Wind

I made it as far as Bozeman.  Guess what?  I wasn't riding against the Wind.  Thankfully it was at my back at about 40-50 mph.  Gad what a wind.  But, boy did I have good mileage!!  I made it as far as Bozeman where snow is predicted for Tuesday and Tuesday night.  It could be an exciting trip on the way back.  The upper mountains are now snow covered.

Bozeman has changed from the days when we would stop here for breakfast on the way to the Madison to fish.  Strip malls and motels seem to dominate what was once beautiful hay fields and pastures.  Part of the bitter stuff of my last post. :-)  But the sweet part is remembering how great the Madison River was to fish.  I don't fish it any more because I don't want my memories of the river screwed up with current stuff.

I'm in the Comfort Inn computer room as I type this.  All the comforts of home!

Hang and rattle,

Gordon et.al.

P.S. to Jennie.  Did you get the Bull elk?

Back Home

Tomorrow I head to Absarokee, Montana to meet up with my old friend Mike and hopefully my  brother Brad. I spent my youth in Montana and Wyoming.  Once a Montanan always a Montanan.   Interestingly, I really only spent five of those years in Absarokee.  Yet, I consider it home.  I'm going home to visit with old friends and I suspect confront old memories. 

This old man is still "running against the wind"! I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then!  The years have moved slowly  past.  I've lost my way a few times!  But, the roads were many.  I'm still searching.  I find however, that I don't need shelter against the wind.  Cowboys ride against the wind. I'm older now but still running against the wind.   Good lyrics.  :-)

I'm going to where the "wild horses" live ~ where memories live ~ both good and bad.  Bittersweet.

Gordon, et al

Sayings

Our friends Ed and Nancy Bump were with us last weekend at the cabin ~ cold but toasty.  It's easy to be in confined quarters with good friends.  Ed and I got to reminiscing about family and friends.  We have often shared "sayings" that our mothers passed down to us ~ sayings that we had to admit sometimes baffled us as to their origins let alone their meanings!  None the less the sayings are still with us.

On the way back from the cabin this morning I was reminded of a couple of sayings that my Dad would honor me with upon the appropriate occasion.

 As I was traveling south toward the Tamarack next to a cow pasture, I remember Dad saying, "if there's cow shit on the road, that's a good sign you should slow down and take note."   Pretty profound ~ but true.  I remembered that saying many times as I sat in on academic committee meetings ~ there was often a lot of shit on the road!

Another one was, "a hat does not a cowboy make."

One of my favorites, "he's pretty much powder river ~ a mile wide and an inch deep."

Good friends mean good memories and the triggering of good memories.  That's what binds us.  

We look forward to seeing Ed and Nancy this Winter in Cambria.

Gordon, et. al.

Halloween

Halloween is approaching.  Our six year old friend from the lake, Ethan, sent us this Halloween card last fall.  Probably my favorite Halloween card ever.

We have at the cabin an "if I were King" chair that I carved with a chainsaw out of an old log.  We use it when we roast marshmallows on summer evenings.  The kids take turns sitting on the King's chair and telling the adults what would happen "if they were King".  On it's first night of use, Ethan sat upon the chair and proclaimed, "if I were King, there would be world peace."  and then he quickly added, "and pizza every night for dinner."  He and his brother Cole provide us with our summer delight.  Cole, who is a couple of years older than his brother, declared upon seeing the bedroom addition at the cabin for the first time,  "Skip, you are the only person I know who has a tree house in his house!"

I love kids!

skip

Name Game

On the way back to Plummer from coeur d'alene last night after watching my granddaughter Kimmie play a volley ball game, my daughter Jennie and I got to talking about names, specifically, student names. I related to her Rose's thoughts on the subject of names and what we as a society have done to the process of naming our children. Rose has a real problem with the spelling and appropriateness of given names. Often times the parents are attempting to make a statement rather than actually naming their child. Rose's particular peeve is with names that are, arguably misspelled rather than creatively spelled. Turns out, Jennie has the same peeve. Jennie concedes that, at the first of the school year that she does not call on the "strange" names but waits to hear what other students call the so named student to see what the pronunciation of the name is. Sometimes the pronounced name can be attached to several spellings of the same name. Or, upon occasion, different pronunciations are attached to the same spelling. Jennie also noted that she had a student named Dakota ~ not a particularly unusual name considering recent celebrity names. However, after she had conversations with fellow faculty members in the faculty lounge she learned that colleagues had the siblings of Dakota ~ Oregon and Montana. Seems the parents had named their children according to the states within which the children had been conceived! I guess North and South Dakota were merged into the Dakota territory. I thought it could be worse. The kid could have been named "back seat of a 67 chevy" or just simply "back seat". I guess the possibilities are limitless using such an approach to naming your child.

