Over half century ago, I grew up in southern Oregon or\n\u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d as the locals preferred to call it. What they neglected to add was that God has a\nleft to go along with his right hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The largest town in the area was and still is Medford, which\nin my youth had a population of about 20,000 with the principal industries\nbeing lumber and pears. While this\nsounds like a rustic Garden of Eden, it had a bit of a smog problem made nearly\nintolerable by frequent atmospheric temperature inversions. In those days, lumber mills had no way to get\nrid of sawdust, so it was burned in huge metal teepees misnamed wigwam\nburners. This coupled with the nasty\nprocess of burning old tires used to prevent the pear buds from freezing during\nthe spring, produced witches brew fogs that put London\u2019s pea soups to\nshame. Although winters were mild, they\nwere dreary with misty rains, while summers were often miserably hot with\ndaytime temperatures often exceeding 100 for two or three weeks at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even hell has its rewards. Less than an hour away are\nthe southern Oregon Cascade Mountains. \nThis is a truly stunning place, with mixed groves of old growth Douglas\nfir, ponderosa pine, and western hemlock. \nTogether these trees combine to shade an understory of ferns that can\ngrow to your navel. It is an area of\ncountless pristine high mountain lakes and creeks that are filled with rainbow\ntrout that were catchable even with my adolescent angling skills. At lower elevations, numerous reservoirs\ncontained warmer water pan fish like crappie and blue gill, which were easily\ncaught in abundance using worm and bobber. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My dad and grandfather loved to fish, which often involved\ncamping in an old army surplus canvas tent. \nI hated that tent. It was greasy,\ninfested with earwigs, and smelled like a musk ox in rut. I hated sleeping on\nthose terrible army cots or worse on the original air mattresses which bore\nalmost no resemblance to the fancy inflate-a-beds of today. They had four\nrubberized longitudinal tubes which required an hour of blowing by mouth to\nachieve a lumpy firmness which leaked out overnight. Although the mattresses were uncomfortable,\nwhat I hated the most was the noise they made. \nMy parents rolling over in their \u201csleep\u201d sounded like a terminal\nemphysema ward. I also hated having to\nbathe in ice cold lakes then trying to warm up next to a fire that produced\nmore smoke than heat. As a kid I could\nget away without daily baths. As I grew\nolder, the first day without a bath left me with a pungent sweaty gym shorts\nodor. The next day I developed the\nstickies. followed the rash. The tent\neventually disintegrated into a greasy blob which was then carelessly discarded\ninto a rat- infested landfill, where I suspect it might have been seen and\nwarped the mind of a young and impressionable Steven King. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the curse of the tent ended, we seldom camped. Even after my father bought a small camp\ntrailer, we still did not camp. This was\nbecause my father always dreamed of owning a farm or at least to be as self-sufficient\nin food as humanly possible. He\nreasoned that when the next great depression happened, we could live off the\nland while others less foresighted would starve or be forced to become\nbootleggers like great uncle Frank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For years he had been looking to buy land so that he could\nhave a few cows, pigs, chickens, and a garden. \nOn the surface, my mother seemed to support him, yet there was always\nsomething wrong with the land deals he found. \nIn truth, she did not want to be a farmer\u2019s wife and somehow managed\nwith subtle feminine guile to dissuade him. \nShe was so good at this that, in retrospect, I am surprised that he ever\nwas able to realize his dream. But after years of searching and now into his early\nforties, it was finally realized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was only 16 acres, which was not enough to support a\nfamily, so dad always had to have a steady job in town. But it was enough to\nraise all the beef, chickens, rabbits, and carrots that it took to survive in\nthe harsh world of his youth. My sister\nwas probably the main reason why mom relented, for if anyone was better at\nmanipulation than mom, it was her. And\nSandra like all young teenage girls of her generation wanted a horse. Somewhere in the musings of Sigmund Freud\nthere is probably a sexual explanation for this female fascination with large\npowerful animals being ridden by girls with spurs on their high-topped leather\nboots. Regardless of the underlying\nreason, if Sandra wanted a horse, she was going to get it. She begged, pouted, cajoled, promising to\nkeep it fed and groomed. I am sure she\neven convinced herself that she would keep those promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I, on the other hand, got a duck. Not that I wanted a duck. Nor to the best of my knowledge are there any\nmale fantasies involving carnal knowledge of ducks or any species of\nwaterfowl. I had actually wanted a\ngoldfish. But the dime I was tossing at\nthe carnival bounced out of the dish over the fishbowl and dropped into the one\nover the duckling cage. Seems like\neveryone at the carnival won a duck, even the kids that lived in town. That is something that probably does not\nhappen much anymore unless you live in rural Laos. But in those days bringing home a duck from\nthe carnival was pretty common. Most did\nnot last a week. Mine lasted three. My sister\u2019s collie killed it. The dog was something else she had begged to\nhave on the farm after watching a Lassie movie. \nThis was yet another thing which she had promised to care for and train,\nwhich of course she didn\u2019t. I was\ndevastated. Quacky, Donald, or Daffy or\nwhatever name it had that week, was dead. \nI pleaded with my father that the crime deserved capital punishment, but\nmy father refused. It might have been\ndifferent if it had been a chicken or rabbit as dad was highly protective of\nour potential food resources. But\nQuacky-Donald-Daffy was not considered as food, being too \u201cgreezzy\u201d as mom so\naptly put it. But a week later, when\nLassie killed about 30 baby chickens that were under a brood light, she was\nquickly \u201cdisappeared\u201d. I don\u2019t know the\nactual fate of the beast but suspect that she succumbed to the three \u201cS\u201des (shoot, shovel, and shut up). