We were a large family to live in such a small house even after the two rooms and bath were added. I, like any kid, always wanted my own space. I begged to live in the attic but it was unfinished, no floor, no windows, so I was told no each time I asked. Sometimes we had beds in the basement to make a little more room. But some times when the neighbors water ran too long the basement filled with water, and you could get out of bed in the morning and step into water knee deep. Then we had the job of bailing it all out and cleaning up.

In the summertime I slept outside a lot. It was just too cold in the winter to do that. My folks got a new bedspring for their bed, and the old iron one was hauled outside, I suppose waiting for a trip to the dump. I took that old spring out to the orchard we had and hauled it up into a tree whose branches spread out so that the four corners of the spring sat on four limbs, about 8 feet high. Mom gave me a bed tick for my new abode. Those of you who may not know, that is a cloth like a big sack filled with straw that people slept on before mattresses became available. I couldn’t have been very old because I remember going out there in the evening climbing into that bed, and as it began to get dark looking up through the leaves I could see all kinds of scary things looking at me. I would get so scared I just put my head under the covers and went to sleep. Even though it was scary it was better than sleeping in the house where we all shared two beds in a small bedroom and only one small closet. It was wonderful in the morning to wake up to the sun coming up over the mountains to the east.

I remember that in the winter it was very cold. Our only heat was from a stove in the living room and the kitchen. Mom would heat up rocks, or put hot water in a two quart bottle for us to take to bed to try to warm up with. Icicles hung down from the eves three and four feet long. Ice covered the windows and in the morning when we were called to do chores there was ice on the inside walls of our bedroom, from our breathing all night.

None of the boys liked getting out of a warm bed and doing chores. Dad would call us over and over. I could always tell by the tone of his voice when it was time to get up and go. You didn’t wait until he came in after you. I remember once when we were lying in bed and Dad was trying to do something under the car that was parked right outside our window. It slipped off the jack and came down on him with the axle right across his chest. Chuck heard him groan and was out of bed instantly, and ran out there with out getting dressed. Seeing dads feet sticking out from under the car he took the bumper in his hands and lifted the car up so dad could get out. I think Chuck suffered with a bad back the rest of his life from that. Dad was ok.

Saturday night was time to bathe and get cleaned up for the Sabbath. Even with a fire going it was a cold ordeal. The old tub was placed on the floor by the stove and water heated on the top was put in. There was a reservoir in the stove itself, but that wasn’t enough for a bath. I was always cold on the side away from the stove, and too hot on the side facing it. I always liked the poem Ma’s old Galvanized Washin’ Tub because whoever wrote it must have grown up in a small home with no bathroom, just like I did. Here are the words.

Saturday was always a mighty big day, back home, when I was a boy.
It meant going to town, to picture shows, a day full of pleasure and joy.
But as sure as nighttime rolled around, there was a price to pay.
And believe me, brothers and sisters, I paid it the difficult way.

Did you ever take your Saturday bath and try to wash and scrub,
While squatting down on your haunches, in a galvanized washin tub?
If not, then you ain’t missed a thing, but I’m telling you what’s right.
I did it until I was almost grown and every dog gone Saturday night.

In summer time it was bad enough, but in winter it was really rough.
Spreading papers, fillin buckets and kettles, and that kind of stuff.
But a getting ready fer that week end ordeal, was only half the rub,
Of taken a bath on Saturday night in a galvanized washin’ tub.

Did you ever stand there, striped to the skin, a wood stove a bakin’ yer hide,
A dreadin’ to put your darn foot in, fer fear it’d burn you alive?
Finely you get the temperature right, and into the tub you’d crawl.
That cold steal’d touch yer back, and you’d let out a howl,

You’d take the soap and lather up, you couldn’t scrub more than half yer skin.
There wasn’t room fer ta turn around, due to the shape you was in.
Someone else would have to scrub your back, if you could get them to do the washin‘.
For in order to do the job yourself you had to know the art of contortion,

You’d get out of the tub next to the stove, and stand there drippin’ and shakin‘.
The front of you a freezing ta death, while the back of your body’s bakin.
A shiverin’ and shakin‘, a burning and bakin‘. That’s the price I had to pay.
That ordeal will haunt me and taunt me till I am old and gray.

Now I ain’t through yet, There’s something more I want to say.
You see I wuz the youngest of four who bathed each Saturday.
Now we all bathed accordin’ to age. And I fell last in order
Which meant I had to bath myself in their same old dad-burned water.

Now I’m a man of clean habits and I believe in bathin’ each week.
It helps to keep clean and healthy, and freshin’s up my physique,
But I’ll tell you if I had my druthers I’d rather eat a bug
Than to take my Saturday bath again in a galvanized washing tub.

