundred percent on anything. The same goes with every person’s personal religion.

I’ve been telling people for years that I count my blessings everyday. In just a short time we will have a Thanksgiving holiday. A lot of people carve a bird or ham and have a great big feast and probably get into a big argument about politics or sports or religion over a couple of beers after they eat. This is probably their family tradition which happens at every family gathering. I remember a teacher who told me one of her students came back to school and told her she had a really bad vacation because her dad and uncles were drinking and punching each other. Even relatives have different opinions on subjects.

I don’t wait for only one day a year to be grateful for my existence. I’ve told a lot of people like me that I never thought we’d be this well off when we were kids. A lot of us started out with not much knowledge or money when young, but somehow, we managed to accumulate a lot of junk and have enough money to spend on foolish things.

Even those people who have no religion and have no solid idea on how to live must feel there is some kind of power out there that holds all the atoms together. Something makes gravity from letting loose and we go floating away with all the dust and rocks dispersing. The sun and stars would evaporate at the same time. They must feel that even if they have no children of their own, their relatives give some of related genes to their offspring. That way after they die, some of that life and genetic material does live on and on.

I’ve had my bumps and bruises just like most people. Toe and fingernails grow back. Scabs heal over wounds and some power tells them to stop healing when it finally replaces the wound.

Sometimes we pray and pray for the smallest things. I suppose those things would or would not happen even if we didn’t pray or wish for them. It has to be a human thing. I don’t think other intelligent mammals pray.

God, or whatever people in all religions call their superior being or power, works in mysterious ways.

I see there is a 60,000 acre forest fire burning in the wilderness of northern Minnesota. That’s a little less than 3 townships of 36 square mile each.

We pray that God will send rain and stop the wind so the fire will go out. Why? Who sent the lightning and dried up the land? It may be a blessing in disguise to burn up a bunch of worthless dead brush and timber and put an end to the ugly condition that looks like much of the grey, dead and down trees around Lake Vermilion and other areas near here. Those spruce bud worms have had their fun. The leaf borers that have killed the birch all the way up the North Shore of Lake Superior did a job. The fungus that eats up the balsam trees doesn’t look good, either. So the power has sent fire to clean up the mess when nature gets out of control.

I told a friend a fear years ago, “God really tests us sometimes.” That may make some people really think deep and long. We all get sick and we will all die some day. We may pray to our God, but not realize there may be another slant to the condition we are in.

God created everything. It may even have evolved slowly into something a little different. It’s all in the grand plan of life. No one person ever created something different. Some greater power creates. Even every kind of life and disease. Germs are alive; viruses are not, but use the host’s body material to replicate itself. We pray to be cured, we pray to live longer. We pray for someone to save us from stupid danger we have put ourselves in, but there may be a bigger plan that we can’t see, so those prayers are not answered.

I’m not preaching, but this is how I think so I still count my blessings everyday. When I’m so sick and old that I can’t enjoy my life maybe I’ll have an accident or a heart attack. And, just like a forest fire, it may be a blessing in disguise.

IVORY TOWER

Who could be blamed for attitudes of individuals or groups of American people? I’ve seen a turn in this in my lifetime. There has always been an idea that it is more wise to use your mind instead of your back.

I was teasing my neighbor the other day about being a country gentleman. Riding on a large white horse with a straw hat and a big cigar was the symbol of a man who had hired hands to do his work. The country gentleman had a life of leisure and just had to oversee and manage his estate.

The memories of my childhood was the same as the life my neighbor lives. The northern farmers didn’t have slaves. They did everything with their families, by themselves. Most were immigrant peasants from Europe. A lot were from landless tenant farmer stock.

Most of the people I knew years ago took pride in what they did. Most never admitted mistakes. When a calf died, they didn’t tell all the world of their loss. Even the lowest class gypos who owned nothing but the clothes on their back were proud of how much pulpwood they could cut with their bow saw and axe.

Not many people complained in public about their wife or husband. They didn’t want to admit they made a poor choice in who they married.

There were few law suits. If a man insulted a man’s wife and got punched in the mouth, he became the laughing stock of the community. When someone committed a moral mistake while being drunk, became the topic of discussion of the surrounding communities. Nearly every man who got a girl pregnant married her. If not, he left the country. One man I knew who moved up here made the statement, “If you make a mistake up here, everyone knows about it.” He was smart and could talk his way to get a bank loan, but had a very hard time paying his loan back. He did leave the country.

What would you rather weather a storm in a cold stone house or a paper tower? I keep thinking about the retirement funds of the old people. Are those accounts being replenished as fast as they are being depleted?

If you’re old enough to read this you think of the same thing. Are you on Social Security? Are you on some disability program? Are you paying into these funds?

Do you own a chain saw? Can you heat your own house? Do you get some kind of fuel assistance?

I remember when there were no nursing homes. Oh yes, there was one in Virginia, but not in all the smaller villages. Most old people lived out their life in a relatives extra bedroom.

Today, the attitude is that being American is a right to entitlements without paying. Probably half the people working get a return on their income tax. Those who don’t work don’t pay income taxes. There is no differential in a lot of people’s minds that rich people and companies are the same thing.

Corporations are owned by many, many people. They do pay a lot, if not most, of the taxes.

A flat tax could solve a lot of problems. Everyone pays a percentage of what they earn. I know some poor working people would only pay $17. a year, but a billionaire would pay the same percent with no loopholes would pay millions. No deductions of any kind for anyone. Reform the income tax forms.

What is really essential and what is truly needed. Start at home. Does every town need an airport? Should they be funded by taxpayers or by the users?

Is it fair to give grants and not loans to just a few? The cost of tuition at Virginia Community College was $29 a semester when I went there in 1959. It was $115 a quarter at UMD in Duluth in 1961.

Who pays for the scholarships for the sports players in the colleges? Some get a free ride as long as they play. Is college for scholars or players of games? Does the government need to give scholarships to scholars? My friend in Virginia told me his grandfather was a janitor and helped his son become a surgeon. An old man in Duluth made a deal with him that he would help him get through college, if he would take care of him. Doc made a trip to Duluth every week to check on him until he died. I know a lot of people have benefited from scholarships since that time. But a lot of kids that needed help dropped out because of the modern cost and they got no help.