The name conversation got me to thinking about my teaching experience. I have to admit that when I started teaching I could pretty much pronounce every first name that came on the course enrollment sheet. Last names were a different matter. I have a terrible time with spelling and pronunciation. If you can't spell it there's a pretty good chance you can't pronounce it! I remember one last name in particular. I still can't spell it and I sure as heck can't pronounce it. I remember the first day in class when I read the student's name ~ Linda three Z's. I couldn't begin to pronounce her name and I was flabbergasted that it contained three Z's. She immediately knew it was her name, said present, and started laughing. We became good friends in later years. She was a key member of our accounting summit group and was controller of our local community college. I still call her Linda three Z's even though she is now married and has a different last name. I told her it must have been hard giving up that last name. :-) But the "name game" now extends beyond ethnic derivation.

During my latter years of teaching, I probably had as much trouble with the first names as with the last names ~ maybe more. I had no way of knowing how to approach the pronunciation problem. And, the names had absolutely no connection to ethnic derivation or social strata. So I had bi-lateral name game problems!

I had one rule that I always followed. I never, and I mean never, showed any disrespect to a person's name and/or the name's pronunciation (Linda's last name was handled in a tactful sort of way.). When I was a teenager growing up in Absarokee, we had a rancher neighbor whose teen aged daughter was named Teresa Lou. Teresa Lou was an extremely shy young lady ~ a really nice person, but just so self conscious. As it turned out after high school we both went to the same college as beginning freshmen and ended up in the same beginning English class. We were both out of our element. I'm sure she was as frightened as I was. On the first day of class ~ our first day in a college class room ~ we were given assigned seating as the English instructor read off our names. The so called professor got to Teresa Lou's name and said, "Teresa Lou, my god. I want you students to remember when you name your children that they will be adults longer than they will be children. Teresa Lou. My God!" I glanced over at Teresa Lou and silent tears were rolling down her cheeks. I was so angry at that woman. It was so cruel and uncalled for. Years later when I taught at that same College I had occasion to meet that professor on a personal basis. She was as big a bitch in person as she was in the classroom, a truly angry person who took it out on her students. One of the problems of higher education, then as it is now, is how do you get people like that out of the classroom? I couldn't understand it then and after forty years in higher education, I still can't understand it! In my view she should have been "red rooster-ed", i.e she was clearly bear bait. I'm tempted to post her name, but won't. But, I have never forgotten what she did to a timid young lady.

If there is a lesson here, I guess it would be that we must learn from our bad experiences as well as our good experiences ~ and learning experiences show up in the damn-est places! Both of my daughters I am sure realize the impact that they have on other people, most especially their students. That's why they're in the business.  To the point of my essay, the parents name the child. The child has no choice in the matter. If you have a problem with a name, take it up with a parent.  I sure would have loved to see that professor talk to Teresa's mom about her child's name.  She was a wiry old cowgirl that worked right along side her husband.  She'd have kicked her ass.

Gordon, et.al.

This boy's name is John Bradford Chapman.  I'm sure glad mom and  dad found  him.  He was so dang cute, you couldn't help but like him ~ like an Akita pup.  I've always liked my brother's name. We Chapman's all had good strong names ~ Candace, John, Elsie, Gordon, Brassbed.

wild horses

I found a web site recently that had a litany of u-tube versions of the song "wild horses". Interestingly, to my way of thinking, was the role played by the musical instruments in most of the versions. The guitar was, of course, the overwhelming accompaniment. In my judgment, most versions of the song, provided a platform for displaying the skill of the person(s) playing the guitar i.e. , Guns and Roses, Dave Matthews, and of course, the Rolling Stones. For me, personally, a particular fragment of the song's lyrics is what reaches to my soul in an interesting sort of way. The Susan Boyle rendition, in particular, puts me in an strange but comfortable place. Her phrasing of, "wild horses couldn't drag me away", transports me to a mood ~ a mind-place. It's not the force of the wild horses dragging me away from love that affects me it's the alone-ness of the wild horses as an alternative to love that affects me. I have to fight the urge to go away with the horses. Over whelming melancholy over comes me. I want to go away to the place from where the wild horses come, but it is OK. Wild horses could drag me away and its not only OK, but what I want. I want to go to whence they came.

