Memories

I attended the Brothers School in my 7th and 8th grade years. My brother was two years younger and my sister was four years younger. We attended a one room school with 1st through 8th Grades. There were 13 students and one teacher. The school had electricity, but most of us lived on ranches in the surrounding area, and the ranches did not have electricity. We did our home work with lanterns. We had a hot lunch program. The parents would purchase cases of soup and the older students would prepare the soup and serve it. I don’t remember who did the dishes, but they got done. The first year we had an outhouse, the second year we had plumbing and flush toilets. I sort of recall pushing the outhouse back a foot or so on a dark Halloween night.

One thing that was amusing was the drive to the school each day. Some parents would rive in excess of a 50 mile trip to Brother. We had a shorter commute. On good days were drove ourselves to school in a pickup. Across our ranch and through the neighbors ranch to school. Lot of folks thought we had a special driver’s license. Nope, it was all private lands. After all if we could drive tractors, trucks and pickups, what was the big deal.

Between my first and second year at the school a big hole was dug for a septic tank. There must have been a community gathering because several of us Desert Rats were there. Us kids referred to ourselves as Desert Rats. I can still recall Spud yelling let’s go. He turn and ran right into the hole. In his defense it was dark. He broke his arm.

For school recess we had about an acre to play in, with a barb wire fence surrounding the yard. There was a swing set and of course we tried to go over the top. One of the bunch made the ride. He got straight up and it was amazing. Except then he came straight down and crashed in a heap. We all laughed and he dusted himself off and we determined we would not do that again.

There was an old building on the school grounds. It was full of broken stuff and it was determined to be no fun to play in. We had a game called Annie Over. We split the students into two groups. One group on each side of the building. The side with the soccer ball would yell Annie Over and toss the ball over the building. The receiving group would grab the ball and charge around the building. The goal was to hit someone with the thrown ball. The escaping crew was trying to run abound the building to the opposite side. If you made the side you were safe. I don’t recall what happened to the kids that were hit.

Then there was a sort of baseball. A soft ball was utilized and there was a pitcher. It must have been a work up sort of game. Two things happened that were rather significant. There was a community gathering and a bunch of adults started using out baseball area. One Rancher slide into the base and broke his leg. Seems as though us Rats were again in trouble. We could not see the harm in utilizing large rocks for bases. Of course we were kids with one softball. We lost it, but the game had to go on. We found a golf ball. However there were a couple problems and that game was short lived. We could not figure out how to pitch the a ball without endangering the pitcher with a flying golf ball. Problem solved. The batter got to hit the ball. The game last about one crack of the bat. Do you have any idea how far those golf balls will fly when hit with a bat. We never found the ball. The outfield players were not out far enough.

The military flew jets over the school area. We would hear the jets coming and we would run to the school windows. The pilots were low enough that we would wave at each other. Our teacher was not aware of the our friendly pilots. The screaming jets arrived. We ran and waved. The teacher had her back to the windows. When the jet scream got loud she looked, threw her book and screamed. We laughed at her and she got really angry. She wrote a letter to the military demanding the jets stop flying past the school. She said it was a safety issue. The jets stopped and when us Rats heard why we were miffed. So in true Rat fashion we devised our Revenge. She did not eat lunch with us. She walked a short distance to her Mobil home. She left her keys in her desk. Have you ever seen a teacher yelling and pounding on a school to get back inside. Of course us Rats were blind and could not see or hear her. Yes we got in trouble for locking her out of the school, but it was worth it. Poor teacher actually sat on a tack and a whoopie cushion before that year was up.

We had a music teacher that traveled to our school once a week. We had the plastic flutes. One day she said it would be fun to have a ukulele band. The next week she arrived at the school to find 13 students all with ukuleles. We did learn to play the things, but she learned with us. She had no idea how to play the thing either. She was a sweet lady and she was not outside the Rat’s humor. Seems a though a device got put in her car’s tail pipe. She thought her car was falling apart. Somehow she found it and yes we got a lecture.

Community gathering were held at the school and 50 -100 ranch folks would appear. Of all ages. Christmas parties, dances and barbeques were held. The smoke in the school was so think it was an actual haze. After all smoking was permitted in public places. I don’t recall any side effects.

However, those community gathering were a hazard. The Health Folks decided that we were going to die of Rocky Mountain Tick Fever. Since we were were a rather captive audience it was decided to vaccinate the entire community. The Health folks arrived at the school on a designated day and all ages got vaccinated. Those danged things hurt. I saw big mean ranchers cry. Well the shots started with a series and then each year for several years there was a follow up shot. The shots stopped as suddenly as they began. Seems as though there was not any Rocky Mountain ticks on the high desert that were infected. We didn’t ever get an apology.