We had no garage and the car would freeze up so it wouldn’t start. I would often be sent to the field to get a horse if we had to go some place. With the horse hooked to the car we would pull it till it would start. Sometimes the wheel grease was so frozen that the wheels wouldn’t turn. It had to be pulled until they started to turn before the car would start. Oh, how cold it was. The long winter hair on the horse would be covered with frost. When I got on the heat from my body and the horse’s body would soon melt the frost and my Levis would be wet. Many a time I have hung wet Levi’s up on the bedpost at night only to find them frozen stiff when I had to put them on in the morning.

I always liked a poem ‘Sleeping at the Foot of the Bed‘; I don’t know who wrote it but it was some one who lived as I had lived as a child. I memorized it and recited it a few times for different programs.

Did you ever sleep at the foot of the bed when the weather was whizzing cold?
When the wind was whistling around the house and the moon was yeller as gold.
And give yer good warm covers up to Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Fred.
To many kinfolks on a bad raw night, and you went to the foot of the bed.

I could always wait till the old folks ate, and then eat the leavens with grace.
The teacher could keep me after school, and I’d still hold a smile on my face.
I can wear the big kids worn out clothes, or let sister take my sled.
But it always did get my goat, to have to sleep at the foot of the bed.

T’was fine enough when the kinfolks came, the kids brought brand new games.
You could see how fat the old folks was, and always got Sunday fed.
But you’d know darn well when night comes on, you was headed for the foot of the bed.
You couldn’t git by it; there was no use to try it, you was headed for the foot of the bed.

They tell me that some folks don’t know what it is to have company all over the place.
To razzle for covers through a long winter night, with a big foot sitin’ in your face.
Or with cold toe nails, a scratchin’ your back, and a foot board a scrubbin’ your head.
I’ll tell the world you ain’t lost a thing, never sleeping at the foot of the bed.

You kin live just as gladly and die just as sadly and never sleep at the foot of the bed.
I’ve done it and I’ve done it many a time, in this land of the brave and the free.
And in all this all fired battle of life, it’s done left its mark on me.
For I’m always a struggling around at the foot, instead of forging ahead.

And I don’t think it’s caused by a dog gone thing, but just sleepin’ at the foot of the bed.
I’ve lost all my claim on fortune and fame a sleeping at the foot of the bed.

I don’t remember just how old I was, but I was over to McKay’s when the potatoes were being harvested. I don’t think I was working, but playing. I found a potato that was as big as my head I think, and showed it to Mel. He must have been newly married, I am sure he had not bought the Dawson farm yet and was living in a little trailer of some kind by McKay’s house. He said he would give me a silver dollar if I could eat it. Boy I hadn’t seen that much money before so I got a pocketknife and began. I was so stuffed I could hardly chew and I guess he felt sorry for me. He said I could take the rest up to the house and have Emeline cook it for me, but I didn’t, I gave up.

I loved the weather in Idaho for the most part when I was growing up there. Especially in the summer time. We had thunderstorms that brought loud claps of thunder and lightning I used to love going out in the car and listening to the rain pound down on the roof, or out in the barn. Dad had a wire attached to a lightning rod on the roof of the house that ran out to a pole on the corner of the coral fence. This acted as an aerial for his radio. One day I came out the back door headed for the car in a storm and lightning hit that wire. It was a real boomer. A yearling calf in the corral not more than 10 or 15 feet from me was killed. No sign of the wire was ever found-it had all been consumed.

Dad served as director for the Weston Creek Irrigation Company. Each year he would call on the farmers who used that water to come and hand clean the ditch. I have done it many times. If a farmer didn’t show up or send someone he was assess his share in dollars to pay. One spring I remember spring run off flooded out the head gates right where the water to Tingey’s, Thompson’s, our farm, and other’s was diverted to our farms. Dad called a work day to fix it. I must have been in my teens by then, and went with dad to work so we could pay his share with labor and not money. Dad explained how he wanted the work done. He told them to cut willows along the creek and pile in the wash where soil had washed away. Then he wanted several loads of manure filled with straw put on top of that, and then a couple feet of dirt hauled and placed over that.

I was interested when Wash Thompson told them how to do it another way. Dad listened to every thing the others had to say then said he wanted it done as he had directed. I always have remembered Wash Thompson’s reply. “Well”, he said, “I may be wrong this time but I never have been before.” He was the first man I ever met who had never been wrong before.

My experiences with him were never good and I was glad that we didn’t trade work there. I did work for him a few times though. I was just in grade school when he hired me to keep his cattle out of the sugar beets until they were harvested. I remember what a cold miserable job it was. I would come home half-frozen and mom would have me sit in front of the oven to thaw out my feet. I don’t remember what he had promised me for pay, but when I was done I went to get my money and he said to me, “I’m not going to pay you anything. What are neighbors for if you can’t use them.” I went home and told Dad what he had said. I don’t remember Dad saying anything but he went to see Wash Thompson and came home with my pay.

