Reminiscing XXIX

This story is from James Greet, written in 1991 about his life as a cowboy in the 1940’s.

I remember one Christmas of riding in Grandad Pyle’s Model T Ford. I rode in the backseat with grandma. The car did have side curtains, but we needed heavy coats to keep warm. Grandma and I had an old-fashioned foot warmer that used a couple of special bricks that were heated on the cook stove before we left. I remember grandma asking me to share with her as “her feet got cold too.” When we came up the last steep hill going into the ranch, one of the tire chains had a cross chain come loose on one end, and it clattered and clattered. Grandma asked me what that noise was, but I didn’t know. Uncle Jim told her, and I thought “now I will be able to tell someone the next time when someone asked me.”

Back then, everyone used just plain water in the radiator. It was an absolute must to drain the radiator when you got to your destination, or else you would have a ruined motor with a crack in it. There was an advantage to this, for in zero weather, you could use hot water to fill the radiator, and this would help start a cold car.

Uncle Jim spent some time in the army during World War I. He remained single until 1928. He lived with his folks after he came home from the service. He did prove up on a homestead four miles east of his folks’ place. Part of his land drained into Upper Canyon Creek, and the rest drained into the South Fork of Otter Creek.

Grandad Pyle built their home on the Upper Canyon Creek drainage. This house was a log structure. Single story in a triangle shape, with three parts. The east section was the bedroom with room enough for two beds, separated by a curtain. Uncle Jim slept in one bed, and Grandma and Grandad used the other one. The middle section was the living room. It had a couch with an iron frame, and could be made into a double bed. In the center of the room was a table where the double mantle Coleman gasoline lamp stood. It was a reading lamp with a fancy shade on it. There were magazines and other reading material on the table. There was also a big castiron woodburning heater in the living room that always kept the place very cozy. Grandad always had pine wood and it smelled so good! At home, we had Juniper for firewood along with Cottonwood and Boxelder for the heating stoves in the winter, also some Black Willow.

Like most kids, I liked to stay at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Besides the beautiful lamp and the smell of Pine wood burning in a stove, there was always a little breeze blowing. I loved to hear it whistle around the corners of the house. That would put me to sleep.

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