Until I left home to attend college my life revolved around a house built and rebuilt over many years by my dad and the four of us brothers. The lumber for the house was harvested from trees that grew just up the hill from the house. The trees were felled, skidded to a staging area by a team of horses, loaded on a flatbed truck, hauled to a saw mill some ten miles away where a portion of the lumber milled from the trees served as payment for milling the lumber, and then returned to the house by the same flatbed truck to be used as construction materials.
The house started as an old mining shack to which my mom and dad were lured in the early 1940’s, years before I was born. On their arrival to the ‘house’, they found electricity – one single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling; running water – a single cold water pipe and faucet; an old wood fired kitchen stove. Had it not been 1,200 miles back to Minnesota, from where they had just arrived, they would have surely turned around and abandoned the dream of owning their own house.
The five of us siblings, mon and dad lived the whole of our lives in that simple house – 4 bedrooms one of which two of my brothers and I shared, a living room a portion of which had no foundation so was slowly sinking into the ground below, a single bathroom which was far too frequently sought after by my dad and twin brother whose biological clocks seemed to be inexplicably synchronized, a utility room that featured a wringer washing machine and no dryer – summer or winter the cloths hung outside to dry, and the whole of which was heated by all to small wood burning stove. More to come about the joys of wood fired stoves in yet another tale.
The house was located at the mouth of a narrow draw on the outskirts of Pinehurst, a very small town in the panhandle of Idaho. Before TV came to the Ross house, the hills and trees surrounding us were our summertime entertainment. Up the draw (valley to some) behind the house was an old prospector’s mine, one of many that were prominent features of the landscape of the early Idaho mining region. The faded remnant of a name, Idaho General Mines, could still be read on a number of the buildings. The Idaho General was the scene of many adventures that occupied much of our summers growing up. Alongside the house ran Little Pine Creek. The creek served as the houses source of water which we pumped directly from the creek. The Ross brothers spent hours wading in that creek, building untold numbers of dams which attracted brook trout which grew no more than about 6 inches but which continue to serve this day to as the focus of many a fishing story.
However, at age 5 the thing that most frequently attracted of attention of my twin brother Scott and I, on slow lazy summer days, was a small open field ringed by the crudest of wire fences that separated our house from the big city of Pinehurst. In one corner of the field stood a roughly constructed wooden structure filled with hay that served as a barn for 3 or 4 milk cows. The cows were owned by a grisly old man – Mr. Sites. Twice a day, once in the morning and then again at night, Mr. Sites, dressed in a red plaid flannel shirt, green woolen pants held up by suspenders and knee high rubber boots would make his way from his house in Pinehurst to the barn to milk the cows. Scott and I would frequently walk down to the barn and keep Mr. Sites company as he went about milking his cows. Most of the kids in town were afraid of old Mr. Sites, but the three of us became quite good friends. I remember Scott and I talking about how Mr. Sites, with kindness, would coax the cows in to the barn and then by a technique that appeared so patently obvious to us, through the use of a generous helping of oats, would make the cows produce quarts and quarts of milk. Wow, it seemed so simple, get the cows into the barn, feed them oats and like magic, you had milk.
The Ross family had little to no money. For the most part we lived off of government cheese and lard, the spoils of hunting and fishing, and harvesting Norm and Helens garden (my dad and mom’s names). At infrequent but memorable times my mom and dad would buy us a treat at the local family owned grocery store. It might be a candy bar, an ice cream bar, a cream cycle – oh, I can even now taste that tangy orange covering and creamy ice cream center, or even if we were really lucky a bottle of pop. In those days pop came in bottles. Pop companies, in cooperation with grocery stores, would offer 2 cents per bottle for each empty bottle returned for re-use. I’m not so sure it was an early effort at recycling but rather something that made economical sense to the company. So, during the not so memorable times, the three youngest Ross brothers – Mike, Scott, and Brian (me) – would frequently walk endless miles along the main road that lead in to and out of Pinehurst looking for the elusive empty pop bottle that was thrown from the cars of the slightly more fortunate. This, by the way, was well before the emphasis on highway litter control. It was also an era where kids could safely be out of sight of their parents and engage in their own form of capitalism. On a banner day we would gather enough empty bottles such that we could afford to buy for both an ice cream bar and a bottle of pop each!!