I was a teenager I guess when I again agreed to work for him. He wanted to build a fence out north of his place. I think he had bought some land for pasture. He told me he would pay me 10 cents a hole to dig the post holes. He took me out there and showed me where to dig and said each one should be three feet deep. I had dug a lot of holes for Dad so I knew what I was getting into. Some holes are really hard to dig, but hey it is all money no matter how hard the job. However when I got there to do this job I found I didn’t have to use a crow bar. The soil was all sandy and easy digging. I finished the job way faster than expected and again I went to get my pay. He didn’t believe I could have dug all the holes that fast, and went to look and even measured to make sure they were 3 feet. I had that marked on my shovel so I had done all of them and all were right. He then decided it was such an easy job he would pay only a nickel, I again went and told Dad Wash was trying to cheat me, and again he went and had a little talk with him and I got my pay. He had four sons of his own so I don’t know why he didn’t have them do it anyway. I don’t remember ever working for him again.

I was working for Bishop Bastian once and when I got done, I went to his house to get paid. I didn’t know it at the time but they had a son the same age as my sister MerLyn who was retarded badly. People then didn’t expose their children who were like that to the public, so I had never seen him, or heard that they had that son. When I came to knock on the door, it was open and only a screen door closed and locked. The knock brought that boy coming to the door making a weird sound and walking kind of like an ape on all fours. He hit the screen door and scared me so badly I got on my horse and left without my pay. After I told mom what had happened to me she explained about the boy. I didn’t go back again but Bishop Bastian did pay me.

By the time I was eight years old I had already been working in the fields eight-hour days along with the men. I started out as a derrick boy when we hauled hay. When we were through with our work at home, I worked for neighbors as they needed me. I was paid $.50 a day at first, then $.75 and finely $1.00. Men were paid $2.50 to pitch hay for eight hours and given there dinner. I also thinned beets and hoed weeds. It was hard, hot work but everyone had to help with it. I started milking when about five or six-first with an easy cow, a jersey, called Tiny. As my hands gained strength I was given more cows to milk. Mother often came to help with that when Dad was with the water and unable to leave.

All we had was an open shed in those days, with walls on three sides. These were made from posts set in the ground and long poles hauled from the canyon nailed to each side of the post, then stuffed with straw in between. It was cold in there all winter but kept the wind out and better than milking in the open. I would milk until my fingers were too cold, then stick them up under the flank of the cow to warm them, then go back to milking again. In the summer time we milked in the open corral, either at home, or at Grandpa Whitney’s.

A note from Mother’s journal. “On my dads farm we girls milked a lot of cows; the money for the milk went to pay for the land. Some times when one of the girls had a date I milked as many as 25 cows by hand sitting on a stool. I wrote a song about this that some of our friends made a big tado (fuss) about.

Seated one day on my milk stool, I was weary and ill at ease. I touched the tits very carefully, with a squeeze and a pull and a squeeze. Just as I was taking my departure, as oft times I had taken before, she lifted her foot very carefully, and sent me and the bucket out the door. “

We went down to Grandpa Whitney’s to milk one time when the cows were pastured there. I went down a lane to get them on my pony. A fence was on one side and a drainage ditch on the other. I was going full blast down that lane when at the end, the cows came into the lane. My horse didn’t stop so the cows, turned sideways to go back when my pony tried to jump over four of them. We crashed and I got trampled a bit breaking my collarbone. Dad was none to happy when I did things like that, he needed me to help with the farm work. It wasn’t long after I remember getting chewed out for pushing one of my friends cars to get it started. Dad said I would never get healed up so I could do a days work.

I remember going to a scout banquet for some reason. Maybe we were getting awards or something. They fed a lot of scouts anyway and it was in Preston so it was a stake affair. We had just been served a bowl of chili and I had some of those real red hot peppers I had gotten hold of. I said to Rallo Miller who sat across from me, “Hey look what is that?” While he was turned away I reached over and scattered some of those hot peppers in his bowl. When we started to eat, his first spoonful was so hot he grabbed his water glass and drank it all. “I’m not eating that,” he said. “Oh,” I said, “We have to or they will be mad at us.” I took a spoonful to show him how brave I was. He then would take a spoonful and drink more water. It was a dirty trick but we did things like that sometimes.

Once I remember coming home from a scout camping trip in the back of someone’s truck. Some one had an egg left and tossed it in the air. It came down on a car following us. Then someone else added a hand full of pancake flour to that. Tossed in the air it of course went all over the car also. I didn’t do it but I was there laughing along with the others. I was always afraid to do things my dad might find out about. He would give me more trouble than the sheriff would.

I always liked going to see my grandparents. I can’t remember of ever going when Grandmother didn’t have a chocolate cake made from scratch, and almost red in color, with a white frosting. She had one of those covers that sat right over the cake plate. I have wondered since I grew up how she could always have a cake on hand no matter when I came.

