Thirty Years Ago

[RobBob]

Boy things are different in the West than they were back then. Exactly 30 years ago, I got to go out west to work on a relative's ranch near Ely, NV. What a cool summer out in the middle of nowhere for a 13-year-old kid. I flew into Ely on a Frontier that I swear was a DC-3. The airport was the size of an animal-cracker box out by itself on the desert floor. My relatives showed up an hour late to pick me up, and they had shut the airport and I was all alone.

 

The next day I learned to drive, in an old stick-shift pickup. My cousins and I drove monstrous farm equipment all summer, branded calves, killed rattlesnakes, and raised all kinds of Hell out there.

 

My relative the ranch-owner was a real-world John Wayne, a 6'-4" Hell of a man who had squeezed into B-29s in WWII and flown Burma Road missions. He rode a huge grey stud hoss, the biggest damn horse I've ever seen, and he could rope and ride like someone who was born in the saddle.

 

The ranch had just gotten a phone line (a party line), and the only time I heard it ring was when lightning struck in the valley. There was one a.m. radio station that we picked up from over in Salt Lake City. My relative the ranch-owner would listen to the Watergate hearings for a few minutes after lunch, curse loudly about them, then we'd head back to work.

 

Real people living tough, fun lives. No latte-sipping, enviro-preaching, computer-nerding pussnuts in that place and time.

 

[Sphinx]

So????

[ChrisT]

Exactly 29 years ago (give or take a day) I came off a two week backpacking trip in Yosemite to find out Nixon had resigned.

[Sphinx]

ChrisT said:

Exactly 19 years ago (give or take a day) I came off a two week backpacking trip in Yosemite to find out Nixon had resigned.

 

Yer old.

[ChrisT]

older than the hills and twice as dusty

[RobBob]

So????

 

So asketh the latte-drinking, overpaid-at-whatever-he-does, enviro-herdmember sphinx.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Quoth the latte-sipping computer-nerder pussnuts as he sitteth upon his alabaster arse:

No latte-sipping, enviro-preaching, computer-nerding pussnuts in that place and time.

 

You sound like Trask, old man. You bought a sports car and some flashy lesbian porn on DVD for that midlife crisis yet?

[rbw1966]

RobBob said:

My relative the ranch-owner was a real-world John Wayne. . He rode a huge grey stud hoss. . . he could rope and ride like someone who was born in the saddle. . .

 

 

[Dwayner]

Hey Chris T!

 

Where d'you go? Ain't seen you in the chatter-box in some time. I hope things are better than they were last time we communicated!

I liked your story about Nixon resigning.....I hate to tell you this, but it was 29 years ago, not 19!!! the exact same thing happened to me, except that I was backpacking in Montana.

summer of 1974.....an interesting time...it was my second summer with a climbing interest and I had a new wooden-shafted ice axe that I took with me everywhere. (Cost me $20 new!). It was in-between my junior and senior years in high school. I attended "Kaniksu Boy's Camp" outside of Newport, WA where I learned about fly-fishing, logging and took extended hiking trips in Montana. That was also the year of Expo 74....the World's Fair in Montana....met my first citizen of the Soviet Union there...back in those days, it was like seeing a martian!

anyway, I hope all is well.

aloha, - Don

P.S. I learned not long ago that the famous "Kaniksu Boy's Camp" is now "Kaniksu Family Nudist Camp"! oy!

[ChrisT]

I just remember flying down the trail...my pack light sans food...and we stopped at some little store at the end of the trail, picked up a copy of the SF Chron and said "Whoa...Nixon resigned". Kind of nice to be out of the loop sometimes.