Because the government personnel have bankrupt the country, the federal government is broke, they will have a hard time financing the states. When a state is broke they will not have money to give city and township governments.

Cook school got a 1.3 million dollar swimming pool. Did Orr, Cherry, Cotton and other schools that size get one, too? Where did that gift come from?

With the money drying up, who will pay for the low cost housing in all the villages of America? Should tax money from everyone repair sewers and water systems in every small town? Should people in rural areas get a free well and septic system, too?

Do people on disability play basketball and go fishing have enough energy to plant a garden, pick berries, and cut some firewood?

We went to the rodeo at Effie and met Jim Shermer. You know, the guy the veterinarian said “Have you ever met such a “Can Do”, person in your life?” We watched a man being pushed in a wheelchair, and Jim said “There is a disabled. There’s where the money should go.”

We do feel sorry for those who can’t take care of themselves. We do feel sorry for people who can’t possibly feed themselves. We don’t feel sorry for those who squander their money and resources and make excuses when it was their own fault.

We shouldn’t feel sorry for those politicians, either.

WHAT’S IN THAT BOX

Just like a few specks of gold sparkle in a prospector’s pan, a box full of folders and newspaper clippings tweak my curiosity.

I’m probably more of a story teller than historian. But what intrigues me is more in those boxes than the displays at a museum. History is a list of events that have been recorded. A story only needs a few facts to be woven into some kind of fabric.

With only three newspaper clippings from the Virginia Museum, I gathered more information than most history books reveal.

July 29, 1958, a clipping states that uprooted tree roots revealed iron ore to the Merritts, who were surveying a line for a railroad from Duluth to Winnipeg via Rat Portage. That was Kenora in those days.

The Mountain Iron Mine caused the Virginia district to erupt into activity. A.E. Humphreys, a promoter from the state of Virginia, secured a lease on lands, belonging to C.N. Nelson Lumber Company of Cloquet. These included the Commodore, Franklin, Moose and Iron King mines.

The Commadore Mine was the first property in the Virginia group to be explored in 1891-02. It made its first shipment of 65,137 tons in 1893.

It was predicted in 1907 that all the mines would be one mine in the future. The prediction of 400,000,000 tons were estimated and new bodies of ore were constantly being revealed.

In 1870, mineral promoter, Peter Mitchell and surveyor, Christian Wieland explored some taconite deposits around Birch Lake near Babbitt. At that time, no one knew how to separate the ore from silica rock. Those deposits were not developed.

In the next decades, the hard hematite of the Vermilion and the even richer soft ores of the Mesabi were uncovered, so taconite was ignored.

In 1913, John Williams started publicly talking about the future of taconite. Edward Wilson Davis was skeptical.

In 1913, Daniel Jackling, a copper mine owner from Utah, used a crushed ore improvement process. Jackling had a mining engineer from Duluth, Dwight Woodbridge, report on a taconite experiment. Woodbridge reported about the vast taconite deposits and with money and the right men, it was well worth the effort to develop taconite.

Edward Davis was a graduate of Perdue University and in 1912 joined the faculty of the Minnesota School of Mines. Here, he met John Williams and began his life with taconite.

In 1916, Swart, Davis, and Fred Jordan, with Jackling’s money, started an experimental plant in West Duluth. An experimental mine was opened and an old logging railroad and existing iron railroad shipped taconite to Duluth. For two years the mill operated on a random test basis and processed as much as 100 tons of ore some days. The hard taconite had to be crushed. Some was mixed with coal and sintered to melt it. In 1918, the Duluth plant sent 1,840 tons to eastern steel mills. It was 62 percent iron.

In 1920 Jackling set up a mill near Babbitt. By 1922, Mesabi Iron shipped 150,000 tons of 60 percent iron. Most went to the Ford Motor Co.

By 1924, Mesabi Iron proved that taconite refining was feasible, but the iron mines of the Mesabi were producing cheaper natural ore. So the plant closed for many years. Davis and his university staff kept working on refining the process.

By the mid 1940’s, Davis was confident and pestered the steel industry. World War II had depleted a lot of the natural ore and the steel industry was looking at ore from other countries so the time had come to start the taconite plants.

In 1951, Davis took a leave of absence from the university to join Reserve Mining Co. That same year, Reserve began work on a mine, plant, and a new townsite at Babbitt. That same year $185 million was spent to build the Silver Bay facilities on the North Shore of Lake Superior. In 1956, the first taconite left Silver Bay for eastern steel mills.

I can’t possibly write a short history of the mines and lives of these people who worked and established the iron mines of the Mesabi. There were good times and bad for the companies as well as the workers.

There were depressions and slowdowns and extremely good years. There was the heat of the summer and lay off in the winter months. This affected the store owners, and renters, too.

The tax from the iron was used to improve the town and schools. My folks talked about the town of Virginia that had paved alleys and very few chimneys in the houses.

The taconite industry sprung up all over the Iron Range and an investment of $300,000,000 was used by United States Steel to build the Mountain Iron Plant in 1954. This one giant company produced 35,700.000 ingot tons of steel in 1953.

In 1954 they developed Cerro Bolivar, Venezuela Iron Mines. It was explained to me in a geography class at UMD in 1963, that the iron ore could be blasted and sent down a conveyer into the ore ships in Venezuela and shipped directly to the steel mills in eastern United States. Also, the railroad between the range and Duluth was costly as far as labor was concerned. The ocean needs no maintenance, so ocean travel is cheap.

I was always looking for ways to make a few extra dollars, so in the summer of 1976, I was a carpenter working on the Mintac expansion. That June, I helped build the base of a silo. Plywood forms were built and filled with re-bar and stood up 50 feet high for the legs of the silo. I helped set up the pipe scaffolding supports in between the legs and a platform was built for the floor of the silo. The Ready-mix trucks arrived from Virginia and buckets of cement were hoisted up with a crane. Once we took the form off and the cement cured, a special crew came on site and used slip forms and built up the cylinder of the silo.