One time I brought home a nice horse from Grant Bingham’s farm. I had agreed to break it to ride for a $1.00 a day for 30 days and it’s feed. Dad was in the yard when I came home and he asked what I was doing with that horse. I told him I had brought her home to break. He looked at her and said, you’re going to break your neck and I wont get any help from you all summer. I said, “Oh, she is ok I wont get hurt.” “Yeah, he said, “just look into those eyes.” I put a bridle on her and grabbed a handful of mane and swung on just to show him how smart I was. It took less than a minute for her to dump me in a newly mowed alfalfa patch head first, boy was that a sticky landing. Dad just waited until he had seen I was able to get up and said, “Yep she’s ok.” The next time I rode her I had her snubbed to the saddle horn of my pony so she couldn’t get her head down. She turned out to be a nice horse but one that had to be ridden every day or you had to ride the rocker again each time you got on her.

I only remember seeing eyes like that horse had once after that. I was married and living in Medford when I went to look at a cow to buy for milk. It was a small farm out by four corners. After getting her in the barn so she could be loaded. I looked in her eyes and decided not to buy her, remembering what Dad had said about that horse. I am sure I saved myself some grief by not trying to milk her.

I remember the longest day of my life was when I was in grade school. I don’t know just how old I was but Dad said to me in the morning, “When you get home today, I will have a surprise for you.” I couldn’t think of anything else all day long. Was I going to get a new pony? Or maybe a bike of my own? An electric train I had asked for every year for Christmas that never came? What could it possibly be? When that last bell rang, I didn’t wait for a school bus, but just headed for home on the run. I was all out of breath when I found Dad and ask what my surprise was. He took me to the well and showed me a new pump had been installed that day, all you had to do was turn it on. The electric company had finally run a line past our farm and we had lights and power for other things as soon as we could afford them.

At first I was terribly disappointed. Who would want that for a surprise, but then it came to me–no more pumping water for all the animals. That had been my job for a long time and when cows drank they could put away 10 gallon’s each. Some times I would throw rocks at them to try to get them to go away, but they always came back until they had their fill. That pump handle was all covered with frost in the morning during the winter, and you almost froze doing the job, but it had to be done and every day. Once I remember looking at that pump handle and thinking that the frost would taste so good. I stuck out my tongue and took a lick and was stuck fast to the handle. Unless there is some one there that could pour some water on, your only way out is to pull away and leave the skin of your tongue there. I had a pretty sore tongue for awhile.

I was old enough to shovel a lot of sand and gravel when Dad built a barn. We mixed our own cement and I pitched sand and gravel for most of it. Some time after the barn was built we got an electric milking machine. Ours was a Delevalve. Our neighbors had a Surge. I was in high school by then. This didn’t end the hard work-it just made it better for the cows. Not all was better for them. I never heard of Mastitis until we had a milking machine. You have to be careful and disinfect right or you can spread it through the whole heard. This disease cause an infection in the cow that could effect one quarter or all four. The milk came out stringy and thick sometimes mixed with blood. When I was on my first mission the Swedes had a product called Long Milk that reminded me of this problem. You put it in a bowl and with a little sugar eat it with a spoon. It would stretch all the way from the bowl to your mouth before breaking off and plopping back into the bowl. I always said no thanks to any offer of that kind of cultured milk. I often said to the host, my doctor wont let me eat that.

We still had to clean the barn every day, and haul fresh straw for the cows to lie on. We had to haul in the hay they eat and on and on. As a kid it was my job to teach the new calves to drink from a bucket. To do this you put some milk in the bucket and then a finger in their mouth when they sucked your finger you pushed the head into the milk. They had to gulp or drown and they soon found out that the milk was good.

One job I hated most was in the spring when I had to clean the chicken coop. That has got to be the smelliest job on the farm or at least right up there with cleaning a pigpen. Dad always wanted the horse manure and the chicken manure on the garden, so I guess it was the best for that purpose but chickens were not fun to care for. We had them only for our own use, meat and eggs. Our neighbor across the street had thousands of them and sold the eggs.

I don’t know the date, but it must have been soon after I got out of the eighth grade, that I got permission to go with a friend of mine to the big city. We took the Galloping Goose street car that ran from Preston to Salt Lake. It had about served its usefulness by then and was not maintained very much. It swayed and rattled as it went along the tracks. As I remember it was like a street car ran by electricity. When we got to Salt Lake we got a room at the Newhouse Hotel. Boy, that was big stuff staying in a hotel in the big city of Salt Lake. When we got up the next morning I thought I should do as the big boys would and buy a paper. Right on the front page was a story of a man murdered in our hotel that night. We couldn’t go fast enough back to the Goose and a ride back home. I didn’t see any other sights of the big city.

Dad helped the blacksmith in Weston in the wintertime by shoeing horses for him. I watched as he shaped the shoes and did our own horses. By the time I was a teen I was preparing the shoes for my own pony and putting them on.