Now you have to remember that I was the guy who as a teenager would become melancholy while hiking to my favorite over night fishing camp on Mystic Lake because I knew that I would have to eventually leave the site to go home and I would be sad. My friend Elmer, on the way up the trail, would say, "God damn it Skip, wait until its time to be sad! Enjoy now." I was blessed with friends that would talk to me and in a compassionate sort of way understand and accept me. That was back when we didn't know what "compassionate" was. That's just what friends did.

As I have grown older and have spent time in analyzing the idea of depression and mood swings, I have, I believe, become more accepting of myself and of those around me. ~ most certainly of the depression of my mother and her mother. Cancer and depression does that to a guy. You are forced to recognize the gifts that we are offered in life. They are, ironically, gifts. These life experiences have forced me to think and to accept. I have read that creative people, authors in particular, refuse drugs for depression believing that it is within the depths of those dark places that they are the most creative. I understand what they are saying. The key is to become comfortable with the "place" and with "who you are". I have learned that we can only hope to become "more comfortable". Enjoy the journey of learning.

Wild horses could drag me away. And, I would be OK with that.

Gordon, et. al.

Dang. It was good

I had a favorite Uncle when I was a kid ~ my Uncle Martin. As I look back, why he was my favorite was so obvious. He treated me as an equal. I don't believe he ever looked at people through the lens of time. He didn't see age. He saw ability, heart, experience, etc. I remember at the age of 12 being informed that he needed me to drive a tractor pushing a "buck-rake". I wasn't so sure that I could do it. But he had no doubt. I couldn't reach the clutch and brake pedals so we rigged-up some wooden extension blocks that we attached to the pedals so I could reach them! I had driven tractors before but I always had to stand on the transmission platform and lean back against the seat to push down the pedal to shift. Now I was able to drive the tractor in a normal manner, albeit it in a slightly uncomfortable way. I was now a dues paying member of the summer hay crew. Uncle Martin was the stacker, i.e. the poor guy who had to be on the top of the hay stack using a hand held pitchfork to move the hay around forming a perfect stack. His was a dirty, dusty, hot, and unforgiving job ~ make a wrong move and you could fall off of the stack. My older cousin Bob drove the farmhand, i.e. a tractor rigged with an implement that had the ability to raise the hay up to the top of the stack. My cousin Roy and I drove the buck rakes. The buck rakes gathered the hay from the windrows of hay in the field and pushed the gathered loads to the rising haystack. The farmhand driven by Bob would then pick up the buck rake loads and lift them up to my Uncle on the top of the stack where he formed the final stack. I remember my Uncle Martin, occasionally, excitedly sliding off of the stack when one of the lifted loads contained a rattlesnake or two. It was our entertainment for the day! I also remember my cousin Roy and I having races back to the stack driving our hay loaded buck rakes. I would hold on tight to the steering wheel ~ not to steer but to avoid being thrown off of the tractor!! I don't recall ever coming "loose", but I sure came close a couple of times. That first summer we put up over 50 stacks of hay! We worked from about 7 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.

So what does this have to do with "dang. it was good"? I remember the large lunches that my Aunt Julia packed for us during haying season. The lunches were large and they were tasty. I remember teasing my Uncle Martin about his love of peanut butter and bacon sandwiches (occasionally, containing jelly as well). Aunt Julia made them especially for him. We kids had the traditional ham, roast beef, cheese, etc. sandwiches. But Uncle Martin almost always had his PB&B sandwich. We thought he was so weird.

I had a PB&B sandwich this morning for breakfast. Why? I'm not sure. But. Dang. It was good. I may start having them for lunch occasionally! I guess he is still a part of me. :-)

Gordon, et.al.

p.s. Uncle Martin was also the guy who got me "hooked" on pickled herring! Love it. :-)

p.s.s. I also remember him telling me, after my observing him heap several tablespoons of jam on his buttered piece of bread, "Skip, remember the bread only holds what you are really after ~ your Aunt Julia's preserves." I must have been "bug-eyed" with excitement. He just made "legit" what I always wanted to do. Even though I told my mom what Uncle Martin said, she just never would buy into it!

p.s.s.s. The above picture was taken of a ranch just outside of Belgrade Montana. I like the way it looks, i.e. old buildings, brown hay field, broken down fences, etc. I just reminds me of Uncle Martin's hay ranch which he always referred to as the "other place". He had two ranches, the home place and the "other place".