We next worked on the forms for the fine crusher. The work wasn’t exactly like making cabinets, but it had to be sturdy enough to hold the many tons of cement that went into the walls of the building and the supports for the next floor where huge machines would be used for years to pulverize the ore.

I’ve often meant to take my wife and kids back to tour the facility.

BEFORE I WAS BORN

The Spanish American War was a conflict in 1898 between

Spain and the U.S. After the sinking of the battleship, Maine,

in Havana Harbor, the Democratic party put pressure on

Republican President William McKinley into a war he

wished to avoid. The war lasted 10 weeks in the Pacific

and Caribbean. Cuba became independent from Spain.

A treaty was signed in Paris. The U.S. had temporary control

of Cuba and indefinite colonial authority of the Philippines,

Guam, and Puerto Rico.

It seems the thinking of the Cubans and the Spanish differed

in that Cuba was a province of Spain and the Cubans wanted

independence like the other Latin American countries who

had revolutions and were independent already.

McKinley sent the battleship, Maine, to Havana for the safety

of American citizens and American businesses in that

country. This was justified by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

Europe was not to interfere with countries in North and

South America, under the protection of the United States.

Teddy Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of Navy under

McKinley, wanted war against Spain over Cuba. Other

Presidents had offered to buy Cuba from Spain over the years,

just like Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.

On February 15, an explosion sunk the Main and 266

Sailors died. No one knew for sure what caused the explosion.

Just like today, the American popular media exploited the

situation. Newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst

and Joseph Pulitzer declared it was a Spanish mine

that caused the sinking.

I tried sighting in my scope on my 30-06 yesterday, and

something must be wrong with the scope. I was hitting an

inch off at 50 yards and it was all over at a hundred yards.

I don’t like chasing wounded deer anymore than the next

guy. So I took the old 30-40 Krag down and was staring

at it in my stand this afternoon. It doesn’t have a scope on it, but

it’s right on.

The old gun was given to me by my grandpa about 1960

or so. I never knew where he got it. It’s the original with

that long military barrel. It has a box magazine on the

side with a trap door.

I was holding my old gun that I shot so many deer with

before I bought my -06. It was made in Springfield Armory in 1896.

I knew Teddy Roosevelt had a 30-40 Krag on San Juan Hill in

Puerto Rico. That was 43 years before I was born.

HOW DO YOU DO

Gwen and I went to a community concert in Virginia the other night. Today we went to the Sons’ of Norway meatball fundraiser meal. I suppose 90% of all those people are senior citizens. Most have smiles whether they know you or not.

After we got done eating at the Miners Memorial Building, we sat drinking coffee and visiting. Our topic was the Superintendent of Schools, Floyd B. Moe. I had gone to Virginia Junior College and was out of there before our conversation partners moved up to Virginia to teach. When Moe found out Mrs. Got married, he called her into his office. This was in the middle 1960’s and women teachers were supposed to be single. When she got pregnant she couldn’t teach after her 5^th month. She didn’t get fired and went back to teaching. She stated that most of the rest of the state had married women teachers by that time, but Moe wasn’t challenged at all in those days.

Our next topic was how old our houses were. Ours was built by my grandpa in 1918. Some of theirs were 110 or 113 years old. They got them for $20,000 in those days and figured that was a steal. Most needed a lot of work to get them for that price.

When I started teaching in Cook, the trend we see today had already started. Mrs. Wilkinson knew we were tearing out the old plaster and lathe and remodeling the house. She said most young people wanted instant gratification.

A new house full of new furniture and concrete sidewalks takes a lot of money. Maybe a 40 year session of monthly payments is passed on to the new buyer if people sell before the bank is paid off. To some that started working right out of college and kept their job, that was a good deal. A payment of $100 a month was a lot in 1960, but by the year 2000, that was the cost of a couple of tanks of gasoline.

We know some hardship like a sudden health problem can louse up people’s dreams and those payments cannot be made. But most senior citizens started out buying things they could afford. Some bought and sold several homes before they finally were financially secure and bought the nice big home they live in now.

People who lose their homes by foreclosure seem to want people to feel sorry for them. The media plays on people’s emotions and makes it sound like the banks are taking their homes away.

It was easy for some young people to be talked into taking a huge loan on a home. Remember, most small banks were very careful with loans. The credit unions were also careful and very few were hurt by our current problem of foreclosures. Some people used the system to buy many homes to cash in on other’s defaults. That scheme backfired and they lost a lot of money.

If you sold your house to someone and they refused to pay you after a year or two, you would sue them to get your unpaid for property back. Most banks wanted some collateral, or someone else to co-sign the contract, to take over payments if trouble developed.

It’s hard for some people to realize that a credit card is a form of an unsecured loan. That’s why the percent is so high. A lot of people buy stuff with the credit card and default. The bank has to charge others using the system a high rate of interest to stay in business. How did you get to be a senior citizen and not lose your shirt or pants?

Dad said you can’t save money as long as you have kids at home. He was right. We did spend a lot on gas going to school functions and driving the kids around. But we didn’t do it to the extent people do today.

We started out saving $15 every two weeks. That tax sheltered annuity grew pretty slowly. Toward the last few years I worked we could put more in and the interest was better than it is now so it snowballed. We didn’t buy new cars, four wheel drive pick-ups, boats, trips to Disneyland, cabins on the lake, or eat out much.

Some people who had good jobs, households who had two people working, or inherited a bundle, spent money like it grew on trees. Some of those people are pinching pennies in their “Golden Years.” They wonder how to buy the drugs they need to keep going.

I can’t feel sorry for the banks who figured it was a good deal to borrow money to people who could never possibly pay for a huge new home. They would collect as many payments as possible and then get it back and sell it again. That’s OK when the value jumped leaps and bounds, but it’s not like that anymore.