I was always fascinated in late August after we harvested the grain; we usually had twine left over from the binder. Dad had a hand held machine that we used to make our own rope. It was a contraption with a lot of little hooks on one end, one person stood and held that after threading the twine back and forth from it to another thing with hooks a handle and a hole through the middle. As we turned the wheels it twisted the twine different directions and when it went through the hole on one end and became a twisted rope. It was all fuzzy at first but after being used a little while the fuzz wore off and it looked like any other rope.

My Uncle Merl took flying lessons and after he had his license he invited me one day to go up with him in one of those little piper cubs that flew out of Preston. It was kind of like being up on big hill with my horse looking down on the farms, until he put that thing into a nosedive to give me a thrill. I didn’t like that at all and never have enjoyed Ferris Wheels or any of the rides they have with carnivals. I have never liked being more than a few feet off the ground. Even up high on a load of hay bothered me.

Many years later while working for the church in Medford, Oregon, I had to go up once, in the tower to change some lights. To get there you had to climb a metal ladder bolted to the cement walls. It was straight up. There were no lights so about half way up you were in complete darkness. At the top there was a trap door that opened and then you were in day light again. I had taken a rope with me, with what I needed tied to it. When getting out of the tunnel you had only about a six-inch wall to stand on. I shudder even now telling about it. Every muscle in my body was tight. And just as I got up there, the guy working for me was driving out the parking lot going to lunch an hour early. I looked down and it was all cement at the bottom and it looked to me like it was about 5000 feet below. It was only about 60 feet but it just as well have been 5000, as far as I am concerned. I decided when I had finished the job that if it ever needed to be done again while I worked there I would just retire and let someone else do it. (Now in December of 2006 they have replaced that tower. I don’t think it has lights now.

My idea of thrills was when I boxed for the school team. I had both feet on the ground. My brother Marion helped the coach. I loved the noise the girls made when I entered the ring. Sometimes a team would not have anyone in my weight, “152 pounds” and in order to fill in the ticket for the night Marion would come and ask if I would go at it with someone bigger. I remember a time or two getting the heck kicked out of me when they did that. I also managed to mess up my back doing it and have suffered for years as a result.

I used to spar with LaDell Tingey, my neighbor. He was always a challenge because he was left-handed and led with the right. Eddy Winward was a year younger a featherweight. He was really good. Maybe the best we had. He was so fast he could go in, hit you 50 times and go out before you got started. Many times his fight was stopped in the first few minutes and he was given a win. Garth Panter was the only one who continued after High School. He wasn’t very good in my opinion but he turned pro and got kicked around awhile before he wised up. Delbert Holden was another kid on our team. He came from a poor family, or at least that is how I saw it when we stopped to pick him up on the school bus. Marion took an interest in him and he always liked Marion. I thought he was a better fighter than Garth Panter was.

Because of all the bad experiences I had going to school, and with teachers that weren’t very good because of the war. I decided not to continue on to high school. Dad had only a sixth grade education because he dropped out to help with his siblings and help on the farm after his mother died. He wanted me to keep going but I was stubborn. I had had all I wanted with school. He got Mr. Simpson the superintendent to come and talk to me, but he got no place either. School started and I refused to go. Finally one day Dad offered to give me his finest cow if I would go. I took the bribe and started three weeks late. I didn’t like going, but because of our agreement I kept going, but not all the time. Every time I could find a job plowing or doing some other thing in the fall and spring I did it. As a result I had a lot of absent days and a lot of poor grades. I think the only thing I did like was typing and shop. But other subjects I just didn’t care if I flunked or not. I didn’t even get a good grade in Seminary and although I went four years, I refused to go to the graduation and get a diploma, knowing that I hadn’t earned it. I played football and boxed on the boxing team and enjoyed the sports. I had a girl friend that I thought a lot of so maybe that kept me going too. I am surprised that I didn’t like history. I have loved that since going on my first mission and still do. I read every day and have done so for many years.

In December just a few days before Christmas there was a ball game at the Weston High School about a mile west of our farm. Some time after that game ended and the people left, the fire siren sounded and I looked up there and could see the school on fire. I ran all the way up there thinking to save some Christmas things I was making in shop, but the whole building was ablaze and nothing could be done. People just stood around and watched it burn.

We were later bussed to Clifton where they took over an abandoned grade school and I finished High School there. I worked the summer I got out of school to help build the new school in Dayton but never attended that school.

I was working for Bingham’s one spring hauling manure. He had an Indian there also. The slowest guy I ever seen doing anything. We each had a tractor and spreader. Mine was twice the size of the one use by that Indian and I still hauled about two loads to every one he hauled. We finished the corral and went over to do a pigpen. There were no animals in it. Manure maybe a foot deep, but it was crusted over on the top from the sunshine. This Indian jumped in and sank past his ankles. The fumes came up and hit him in the nostrils. He jumped back out and said to me. Me sick, and promptly went and laid in the haystack the rest of the day while I cleaned the pen.

