Jun. 14, 2005 - 19:25 MDT

MEMORIES OF LORE

I think the urge to know, "HOW TO" is very strong in a boy. I think girls learn as quickly probably as boys do, but the burning desire to know how and to "go thou and do likewise" is maybe a bit stronger on the masculine side.

I had the good fortune to have a great uncle who was a cabinet maker and master carpenter and my Dad, his nephew, had worked in an ice box factory as a young man and had learned much of the same craft there. It fascinated me to watch either of them make something, measuring, drawing the line and precisely and accurately hand sawing the board to the exact dimension desired, their use of planes and chisels so very artful. Then the gluing, fitting, sanding and applying the finish gave me the urge to make something, anything and have it turn out as well as what theirs did. Among other things I learned was the art of patience and perseverence.

My Step-grandfather, an old, hard rock miner who was an assayer at a molybedenum mine who met and married my Grandmother when I was young, was a man of the outdoors. The first summer I spent there in Questa Grandpa handed me a 410 shotgun and a box of shells and said, "Let's go Jack rabbit hunting." He had an old Ford Coupe that had a windshield that opened from the bottom which made it ideal for the hunt. He headed out to a place that the government had tried to make a place for depression folks to live on and farm a bit. Failed, it did. But it was flat, sagebrushy, with streets in all directions. No fences.

He would slowly cruise one of the streets and point out a rabbit if I hadn't spotted it first. The first time or two, many shells were expended with little to show. I did gradually get better. He took the carcases up to the mine, ground them up and mixed them with some kind of cereal feed and fed the Trout in his fishponds.

Then he taught me how to flyfish in those same ponds. That was a double barreled fishing place. For skill, I would fish the ponds when the Trout had been fed. If it was a mess of fish I wanted, I would fish them before they were fed.

He always wanted a mine of his own and I would accompany him on the weekend to look at mines. I soon learned that I did not want to be a miner. Oh it was fascinating, but also cold, wet and rugged walking, and very scary when a light would go out. Not my bag, it wasn't.

I worshipped the man, he showed his love and compassion to my Grandmother to the max, his love of his fellow man in many ways. Down there most everybody knew everybody else and they never passed each other on the road without a wave if they didn't have time to stop and talk a bit.

Thinking back, his effort to teach me the ethic of work bore fruit -- but only in later years. He hired me to roll rocks down the hill on his property. I don't think I ever knew his purpose in having the rocks downhill. He must have had a reason for the future. I soon found out that it was hard work getting rocks rolling in the morning sun and harder when it really warmed up. He finally decided that I wasn't the man for the job, so I was assigned other little tasks as he said, "A man has to work at something to show his worth."

I watched and learned about mantle lamps as he worked on theirs. Delicate stuff it was.

Back in town, it was depression time, my uncle had been laid off at the lumber yard where he worked and he found handyman work. Sometimes it would be cabinet making, other times it would be work on a fence or gate or a shed. He found work and in the summer I would go with him and try to understand and learn what he was doing in the hopes that someday I could do the same. He was the mildest, most even tempered man I ever knew. Kindness and gentility personified.

From watching him and my Dad play cards the principle of fair play and gamesmanship became a part of my operating principles.

Even in school I learned the lore of survival. Elementary school was "elementary dear Watson," but when Junior High School showed above the horizon I learned that some teachers hated kids, had one Latin teacher who never gave a boy a passing grade. I had a home room teacher who stated at the beginning of the semester that he hated kids, only did it for the money and made it clear that our behavior had better be of the best or we would be sitting on the bench in the principles office. In formal school I was a year behind and had been promoted to keep with my class. Big mistake that was. I tried, tried hard. But all through school I had grave trouble in two things. Math and the rules of English grammar. I finally got the point that a noun was a word for a person, place or thing. But past that I was afloat on a wilderness of sea in a storm. Parse a sentence ? I still don't know how to do it. Not bragging, more or less lamenting losing that one grade that I skipped because I was a smart little fellow and a year out of school wouldn't hurt me that much, they thought. Sure wished through my life that Mom and Dad had not bought that from the school administrators.

Through my formal school I was taught integrity, honesty and to just master getting along with others. Wasn't an easy thilng for me to do. Getting along with sulphuric types was not my forte. Through school there were many teachers I worshipped, one might say, they were just like what I wanted to be when I grew up, although I had a few doubts that growing up was possible for me.

Then out into the world I went and began to work for a living, school really began in earnest. So many things to learn and master, in such a short time. Bosses to please and respect. My Dad had once told me words to the effect, "Wages are for a job well done, cheerfully, on time, knowing the value of good, hard work." I found that quite accurate for the most part, except in the places that the company was unfair, unsafe and uncaring.

Through life there were many fine things I learned perhaps perfected myself in accomplishing. Along the way the esoteric machinery and thoughts of life are my MEMORIES OF LORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Blog