A lot of us live in our modest homes. They’re not that hard to heat. They are not so valuable that the taxes are high. They are comfortable in a cozy way.

We’ve put in thermal pane windows and doors over the years. We’ve torn up the old tile or linoleum floors and replaced them. Some wall to wall carpeting has been replaced. A lot of paint covered other paint. A lot of folks did their own sheetrock finishing and plumbing and carpenter work. We didn’t always use the best material, and sometimes it was what was on sale and the cheapest we could get by with, but one way or another, we made out.

Some that got a little better educated, got a better job, and could afford some of the finer things in life. Some were lucky and got a good start from some relative, and more rarely a good friend.

It seems that those who win the lottery spend it all in a few years.

How did you do it?

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

Eddy Rickenbacker became the president of Eastern Air Lines. He was the top air ace in World War I. He was asked to serve in World War II as a consultant to the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. In October of 1942, a flying fortress he was on ran out of fuel and went down on a trip from Hawaii to an air base in the South Pacific. The survivors set out in rubber rafts. The only food was four oranges and seven chocolate bars. The bars turned to mush and were discarded. They had a first aid kit, eighteen flares and a pistol to shoot them. Two pumps for the rafts, two service knives, a pair of pliers, a small compass, two revolvers, two bailing buckets, rubber patches for the rafts and two fish lines.

Rickenbacker was chosen to take care of the oranges. They were divided to last eight days. That way each got 1/8 of an orange half.

Most were poorly dressed and burned in the sun. Two men developed a tan, but most peeled and burned again. They fished for hours, but the only bait, orange peel, got no results.

On the second night one man woke and saw a young man gulping salt water. He had swallowed some when getting out of the sinking airplane, and couldn’t help himself from the thirst.

One man had a New Testament. None were very religious but Rickenbacker and the men used it every morning and evening for their prayers. They thumbed through the book and found passages for their needs. Their favorite was Matthew 6:31-34.

The revolvers rusted. They tried to save them by rubbing oil off their noses, but they became useless. They used the pliers to try to make a spear from an aluminum oar, but it just bounced off the sharks back. The oranges were eaten faster than planned.

On the eighth day, in nearly a coma stupor, a gull landed on Rickenbacker’s torn hat. Eddy remembered the nearly insane eyes of the others, as he ever so slowly reached up and finally closed his fingers hard around the gull. He wrung its neck and plucked and divided it for the men. The intestines were saved for fish bait.

They had watched thousands of fish under their boats. Now they baited their hooks and caught a mackerel and a sea bass. They ate everything raw and even chewed the bones.

Seven of the eight men were rescued 21 days later when Navy planes spotted them.

The tedium resulted in people having doubts about their futures. People reveal feelings to others that would never be told otherwise.

When I sat here today watching the miners being rescued from the mine in Chili, I thought about those people and what they talked about down there.

I was born when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. As a kid I heard about Dachau Prison Camp. My Uncle Harold Hanson had gone from North Africa, and was wounded in the rump while crawling through grape stubble in Italy. He said, “I guess my ass was sticking up too high.” He was wounded in the neck by shrapnel in Germany. After being patched up, he wasn’t sent home, but was a scout in the infantry. The most terrible story was the smell of Dachau Prison Camp. They smelled it 10 miles away. When he and the boys liberated it that seems to be the last story I remembered. Mom said when he came back to Gheen, he would take his gun with him, and sit out in the state land every day, that summer.

People do have to get back their senses after all the trauma.

I went and visited Ernie Seppala in Sturgeon the other day, and we visited at the kitchen table. As we talked about the US Air Force, I said we may not agree with the politicians on war, but we have to support the troops.

Remember how the Viet Nam boys were treated when they came back home. If you were one of those who spit on them and taunted them, you have some thinking to do before you meet your maker. They were the boys who put their life on the line for us.

THANKFUL

Who was my favorite teacher? Who was my best teacher? Who did I learn the most from? Which teacher did I dislike most? Why do people think about them?

I was with a man the other day who at first seemed to be a jolly, fun person. But after knowing him a few years, I don’t really like to be around him. He seems to thrive on negative emotions. It seems he wants to argue about politics and starts to tell about people’s faults. His grandchildren’s teachers don’t care. His doctors don’t do their job, and politicians don’t agree with his agenda. No wonder his health is bad, he probably brooded about past events and revenge to the point of losing sleep a lot.

I know my dad taught me the most things over the years. Some things he had trouble with, and that was because of the time in history he lived. Childhood in the early 1900’s had an effect on his life, and being a young man in the depression also left a mark on his thinking. I have to thank him for teaching me my work ethic. He said, “It’s no shame to fail, it’s only in not trying.” Me, being not the smartest person in the world, could at least try to do something worthwhile. That’s my downfall. I like to dream and putter around, too. So I feel guilty when I lay around. Cutting firewood or planting and digging a couple of hundred pounds of spuds seems like a waste of time to nearly everyone. If a person spent that amount of time on another job, they could make a lot more money. But money never was important to me. It’s just something that’s convenient, but not to be worshipped.

Who was the worst teacher I had in school? I can’t really say. I’ve always thought a person could learn something from anyone. So, it doesn’t have to be a school teacher for everything a person learns. It should be listening and thinking about your own mistakes. I’ve kicked myself many, many times. I’ve said things many times I shouldn’t have muttered.

When I think back in time, the teacher who was the most fun taught me the least. The teacher in school I disliked the most, I can’t remember much about. Maybe the teacher that didn’t let us kids get away with everything and pointed out our faults, and wouldn’t let us forget them, may have been the most effective in the long run.

Why do some people blame everything that went wrong on someone else? The world is terrible because of one politician.

That one teacher years ago ruined a child’s life. One event that happened as a child at home ruined his morals. That life in the slums ruined his life. Someone else’s moral mistake ruined a child’s life.

I think none of the above changes a person’s life much. Most kids who grow up in the slums, see drunks, crowded living conditions, drugs, arguments, property damage, and a lot of crowded, crabby people, and most of those people grow up to be good citizens. Some kids who have everything handed to them turn to drugs and drink, too.