During the war we had prisoners of war helping in the sugar beets. I was over to Thompson’s when some of them were eating lunch. They gave Seth one of their rice rolls. He threw it and hit one fellow in the face. He didn’t do anything to him, but I thought he should have beat the hell out of Seth. They were just guys caught up in a war a long way from home just like my brothers were.

Seth was a school bully when I was in grade school. I remember one time when we were playing softball at noon hour. He was batting and struck out. Then he would say I was just practicing one more and they would go along with that until he had 4 or 5 strikes, while the rest of us played by the rules, 3 strikes and your out. I went to take my turn at bat and he pushed me away he wanted to keep on batting until he hit one. Even though he was larger and older than me, I remembered my grandpa Whitney’s advise as to how to handle a bully. He always said swing hard, aim at the nose, then run like hell. I swung from the hip and landed a fist right on his nose and mouth knocking him flat on the ground. I thought he would get up and beat me up but he didn’t. He was so surprised that he just laid there. Then I got scared thinking I was going to be in big trouble with the teachers and it would all get to my dad. I don’t remember the teachers saying a thing to me. They all new about his bullying the kids I think. He and I got along quite well after that.

I’m not sure how old I was when Dad gave me a calf. He did that for all the boys I think. I don’t know how the girls were paid for there labor, but we got a calf and raised it. When it produced milk we sold it to the creamery and the checks came to us just like his came to him. I don’t remember being taught much about money, but do remember Dad saying I should save some for a rainy day. If I didn’t and my cow dried up, I was just out of luck until she lactated again. It was a good lesson. Looking back I could have saved a lot more but most of what I have learned, I learned the hard way.

One of those milk checks came while I was on my first mission and Dad apparently used it for a bookmark in his High Priest lesson book and forgot about it. It was years after he died that Mom found that check and gave it to me. I took it over to Archie’s and cashed it and was surprised that the creamery honored it when it was so old.

I was in high school when one of my friends Theo Schvaneveldt, got a palomino colt from his pony. I wanted one all my life but we had a small farm and everything on it had to earn its own board and keep. I asked Dad if I could breed the Indian pony he had bought for the family when I was a small boy perhaps four. He said no; we couldn’t feed another horse. I kept after him, promising to buy the feed myself. After a long time he gave in and I had her bred to a stallion called Golden Tex. He was simply beautiful just shone in the sunlight as if he were gold. I could hardly wait the 11 months it took for that colt to arrive, and was so disappointed when I first saw it. It was bay just like the mare, and to make things worse it had a crocked front leg. It was about a year old when I put the mother and colt in a pasture up in dry canyon rented from Herbert Williams. The pasture bill was not much but I didn’t want that colt. I was able to sell it and get my money back then started in on Dad again to try over. After some time I was permitted to breed the mare. This time after along wait the colt finally came and again it was not gold but black. It was a beautiful colt and I didn’t think dad would go for a third try so I raised and broke this one. I named her Pride. She turned out to be the easiest riding horse any of us had ever sat on. Even Dad enjoyed riding her. I had ridden bare back most of my life. Floss the Indian pony we had had a sharp back bone to sit on, but this little mare Pride was rounded and soft.

One day while in Sears store in Logan with Dad I spotted a saddle that I wanted. I asked if we could get it and Dad said no, we don’t have the money. I begged to buy it and pay for it myself, I could make the payments out of my milk checks. Dad finally gave in and let me do it. I guess that was the first experience I had with payments and interest. I really enjoyed that saddle though and it is still hanging in the barn in Weston.

After I got my pony Pride, I just loved to ride her. She was so soft and the pace she set really moved over a lot of ground. Sometimes I would go with a friend into the hills, sometimes with a riding club I belonged to, and sometimes all alone. I remember once going with a friend and taking a packhorse to carry our stuff. Coming down a trail on the way home there was a place where a tree had fallen across our path. Without thinking I just kicked Pride and she ran and jumped it. The packhorse seeing that, came running and jumped it too. We had pots and pans and all kinds of stuff to gather up after that.

Another time I remember going alone up on big canyon.
It was such a steep climb I had to get off and lead my horse at the top. It was so beautiful to look down on the farms all etched out in different colors depending on what was planted. I remember coming down off the mountain out by Dayton some place. It was one of those warm days in the fall, and I had put my right leg up over the saddle horn and let my pony have her head. We were making good time coming off the mountain, and I was almost asleep, when a rattler rattled just in front of us. Pride reared and swung to the right. I pulled my pistol and shot that snake as if it had been something in the movies, and know one there to see it. I wondered if I ever could make such a shoot again.