The Brother’s School District was an independent district. Upon graduating, or maybe living in the district, tuition to a high school was provided, anywhere in the State of Oregon. The district also paid two dollars a day to the parents. I chose to go to Redmond High school while my brother and sister attended Bend High School. Was sort of interesting to go from a one room school with 13 students to a school of 700 with all sorts of rooms and teachers. I don’t recall getting lost too many time the first day.

When we moved to the Central Oregon High Desert near Brothers, Oregon I was 10 years old. Prior to that I had been raised on irrigated lands near Bend. Our ranch had no irrigation but we had three wells for water. One well was 250 feet, the middle well was 500 feet and the well at the house was 600 feet. The wells ran off of wind power. All of the wells produced about 8-10 gallon of water, each, on a good day. The 250 foot well had a large metal storage tank and was allowed to pump 24 hours a day.

We didn’t have any cattle the first year, but we had sheep and water was hauled to the bands of sheep each day. The 500 foot well was referred to as the middle well. It had warm water. We found out that cows would walk long distances in the cold weather to drink warm water. We left the storage tank run over and that created water for deer and antelope. We had a large herd of antelope that arrived during the cold weather. The puddle watered sage hens, doves and a variety of other birds.

The first thing that I discovered was that I sunburned pretty fast. If I had a hole in a long sleeved shirt I got and instant burn. My face got burned and was a peeling red. To prevent burning I wore long sleeved shirts year round and hats with a 3.5 to 4 inch brim. It was always fun to look through a catalog and order a hat. The best hat I ordered was not long for the world. I was putting hobbles on a horse and the danged animal spooked. To keep from getting hurt I grabbed the hobbles and and held on. In the process the horse fell on me. I emerged unhurt, but the straw hat was about a quarter inch thick. It did last the summer, it had character.

The ranch receive 6-8 inches of moisture a year. The weather patterns seemed to be on a cycle. Seven years of wet and seven years of drought. I can recall years that the cut rye hay lay in the fields for a few weeks before it dried enough to process. The extremes were apparent when the national forest lands were barricaded to the public. Since our range operation was partially on national forest lands we were allowed into the forests. Our water trucks carried shovels and maybe fire extinguishers. At one point we had large letter M’s on the cabs of out rigs so they could be identified from the air.

None of us wore sunglasses. There was a reason. We actually needed the glasses but the lenses seemed to be all plastic. When the ground was covered with white pumice two things happened. First the glasses got so scratched you could not see or they were put up and never worn. Since we had brown eyes we didn’t worry. We did discover that the whites of our eyes sunburned and sort of tanned. Now days an optometrist would be horrified.

The other thing I recall about moving to the desert was our foot wear. In the land of irrigation we could wear flops and tennis shoes. The flops were a disaster. As a kid walking was too slow so it was at a run that we traveled. Try running through sage brush in flops. They would intentionally grab sage brush, throw you onto the ground and rip the center thong out. It didn’t take too many face plants and destroyed thongs before the message was received. Tennis shoes were marginal. The soles were too thin and every rock and stick was a pain in the foot. Besides they leaked dirt to the inside of the shoe. When possible you would sit down and pour the dirt out. This was not acceptable to the clean socks.

The advantage to pumice covered ground was the lack of snakes. The pumice ground their bellies off, hence no snake. We did have sand toads and lizards that could get their undersides off the ground. We wore lace boots that had about a 8-10 inch top. The pumice was hard on horses. They had a tendency to scuff their toes and their toes were rubbed off, but the sides grew out. We referred to them as sand toed. We didn’t shoe horses in the summer. You did what needed to be done the spring. Once the hoof dried it was sort of like iron to work with. That doesn’t mean we didn’t keep metal shoes on their feet if we were using them regularly.

There was cistern by the house that we got water into We drank the water and commented on how pure and cool it was. Then Dad decided we should clean the thing. Down into the cistern we went with mops and brushes. Well that was the last time we drank water from the cistern. Somehow lots of mice and chipmunks fell in and drowned. We cleaned the thing, but could not find rodent entries. Our drinking water was confined to ten gallon cans in the basement.

Living on a ranch brought other changes. On the irrigated lands I had driven tractors and pickups. On the ranch we had a water truck. It carried 750 gallons of water. Since the cows and sheep needed water I learned how to drive the truck and move the sheep’s water troughs daily. Later the truck was referred to as the little truck. The next truck was a converted logging truck. 30 gears forward and six for reverse. It had two gear shifts and a two speed button. All this sounds amazing and it was. However, one must realize I was a short kid. To operate some rigs I had to stand on the seat and use the hand throttle. When I got ready to shift I adjusted the hand throttle, climbed off the seat and depressed the clutch and shifted. I don’t recall that ever slowing me down. You might ask about brakes. Not a problem most of our truck didn’t have working brakes. You learned to gear down and then shut the motor off and pop the clutch and stop. For some reason I never drove a car until I was 16 or so. Not to say I didn’t drive it to the gas pump and fill the tank. Maybe Mom saw the way I drove, as fast as possible.

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.