I would hate to live my life if I had to blame everything that went wrong on someone else. I’d hate to have that tight feeling in my gut at being angry at every little thing that went wrong.

I suppose I taught myself to be self sufficient. I taught myself how to read. I taught myself to be respectful. I taught myself to recognize my mistakes and correct them, if possible.

Dad always said his wife, Mom, “Is the most sane person I’ve ever known.”

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me life and as good a childhood as you could.

We often sat looking at the photo albums and talked about things. We ate together at meal time. We rode together in the car. We worked together in the country. We even ate fudge together hundreds of times.

We older kids spent more time with our folks than those “little kids,” who were 15 years younger than we were, so I heard more stories from the folks.

I taught myself to be thankful. The folks helped me to do that. I’m happy.

HOME SWEET HOME

I suppose someone who grew up in a big city has a feeling sometimes that something isn’t just right. Walking alone in the dark at night, with shadows and a well lit street, gives a little nervous feeling and then some relief. Then walking past a dark alley casts a doubt again, as all the doors are locked.

The same feelings must be felt in all foreign countries, as well.

I grew up in the country here in northern Minnesota. It’s not wide open country like the prairie where a person can see for miles. The trees block the view unless you’re on top of a hill or across a clearing. On my own land, I’ve never had those creepy feelings. If I were walking across another person’s land in the dark, I’d feel that way, but I would have no business being there.

Everyone has uneasy feelings. From a man’s point of view, think what a young girl or woman must feel like when she is alone. Walking in town at night, or coming home from studying at the library at college. There has to be a feeling of vulnerability. The same when going out on a date with a stranger for the first time. Does panic hit the mind, when she realizes she’s had too much to drink at a party and she is a little helpless?

When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark. Checking my weasel traps in the dark with a flashlight cured me of that. On those cold November evenings, walking a half mile in the dark woods and then returning home again was something I remember. The shadows from the brush and small trees flicker in the distance and gets a person’s imagination going. If a mouse snaps a twig or rustles some dry leaves, the hair would stand up on my neck.

As a grown man walking out to the barn at night was usually a pleasant event. As I opened the barn door, the cloud of vapor from the damp barn air curled out into the below zero blackness. There is something comforting walking into the barn at night. The cattle are all lying down in their stalls, and the lowing, pleasant sound of the animals quietly breathing and chewing their cuds, gives a man a feeling of contentment. All their lives depend on you to feed them, and make sure they have water. You are directly responsible for their very existence. When the calves are taken from the mothers, it’s your responsibility to feed them and keep them comfortable and healthy.

Shining the flashlight around the barn casts shadows but doesn’t bother the cows’ rhythm of chewing and regurgitating their cud with a little burp. The chewing continues. With a flip of the switch, the whole barn lights up and some of the cows start to stand up. I suppose they think it’s the sun coming up and they may anticipate a large scoop of dairy ration feed and morning milking time. Some of the old wise cows just look at you with those large brown eyes and don’t bother to make a move. Those that get up unload in the gutter in a little while.

Off go the lights. Out the door, with the cloud of steam. Close the door behind you.

It’s a good feeling as you walk back to the warm house. In the dark night, it seems so warming to see the orange glow of the windows.

I suppose when a man lays his head down on a pillow and drift off to sleep in the country, is no different than a man from town who has a contented satisfaction of his daily life.

Moms always wake up often as the babies stir and turn in their crib, or cry out in the night from a bad dream. Moms always get up early to fix breakfast and get the kids fed and off to school. They, too, must feel contented when things are going good. They are the ones who make the plain old house a wonderful home.

It’s comforting for the kids to fall asleep. Whether in town or the country, home is “Home Sweet Home.”

THE HAT

Things sure change in a span of a person’s lifetime. I never saw my Grandpa Hanson wear a hat like those which were popular in Errol Flynn’s movie heyday.

Grandpa Hanson had one of those soft cloth caps with a small brim much like the golfers wore in the 1950’s. That seemed to be the popular style of caps men wore in the 1910 era.

Grandpa Miller had a grey hat, but the folds in the felt hat were more like that of the cowboy 10 gallon hat. It wasn’t that sombrero size of the western cowboy, or the Smoky the Bear hat. It was a regular sized hat.

One of the Lindsey boys near Cook wore his felt hat with the top folded flat. That was neat. Most people had the traditional Dick Tracy fold and dents in their hats.

Those stove pipe hats of the 1860’s, like Lincoln wore, and the gentlemen of the high class in England, still lingered as some style in the inauguration ritual of presidents up until John Kennedy. If someone wore a hat like that now, people would think you were an actor or else a nut.

The last hats I remember a few men wearing were those Porky Pig hats. They were neat. I liked the little colored feather bundle tucked into the hat band. That was probably fading in the late 1960’s. Those were popular in Bavaria in Germany and in Tyrol of Austria.

When I was a kid, working men around here wore the baseball type cap with the brim sticking out in front. That protected people’s eyes when working in the woods. But to dress up, men wore felt hats.

That idea of checking in your hat and coat to a girl as you entered some high society or entertainment event is alien today. Men never wore their hats inside a building in those days. They did in the barn or a shed while working, but never in any public building or theater. The reason for checking in a hat was so it wouldn’t be crushed while watching a movie or at some dance.

In our community, there were clothes hooks in rows on the walls of the halls where people hung their coats in the winter and their hat on the longer top prong of those coat hooks.

Even when I started teaching in the mid 1960’s, men wore suits and ties to school. I only owned one suit that I bought for my picture for the year book. Dad took me down to Virginia and helped me pick out a suit at Ben Walt’s men’s store. The softer flannel suits were cheaper, but dad advised me to spend $20 more for the better quality cloth. The flannel pants got shiny after being worn a few times. I wore that suit when I got married and to a few weddings. By the time I graduated from high school in 1957, no kids wore the hats of our fathers.