Then I went up on the west side deer hunting on her. Our little valley had mountains on the west and on the east. I had seen a lot of deer but so far away I couldn’t hit them with my little 30-30 rifle. I was headed for home late in the afternoon with my right leg over the saddle horn again, and half asleep, when a deer jumped up from some brush and about scared horse and rider to death. As my horse turned and swung to the right, I raised that gun sliding off the safe with my thumb I shot, hitting it right in the top of the neck. It was one of the easiest deer I ever got. It was a matter of dressing it and loading it in the saddle, then getting on in back and we were off for home again. Sometimes killing a deer requires a lot of work dragging it up or down a mountainside back to your car. I have shot some that I wished later that I had missed.

I shot another deer up on the east side mountains when I went hunting with Oss Moser. I think I was the only one to get a deer that day in our party. It was running straight away from me. And I hit it in the neck so as not to spoil any meat.

Another time I shot one in the snow over on the east mountains. It was a long way back to the car so I rode it down the mountain most of the way like a sled. I just turned it over on it’s back, sat on the belly side and held up the head by the horns and away we went.

I think I only shot three deer after moving to Oregon. After President Kimball gave his “don’t shot the little birds talk” I had no more desire to go hunting. I loved being in the mountains but I decided that the deer had every bit as much right to live as I did.

My brother Marion was five years older than me, like most brothers, we didn’t always see eye to eye. He would stay after school and play ball, and I had to do his chores. It was a lot of work hauling straw, a pitchfork full at a time, to put in that open shed for the cows to bed down on. It had to be cleaned out every day as well. One night he and I were both working at it when a calf came in the shed to eat hay we had put in there for the cows while we milked. He hopped on that calf to show me what a great cowboy he was, and it went running out and dumped him on his belly in the manure. His right hand came down in a fresh pile and I started to laugh. He scooped up a hand full and let fly and got me right in the face.

I rode my pony up to Cederville to a friend’s house and spent most of the day. We did a little dickering and I traded for a single shoot bolt action 22 rifle for one that broke open to reload. When I came home Marion seeing that I had a new gun grabbed it from me. I warned him to be careful because it had a hair trigger. Too late, he shot himself in the foot. He was 16 and wanted to go off to war just like our two older brothers. He wouldn’t have to go until he was out of High School but he had signed up anyway and was just waiting to go to boot camp. My uncle Merl had been doing something at our place and had just driven his tractor into the yard. When he saw Marion hopping around on one foot, he came over to investigate. He saw blood coming out the top of his shoe and sat him on the derrick to take a look. He saw that the bullet had gone all the way through. He told me not to tell Mom to upset her, and put Marion in the car and took him to the doctor. He was healed up enough in a couple weeks to go to boot camp. I suppose if he was like some politicians I know to day, he would have applied for a Purple Heart and gotten it.

I had that same gun over to Grandpa Morgan’s yard when Aunt Florence and Uncle George lived there. They had a little boy about two or three years old. I was standing there talking to him and that gun went off shooting into the ground right by him. He just looked up at me as much as to say “what the heck or you doing?” I remember that it scared me. Guns are dangerous but we always had one around. I used to shoot sparrows off the hay stack and the old shed. Once a bullet went wrong and through a window of Dale McKay’s house. I quit shooting after that in that direction at all. We had an old 10 gage shoot gun. I don’t know who it belonged to. Dad didn’t ever use a gun that I know off. Bud Whitney was there and it was a cool fall day. Lots of those sparrows were on the south side of the haystack. That shoot gun was a stacked double barrel affair, and he picked it up pointed at the haystack and pulled both triggers. It knocked him back from the back door to the wall across the porch.

I remember another time when I laughed when I should not have. We had our new barn by now and I was to milk a cow that was not very friendly. When I walked back of her she kicked and got me right across both knees. I wasn’t hurt bad but told Dad I didn’t want to milk that cow. He went and was going to put a pair of hobbles on her so I could milk her, and when he leaned around in back to see where the hock was she let it fly, and messed right down his neck. It was funny but that kind of thing shouldn’t be laughed at. He went over to the water trough and put the hose on to wash away what he could before going in the house to change clothes.

As a teenager I was not much smarter than the average teen. One night I was sitting at the table when Mom asked me to go empty the pig bucket we kept on the porch, to throw table scraps in. I just continued what I was doing until she asked me again to go empty it. The third time, Dad put down his paper and said, “Keith did you hear what your mother ask you to do?” I said “yes,” and just sat there. He said something like if I didn’t get a move on he would have to help me. I said, “You got a problem then don’t you?” He looked up and ask, “What do you mean?” I said, “Figuring out how your going to catch me.” He was out of his chair faster than I had ever seen him move, and I was out the kitchen door, headed for the porch door, which was only three or four feet away. I just got it open when his foot caught up to me. I never touched any of the out side steps going down. I landed in the back yard on my back. And I don’t ever remember sassing him again.