Well, you can imagine the dollar signs that sprang in to Scott and my head when we finally realized the money-making opportunity that was staring us right in the face. Collect milk and sell it to the grocery store! Genius!!
The decision was made our start-up company would go in business the following morning. Because we were so little, however, it was best if an additional partner was brought in to the group. One of the friends we played with, but not until years later did we find out our mother really didn’t like us hanging around with him, was LeRoy Johnson. We were aware that he had a bit of an edge to him, was frequently on the wrong side of mom and dad. To give you a glimpse into the future he did spend some time at both the juvenile and adult corrections facilities in the state of Idaho. But at age 5, who was to know.
The next morning Scott and I met Mr. Sites per usual. On our way to the barn we had hidden a couple of Mason jars we ‘borrowed’ for our moms supply that she used for canning. Looking back, we could argue that our mom was a co-conspirator as she unwittingly supplied us the needed equipment.
We watched with particular attention to payed to the details. As suspected we confirmed, yes, the key to copious amounts of milk was certainly the amount of oats fed to the cows during the milking process. That morning time seemed to slow, Mr. Sites appeared to move in slow motion. Come on already, we needed to get on with launching our new business. Finally finished and with the cows milling close to the barn Mr. Sites finally said goodbye and was on his way home.
LeRoy arrived right on que. Back in the barns the cows went and into the feeding troughs were scooped generous servings of oats. Hmmmm, no milk. I’m sure we are doing this right. More oats, more oats! After what seemed like hours of work two mason jars contained a mere one half inch of milk each. Not what was expected, but it was our first day after all. Not to be deterred, we elected to store the mason jars behind the bales of hay and when we had collected enough to fill them both, off to the store we would go. Refrigeration? What is that? At age 5 how can you understand something you have no hope of spelling.
We should have suspected something was amiss because about 4:00 in the afternoon, early for Mr. Sites, there he was standing at our front door. He was asking our mom if she had noticed anyone messing around his barn. One of his cows was in a very bad way and it had looked like she might have gotten in to a whole lot of oats. My mom, ooof, never one to lie, to even ‘white lie’, or cover for any mischief that might center around one of her kids. She reported seeing her twins, and that neighbor kid – LeRoy Johnson – down around his barn after he had left this morning. Mr. Sites, it appeared, had very little regard for LeRoy Johnson as well, so reassured our mom that he was sure it was not the twins, but, that other boy!
As happened my dad was just arriving home from work where he was a supervisor at a zinc smelter. Norman had grown up on a farm and had seen nearly everything that could go wrong with a cow happen. He gathered us up and along with Mr. Sites walked down to the barn.
There to our horror was a cow, laying on its side, bloated like it had been dead for a week, but still gasping for air. Oat filled foam was oozing out of its nose and mouth while its tongue lay limply on the ground in front. The cow belly was so large its legs nearly stuck straight out to the side. At that moment, Scott and I heard phrases from my dad that I am sure were hold overs from the good old farm days, interspersed with incantations and lamentations to god.
Now why my dad would still possess this I will ever know, but off to our garage he went. The garage was a museum of tools and gadgets and old car parts from bygone eras. On a high shelf in the back of the garage, how he knew where to look I will never know, he grabbed what appeared to be a pointed piece of brass pipe, maybe one half inch across and maybe six inches long with a small t-handle attached. I now know it was a trochar that they use to use on the farm, but at the time it had no meaning to me.
He hurried back to the cow. A few words were said between Mr. Sites and my dad, and with a nod from Mr. Sites my dad stabbed the side of the cow as hard as he could with that pipe. Out of that pipe shot a 6 foot steam of oat filled mash associated with a stench I will never forget. Over the next minute or so the cow deflated like a Macy balloon that had been ripped on a street lamp in New York City. The cow stop gasping, its tongue returned to its normal place in its mouth. To this day I have never liked oatmeal, I am wondering if this is the origin of that distaste.
The cow recovered, Mr Sites continued to have us keep him company while he milked his cows, and LeRoy Johnson became a legend in his own time in Pinehurst.
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