I do remember dad wearing his hat in the 1940’s whenever we went to town or to meetings. In those days, and even 10 years before in the depression, men wore hats. I’ve seen pictures of hobos wearing tattered, sweat soaked dress hats. Most felt naked without a hat on their head. The business world men in every country wear suits and ties when on display.

I have to admit I’m not too radical, but I was one of the first of the county school teachers to dress casually. I wore suit coats and ties for the first few years I taught, and then went to just a sweater or a shirt. In those days most teachers were older women who were cold all the time. Those schools were about 80 degrees and all the kids were sweating in those hot rooms. Even at Cook School, we had our windows cracked open during January. I never did wear blue jeans or work pants to school.

One time about 1972, or so, I went to the feed house in Cook while Gwen and the kids waited in the station wagon, and a guy with cowboy boots and hat went in. The kids got all excited. The “cowboy” to them was the first real live one they had ever seen. Even little kids ignore TV cowboys, but this was a real one.

When did the cap thing become the style? Those were work caps that kept a man’s head from getting sunburned or sawdust off the scalp. Now some men never feel obliged to take their cap off in a building. Some never remove it as the flag goes by at or parade or when the National Anthem is played. But they don’t feel ashamed about being grubby in public. Some must feel dressed up with their caps on backwards and their pants falling down revealing the cleavage of their butt. But what do you expect when their dads grew up with parents that never knew how to act in public or even how to, or what to teach their children. They couldn’t even take care of themselves, much less their kids.

Hats off to those neat teenagers who make us proud to know them.

From: Dave and Gwen Hanson

Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010

To: Don Simonson

COOK SCHOOL

I went to visit my “Buddy,” Willard Pearson and inquired about the first school in Cook.

John Olson’s home was just north of the Little Fork River. This was where the first classes were held for the settlers.

Then a school was built on the south side of Old #1 which is Highway 115, now, near Mel Bakk. There was a historical marker on that spot dedicating the Indian portage from Little Fork River that went to Wak-Em-Up Indian Village. That monument was vandalized, so it was taken down.

As the town of Cook grew, more and more kids had to walk north to that school. Someone burned the school. The home of George Francis was located on the corner where the school lawn is today. Classes were held in that house until a new school was built.

Willard Pearson went to that school when he was in the first grade. He didn’t know when it was built, but it had been in use before that time. Willard remembered electricity and the light plant running. That first school in town was where the school library is today.

In 1931, the schools didn’t open up until after the new brick school was finished. The high school kids went to their classes in the Baptist Church. Willard was in the 3^rd grade and went to the Lutheran Church. His sister, Emily, was in the 6^th grade. Those kids went to the Congregational Church.

In the winter, maybe, the Christmas vacation? Of 1932, the high school was dedicated. Willard said they got pins, oval badges.

Kids from Gheen and Orr areas boarded in peoples’ homes in Cook to go to high school. Pearsons housed Evelyn Holmer and Myrtle Fields. In 1933, Reinhold Holmer stayed at the Pearsons. He went to art school at night, three nights a week.

Later, the Orr and Gheen area kids went to Cook School by bus, so my mom had gone to Cook School. Her best friend was Elsie Kantola. In 1936 the Orr School was built. In 1937, mom was in the first graduating class in Orr.

In 1958, the new addition was built on the Cook School. I know the main entry and the big gym and the locker rooms and the north-south elementary rooms were in that project. The old gym became the lunch room.

All you kids that were in high school when I started teaching, remember the construction of the library and band room being added on.

Little by little, new rooms and a gym and swimming pool were built.

I’m not into exact dates of these events, so you’ll have to search for that information.

THE BREEZE

I was sitting on the deck and the clouds were blowing from the South East. That direction usually brings rain. The next day the clouds were blowing from the North West. In a few hours the sky was blue. Watching which way the wind blows is interesting.

I don’t discuss politics very much but try to stay independent. I know people are passionate about what they know is the right belief.

We attended a whitefish boil in Rainier Saturday. On the way up to the Falls, I said there must be Norwegians in Canada. We arrived at the Sons’ of Norway meeting and watched a couple of videos about Norway. Sure enough, a couple arrived from Fort Francis.

I think the political set up in Canada is much the same as here in the states. They have a federal system modeled after that in England much like ours. The judicial system is much like ours, and their laws are nearly the same as ours. Truly, they are our sister country. How much of Canadian history was taught to us in school? Maybe a couple of hours.

Is there a parallel of the government and the Aborigines? Do people protest taxes? Do people dislike laws that are made in a far off city, regulate them? Provincial government must depend on the federal government much like they do in the USA.

We resent the planning and zoning people from the cities regulating our rural area. I suppose someone in Northern British Columbia resents someone from Ottawa, telling them how not to pollute their neighbor’s property which is 5 miles away.

The wind doesn’t always blow in the same direction, and not always in the exact opposite direction. In the continual swirl the wind changes directions.

So does the interest and passions of political parties. I think most people are independent when it comes time to vote. There are die hard democrats and republicans, but deep down do they doubt some of the doctrines of each party. I think few follow the party rules all the time.

Do we need or want dictatorial control of the government? No, and if someone is thinking about issues, they vote for something that will benefit them at the time of the election.

What side of the boat are you on? We don’t want everyone on one side. It will tip over.

People wait for winter for snow. Then they can ski, snowmobile, dog sled, ice fish, and shovel snow, and go south. Some wait for summer so they can come back home to Minnesota to fight mosquitoes, catch muskies, mow grass. I know some like summer so they can complain if it’s too dry, or too wet to mow the grass. It maybe too hot to be comfortable so the air conditioner has to be turned on. If it’s a cold summer, the furnace kicks in often.

I’m the guy that told the complainers that the rainy days kept Minnesota green otherwise it would be like living in a gravel pit like Arizona. I say, “Flies and mosquitoes must taste good because fish love them, birds eat them, toads, frogs, and dragonflies eat them, bats eat them, even cats eat grasshoppers in the cut over hay fields.” If a person gets a bug in their throat, they gag.

