When I was 10 years old we moved from Bend, Oregon to a ranch near Brothers, Oregon. We didn’t have electricity, television or telephones. Our nearest neighbor was 6 – 8 miles away. That first year we started school by commuting to Bend with the neighbors. About October or November we moved back to Bend and lived with our mom’s parents.

Mom was great at flying kites, so she purchased us each a kite and taught us how to fly the things. We quickly discovered that we lived in an updraft in a draw between a ridge and a butte. We bought a lot of kite string. We would launch out kites in the morning and fly them about the same height as the butte. We would tie the kite string to the porch or a fence and they would float all day long. I don’t recall leaving the kites up at night.

Next was the world of snow and living beside a rather large butte. We had a pair of wooden military skis that attached to our shoes. Not a solid binding, but it secured the toe and the heel. I packed those skis and the poles about half way up the butte. Then climbed on and headed downhill. I didn’t know anything about skiing. I went straight down and was traveling fast enough my eyes were watering. I left the grass covered slope and reached the sage brush. I immediately knew that the sage brush was going to grab a ski and I was going to wreck. I lifted a ski over a bush and got it back down. Then it happened. There were too many sage brush bushes. First it was one footed venture and then it was series of cartwheels. I wasn’t hurt but I did enjoy the speed. Back up the butte I went. I figured that standing up was not going to work, so I laid down on the slats and grasp the tips. Off I flew. With snow in my face and the wind I could not see. All was fun until I reached the sage brush. I was ripped from the skis and wrecked. That was the end of my childhood skiing.

My brother, sister and I decided it would be great fun to roll a tire up the butte and watch it bound down the hill. After the first session I decided I should curl up inside the tire and ride it to the bottom. That didn’t work too well and I was deposited on the hillside. Rolling tires was fun, but it was boring. Watching a tire bound 20 or 30 feet into the air got to be old. My brother, cousin and I decided we needed a bigger tire. We found a rather large tractor tire. We spent a couple hours pushing it up the butte. We got rested and stood the tire up and turned it loose.

Things went sort of wrong. The tractor tire was really flying and making huge bounces and going really fast. I was apparent that it was going to go farther than the car tires, which was a problem. It was headed for the house. Dad heard our yelling and stepped out onto the porch. He took one look and rushed back inside. Then God intervened. The tire made a course correction and turned away from the house and headed for the corral. No problem. The corral was built of 12-16 inch logs and had withstood range bulls. With a loud crash the tire met the fence. A section of the corral fence was demolished. I now know how to build a log corral fence. I never rolled a tractor tire again.

We had bicycles. One would wonder why I would ride a bicycle when I was driving trucks, tractors and pickups. It was the need for speed. I took Dad’s bicycle up the road and headed down. I was flying. I got down the hill and reached the driveway to the house. I pushed on on the peddle to stop. The brake had a problem. I smashed down on the brake and the bicycle launched me over the handle bars. I landed face first in the dirt. It was an terrifying ride. I have the bicycle, but I never rode it on the desert again.