I don’t remember how old I was but maybe 16 or so when I was working for Mel McKay. I worked there and for Grant Bingham a lot. This was in the spring and Mel had a little band of sheep he was castrating and docking. He would have me grab each lamb and hold it up to him with one front leg and one back leg in each hand. He then would cut off the end of the sack and take the testicle out with his teeth. After awhile he got tired (I think he had false teeth) Mel grabbed a lamb and held it up to me, but I refused to use my teeth. Pinchers would work, but was not as clean as doing it with your teeth.

One day when we finished work he gave me an old ewe that was to old to keep up with the herd, and was very poor, because she had lost a lot of her teeth. I took her out to the road that ran right between his house and barn and waited for dad to come back from milking at Whitney’s. When he came he asked what on earth I was doing with that ewe. I told him Mel had given her to me and I was going to take her home. I put her on the running board of the car and standing between her legs I held her on. Before we got home she got one foot off the running board and it drug along the road for some time. I turned her loose at home in the yard. She could eat grass and stuff in the yard without walking very far and soon started to fatten up. She had a runny nose when I first got her, which I wiped with a gunnysack. Both Dad and I were surprised when she also produced twins. We didn’t know she was pregnant. I penned the lambs and fed them until they were ready for market. Lee Schvaneveldt came along one day and ask if we had any live stock to send to the action. I sold those lambs for $54.00 but Dad was not a happy camper when he came home and found out what I had done. He had been thinking we would eat those in the winter.

There were other times that sheepherders would move their flocks and some ewe would lamb on the way. Knowing that the lamb couldn’t keep up he would put it in the camp wagon to ride. We would go and ask if he had any bummers he wanted to get rid of, and often he would give them to us. We would then feed them with a bottle and nipple, and they would think we were their mothers. The lamb would follow you every place you went even in the house if you weren’t careful. They make very good pets.

In the wintertime I would often see a dead calf, frozen in the corral of some farmer. I would get on my horse when I got home and go there and ask if I could have the dead calf. They would give them to me and I would skin the calf or other animal and sell the hide to my Uncle George Winn. The price would change from time to time but usually it would be worth $3 to $5 if you were careful and not cut holes in the hide. A large animal was worth more but was also harder to do.

With our little farm Dad had to rotate the crops in order to keep from getting nematode where he planted sugar beets. The alfalfa would thin out after a few years so you didn’t get a good crop, but a lot of weeds mixed in. One year he had planted some oats in old alfalfa so as to get a better crop and have feed for winter. One morning Dad was on the haystack cutting feed for the animals and happened to be where those oats were in the stack. They are very slick and he fell from the stack, breaking his ankle. He crawled to the house to get help. He was laid up a long time not able to do his work but the kids did the chores and kept things going. He never got over the break. It gave him a problem the rest of his life, especially when he was irrigating and had his boots on for several days.

I have been trying to find a photo of Dads gray team. I was sure I had seen one but can’t find it. I called Marion to see if he had one. He looked but couldn’t find one either so he made me a sleigh and a gray team pulling it and sent it to me. I was surprised when I got the package. I called him on my Cell phone to say thanks and again was surprised when his granddaughter MaKayla answered the phone. I was thinking I called one of my kids by mistake and ask who did I get to talk to. She said MaKayla. Well I haven’t seen you for a long time how are you? Fine! Is your grandfather or grandmother at home I asked. Yes, both of them she replied. Well I said this is Santa Clause calling. I just wanted to see if you were being a good girl, can I talk to your grandpa? Yes, she said and I could hear her as she excitedly told her grandfather it’s Santa Clause calling and he wants to talk to you. Marion came on the phone but for some reason he could not hear me. He kept saying hello, hello. I knew something was wrong so I hung up thinking to call right back. Well my house phone rang then before I could call again and it was Evelyn saying Marion couldn’t hear me. Marion came on then and said he knew who it was as soon as MaKayla told him it was Santa calling. I guess I should repent but I like to have fun with the kids.

I thought I was through writing this book but Dennis Fife called me today and while we were visiting I thought of a story I did not include in this book that I just as well stick in here someplace. For years when ever someone tells me of an ailment they have I have always told them to fix it with a bottle of Old Crow Whiskey. Dennis was telling me that he just had a pace maker put in and can’t us the arm for awhile. I said, well Dennis you will just have to us the other arm to lift the Whiskey Jigger. That is what reminded me of the new preacher just hired and was so nervous to give his first speech in the service. The old retiring preacher said to him. There is a glass with Whiskey on the pulpit just take a sip and you will be ok. He got up to preach and looking out at all those people who had come to see him really made him more nervous so he took that glass and downed the whole thing. After the service the two preachers stood at the door saying good bye to the people, when the last one left the new preacher turned to the old one and asked, well how did I do. First of all said the old preacher, I told you to sip that whisky not to gulp it all down. And then another thing, Daniel slew the lion he didn’t kick the hell out of it.