Even though I’m an independent thinker, I have stated something controversial to get people arguing about a subject. I did that a few times in the teachers’ lounge, usually leaving for awhile. On my return, 10 or 15 minutes later, the argument raged on.

Do politicians really believe everything they promise? Do political parties get people excited about one subject, just so the public forgets the other problem that the politicians are having trouble solving? I’m sure each side has some ploy. They must have a plan. I don’t think they are trying to deceive the public.

The wind blows from many directions.

THE MANURE PILE

With a title like that, people will be attracted to this story like flies to a dead animal. I know it’s not the most romantic subject, but it has been a part of human life since people started settling and living in one spot.

When people domesticated animals for food, animals had to be confined. Not so with the Laplanders and our ancestors from the Steppes of Asia. These people just herded the animals and all traces were washed away by the snow melt and the rain. They left no footprints on the geological face of our earth.

The wind was blowing the six foot nettles around behind the barns in the towns of Tyrol in Austria. Nettle? Did it come from Europe in the bottom of the Mayflower along with the cattle? Was the bedding thrown out into the ocean or was it carried to the new garden patches for fertilizer? Was it native to the Americas, or was its seeds transported back to Europe? I guess someone will have to test its DNA to settle that argument. They say the American Aborigines used the stems for cord and fiber.

When I till the garden, I find half melted marbles and a penny now and then. Up come bent nails once in awhile. I know the nails come from the splintered lumber I used for kindling in the furnace when we remodeled our house. When the kids were small, Gwen told them everyday to pick up their toys. After sweeping, the dust pan was emptied in the furnace during the winter. All the ashes from the furnace were emptied on the snow over the garden every winter. Archaeologists are digging for artifacts of ancient people. The trash piles are sought after. There, clues of life are concentrated.

On small family farms, a lot of people didn’t exactly keep the barn yards tidy. Some never took the time to spread the manure on the fields. This wasn’t because of being lazy. If you study those people, they were busy all the time. They made their living at some other job and just gardened or had a couple of cows. If the cow died or ate the garden, it didn’t really matter much because they earned money, just like city folks. It was a little extra food from their spare time. It paid out a lot better than going fishing.

From the wheelbarrows of manure for my garden I’ve dug up, I’ve found a lot of stuff I’d forgotten about. Twine. How many farmers have found twine tangled in manure that was being spread on the fields? That old twine would rot as time went by, but if the manure was spread each spring, it was still intact. The new plastic twine doesn’t rot.

I haven’t had cows since the middle 70’s, but the last of the manure pile was spread out this spring. It’s gone. What treasures were in there? Plastic ice cream pails, busted, of course. Wire ice cream pails handles. Ice cream pail covers. They haven’t deteriorated from the sunlight because they were buried. Old tin cans, some were small tuna fish cans. Those were the water dishes in each of the rabbit hutches. Old aluminum cake pans were feed dishes for the chickens. A chunk of chain. We had neck chains to tie our cows. These slid up and down on pipes in the stanchions. An old metal milk stool that had collapsed.

Every day in the winter, the wheelbarrow ran out into the cold weather. At first on a plank runway, but day after day, the manure froze and the pile was extended farther and farther away from the barn door. That path was like a narrow cement sidewalk. Clean the gutter. With two cows, two yearlings, a steer to butcher, and a calf pen that wasn’t cleaned every day, the volume was many wheelbarrows. Every few weeks the calf pen got wet from the constant milk the calves drank. This had to be cleaned out, or by spring, the calves would be bumping their heads on the ceiling. Out the barn door all this went.

As with everything else, a chicken would die now and then. Into the wheel barrow. A dead bunny, away with you. We had a few goats for a couple of years. A pen of pigs and their sow. I did find goat bones in the pile. Dad always told me never feed a dead chicken or animal to pigs. They chew them up just like a dog. One day my son came in the house and told us he had to finish off a little goat that had gotten dragged into the pig pen and was bitten up. If he had been there an hour later, there would have been no trace of the kid.

I found a leg bone of a rooster in rotted manure. It had a two inch spur on the bone. Broken glass from some pint jar, rabbit bones, chicken bones, a few soggy boards from some pen or cage. Chunks of old galvanized chicken wire. Old galvanized telephone wire. Even unrelated to farming items showed up. Some old black plastic temporary telephone wire. I suppose I used it to tie up a pen gate in the barn. Old plastic bags. They must have had table scraps for the chickens in them and were carried to the barn.

A couple of 5 gallon pails of trash turned up. Nothing of any value. Not even the memories it brought back.

NO NEED FOR AN INVITATION

My grandson put U-Tube into our computer a couple of years ago. He said, “You’ll have fun with this.”

I turned it on and all I saw were short films about popular movies and TV shows. I didn’t bother with it for about a year. My son, Brad, started making charcoal for his blacksmith hobby the old fashioned way. I asked where he got all those ideas, and he said, U-Tube. I didn’t even know you could type in nearly any subject and someone has put in a short movie about it.

Don’t take everything for granted, though. I looked up cutting trees down with hand tools. I know about that as I did it in the 1950’s, so I got into that, just as chainsaws were perfected. A couple of “convincing” teenagers were talking up how to cut a tree down with an axe. After a lot of wasted energy, the thing fell backwards.

By the way he swung his axe, I knew he didn’t know what he was doing. On those films, people are chopping firewood to length with an axe. Someone should make a show about sawing wood with a handsaw. That doesn’t waste as much energy and wood in the form of a bushel of chips for each stick.

I got on U-Tube today and watched some people in Czechoslovakia cutting hay with scythes. Dad and grandpa did that by hand, even to about 1920 or later. Mom and Grandpa Miller did it, too.

I’ve heard stories of folks from Willow Valley and Greaney cutting wild hay along the Willow River here, in the blue joint meadows. There were stumps and brush to cut around, but it was all raked with wood rakes and stacked. These stacks were hauled home on sleighs in the winter when the land froze up and snow covered the ground. I did swing a scythe a few times cutting weeds and thistle before it bloomed, but never for cutting hay. I picked up a scythe stone this summer at a rummage sale for a quarter. I can sharpen them, too.