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years I had other more traditional farm animal\npets, but I never got as attached to them as much as I did\nQuacky-Donald-Daffy. I knew that\neventually they would all meet the same fate—-food. Sometimes that first bite or two was a little\ntough, but all my pets turned out to be mighty tasty. It may sound cruel, heartless, and a bit\nsadistic but such is the way with farmers, and it is not a bad way to live,\nwith the exception that you can\u2019t go anywhere. \nThere were always cows to feed; eggs to collect and a garden to\nweed. In the summer we irrigated, cut hay,\nbaled it and stacked it in the barn. \nMost of this work fell on my father and grandfather, who came to live\nwith us. My father also had to maintain the farm equipment. We even had a hay baler. This was silly as only about eight acres were\nin hay, but he thought he got a good deal on it. The problem with the baler was powered by the\nold 45 horse Briggs and Stratton air-cooled engine. It had to be started by hand crank. This was easily accomplished when the engine\nas cold, but once it warmed up there was no way to restart it till it\ncooled. Dad never learned this\nlesson. As I walked up the long dirt\ndriveway after getting off the school bus one early September afternoon, I\ncould hear him trying to restart the beast after it gorged itself on too much\nhay. Crank, crank, crank, then silence\nfor a bit, then crank, crank, crank again. \nDrawing closer I could feel his frustration. If I had known he was beginning to suffer\nfrom Chrohn\u2019s disease I might have taken over for him or better yet suggested\nthat he relax with a beer for an hour till it cooled off. Maybe he would still be alive today if he\njust learned to relax a bit as I believe that stress was a contributing factor\nto what ailed and eventually killed him. \nIf I had been in his shoes, I would have taken a nice nap as well, or\nbetter yet just sold the farm and moved to town where there was far less work\nand food came pre-wrapped. But Dad was\nnot that type, he continued to crank in total frustration and silence. When I was within 20 feet he looked up at me and spewed out a\nstring of creative cuss words that hangs over Medford to this day as a light\nblue haze. It was such a shock to hear\nmy dad curse so colorfully that I involuntarily snickered. That turned out to be a really bad idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beginning of the end of his farming days was the result\nof milk cows. While one cow produced all\nthe milk we needed, with two, then three, we produced more milk than we could\nuse. This was converted to cream which\nmy mother sold to a local creamery where it was made into butter or other high\nfat dairy products. Mom though that\nthis was a great way to get a little extra spending money, especially since\nshe, having never milked a cow, did not have to work for it. Sandra, being a girl, was not expected to do\nit either. And even if she was, she\nwouldn\u2019t. I might have been able to\nhelp, but could never get my mind to accept the idea of sitting on a stool near\nthe ass end of a living fertilizer factory. \nSo my Dad milked them morning and night for two years. Then one day he had to work late at his real\njob of being a lift truck mechanic. He\ngot home about 2AM to the sounds of three bawling cows wondering why the guy\nwith the calloused hands did not show up that evening. Dad got to bed just before dawn. The next day they were all for sale at the\nlocal beef auction. A year or so later we\nwere living in town. Took the ol\u2019 boy\nabout eight years to figure out that if he wanted to be a farmer, he was on his\nown. It also convinced me that I never,\never want to be a farmer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Dad never totally gave up the dream, we only had a\nlarge garden after that. No chickens,\npigs, cows or rabbits. It also meant\nthat we could take up camping again. The\ntrailer was eventually replaced by a pickup with a camper so that Dad could\npull a small boat trailer behind that mobile bedroom. As much as possible I tried to avoid these\ntrips. I still enjoyed fishing, but\ngirls and partying in my parent\u2019s house had much more appeal to me at the\ntime. And if I did go, it was my job to\nclean the fish, another job that my mother worked at avoiding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time heals all wounds, and the same can be said of bad\nmemories of childhood camping trips. In\ncollege, I worked summers for the forest service which rekindled my love of the\nsouthern Oregon Cascades. During those\nsummers, I lived in rustic but comfortable cabins, complete with showers, flush\ntoilets, heat, and beer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the spring of my senior year in college I married Judy,\nand Wes, much to my mother\u2019s relief, was born ten months later. By the time Wes was two we were making a\nlittle more money and I even had some paid vacation time. I don\u2019t know if Judy or I came up the idea of\na camping trip vacation, but we both were excited to be in the mountains near\nUnion Creek, OR, where I used to work. \nWe bought a small tent, a couple of sleeping bags, borrowed a Coleman\ncamp stove, and were off to enjoy the wilds. \n\n\n\n\nWe didn\u2019t last one night. The mosquitoes were horrible and Wes took the\ngreatest joy in crawling backwards down a steep hill with the bottom hem of his\nshirt digging into the soft earth like the blade of a giant earth moving\ntractor. Even at that point we might\nhave stayed if there was someplace to bathe him, but we only had the Rogue\nRiver, which is so cold at that elevation that hypothermia would have been\nalmost instantaneous. We packed our\nnewly purchased tent, stowed the sleeping bags and drove home in the dark vowing\nto never try camping again\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over half century ago, I grew up in southern Oregon or \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d as the locals preferred to call it. What they neglected to add…<\/p>\n