Dad and grandpa would work together, one following the other, swinging from the hip, shuffling along with arms straight and straight legs. “Only cut a swathe a couple of inches at a time. Get a rhythm.” If you use your arms to swing with, you will tire out in a few minutes. Don’t laugh at this idea. Our ancestors cut hay for a few thousand years before the mechanical hay mowers were invented.

I checked on a film about harvesting oats with a binder. I got paid for doing that when I was 15 years old. Sanfrid Carlson had an old grain binder he pulled with a tractor. I sat on the binder and after the machine gathered, tied with binder twine, and kicked six bundles out in a cradle, it was my job to push a pedal and dump the load. A large iron bull wheel under the machine, powered the mechanism. After the whole field was cut, dad came over after work. Sanfrid, dad, and I shocked the grain. That was standing up four bundles of oats. The other two bundles were fanned out to thatch the shock so rain would run off. In a week or two, the oats were dry and were pitched up on a hay rack and taken home. That stack was thrashed with a thrashing machine when enough neighbors could be gotten together for a crew.

One thing I’ll remember to my dying day is the dry thistle thorns in my thighs when the bundles were pulled against my legs to shock the oats. They didn’t have sprays to kill certain weeds fifty years ago.

There are people alive yet that are ten or twenty years older than I, that remember using horses instead of tractors to do woods work or farming.

It was a slower pace. It was more physical work. But peoples’ list of wants was a lot shorter than ours. People always seemed to have time to drop in to visit and share a cup of coffee.

Nearly no one needed an invitation to visit.

GAS

As a six year old kid in 1945, I don’t remember what the price of gasoline was. But all of us knew gas was a necessity. Nearly everybody had a tin five gallon gas can. And, also, a one gallon can for kerosene. It seemed every time the car was filled with gas, a can was filled to take home for the joker. Those home made tractors were used a lot in the summer time making hay.

The kerosene was used in lamps and lanterns for the late night trips to the barns to check on cows that might be tied up in stalls for the winter. If a cow was going to calf, nearly everyone got up in the middle of the night to check on the progress. Sometimes, night after night, nothing happened. It seemed sometimes someone with the intention of just resting a few more minutes after turning off the alarm clock fell asleep and didn’t make the trip to the barn. Sometimes after a week of treks to the barn in the winter, a calf was born. Usually nothing bad happened, but once in awhile a calf was dead in the barn gutter.

Those farmers who had big herds, had a calving pen in the barn so the cow could turn around and have freedom to move. Even so, if the cow had trouble calving, people had to help pull the calf. Dairy cows seemed to have more trouble with large calves than beef cows.

We always had flashlights, but years earlier, people had lanterns. No one went to the toilet in the house. The little kids had a potty chair, but not many older kids stayed in. A trip in the dark to the outhouse was when the old lantern was used. People got sick and had to make many runs when the urge struck, even when it was 30 below zero.

I remember people using a little kerosene to start the wood fires in stoves. That was fairly safe because kerosene doesn’t explode like gasoline. One bad thing that happened once in awhile was the house getting cold when the fire went out. Thinking the fire was completely dead; people crumpled up some old newspaper and placed kindling wood on top and tossed in some kerosene. When an unknown ember evaporated the kerosene, fumes filled the stove. When the lit match was tossed into the kindling and the door closed, the fumes exploded, blowing the lids off the kitchen range, or knocking the stove pipes apart. That filled the house with smoke and everything had to be put back together before the household could get back to sleep.

A few people were burned when they mistakenly tried to start a fire with gasoline. Some house burned down that way.

I remember Grandma Miller having a 32 gallon oil barrel with a spigot in the woodshed. She filled her small gallon kerosene can from that.

The lumberjacks had a flat half pint whiskey bottle of kerosene in their back pocket to lubricate the handsaws. It cut the pitch so the blade wouldn’t stick in the saw cut. A small nail hole was punched in the metal cap, and a drop or two could be sprinkled on the blade. Those old wool pants stunk kerosene, too.

The gas pumps I remember when small, had a 10 gallon glass tank up about 6 feet off the ground. There were black paint lines indicating the gallons. A long handle on the side of the pump was pushed back and forth to fill the glass. Gravity emptied the pump with a hose just like we do today. Those were the days before electricity. The store clerk would run outside and pump your gas for you. In the towns, there were electric companies and more modern equipment. Just about every tavern in the countryside was also a small grocery store and even sold shoes and some hardware. Nearly all of them had a gas pump, too.

Even when cars started becoming popular in the 1920’s, it would be nearly 1950 before most rural electric lines were built. Some people had 32 volt light plants (generators) that charged up those glass acid-lead batteries. Some had electric lights and a water pump running off that set up.

Dirty gas was a problem. Those old jokers were built out of old car and truck parts. Some were nearly worn out and had to be tinkered with a lot to keep going. Rust got in some of those old gas cans. Rust formed from condensation in the gas tanks of those rigs, too. That filled the glass sediment bowls and had to be emptied. A person could see the water in them. If not caught in time, they could plug up a gas line or plug up the carburetor. I know some had a rag in the gas tank or a tin can over the spout when the gas cap was lost.

When a motor sounds like its running out of gas and dies, it may be a plugged gas line. We used the crank to measure the gas in our joker. If it wasn’t out of gas, I blew out the gas line. If that didn’t work, I had to take the carburetor apart. If that didn’t work, everything stopped until dad got home.

The same joker was used to cut hay, rake hay, pull the hay wagon, and in winter, skid firewood home. Dad mounted his saw rig on it, too. It was a worn 1928 Chevy motor with a car transmission and a six inch drive shaft going into a Dodge truck transmission. That big transmission had a power take off. That was connected to a Model A Ford truck rear end. We had Cub tractor tires mounted on truck wheels for traction.

Hardly anyone had pickup trucks before 1950, so those gas cans were hauled in the car trunks. On those old, bumpy gravel roads, it’s a miracle cars didn’t blow up.