#37

Mummies, Anyone?

South Pass Brook Trout, Ocean Lake Crappie

The summer proved to be busy, interesting, and on one occasion, even too exciting. Mom would never admit to having a favorite niece, but if she did, it would be the one that came to stay with us for part of the summer in Green River. She had been doing this since she was thirteen, first in Tulsa, then Magee, Gainesville, Waurika, Frederick, and Sapulpa. She had ambition, a good head on her shoulders and a good work ethic, and was capable of finding a good job and keeping it, and saving her money, so Mom encouraged her to do so. Before she tied herself down with a job, Dad wanted her to take a short time to see some of the country and take advantage of the opportunity that was available. He decided we would take a weekend and go to Salt Lake City and back, taking a scenic route each way. We headed west, stopped at the Devil’s Slide for pictures, then on to Little America where we saw the stuffed Emperor penguins, made pictures, then swung north through Kemmerer, saw the original J. C. Penny Store #1, more pictures, then to Bear Lake, half in Utah, half in Idaho: great pictures; then two young boys, taking advantage of the isolation of the location, as a prank, relieved themselves across the state line; what? No! Not pictures! Next, Logan, Brigham City, Ogden, then Temple Square in Salt Lake City, and pictures. We visited the Tabernacle and the Museum, in which were displayed some Native American mummies. Thankfully, these were not the frightening kind, but were lying in a fetal position in glass cases.

A note for the “small world” department: in the summer of ‘57, I would visit with the man, in his home, a noted speaker, author, educator, conservationist and explorer, aged 77 at the time, and father of fifteen children, and he told me it was he who discovered those mummies, collected about twenty of them, and after the museum selected the few they kept, he took those remaining, and returned them to the very resting place where he originally found them. He was the founder of the town (Blanding, Utah) where I was working for the summer, and where today, there is a middle school named for him. At ninety-three years of age, he died in 1973.

We returned to our home by a southern route, and by the end of the week, Jean had found employment in a popular restaurant as a waitress. She was experienced and skilled, and had a way of folding pastel silk handkerchiefs into “orchids” which she would pin to her uniform. Being friendly and extroverted, and as efficient as she was cute, she made a killing in tips. We would pick her up at closing time, and Wes and I had the fun task of counting her tips every evening. Silver dollars were common currency and still in circulation in the mountain states at the time and those railroad guys were big tippers.

My dad’s brother, Wayne, was ranching near Cody, and had taken up fly-fishing. Meeting him and Earlean, his wife, son and daughter, Roger,7 and Gail, almost 3 years old, at a fishing spot equidistant from our homes would make a fine outing and a fun visit. It would be a warm water lake so trout fishing was out, but there was a lake near Riverton that was loaded with Crappie, a tasty favorite in the South. We would rent a rowboat so we could fish off-shore. We were told at the marina, not to bait our hook, but just tie a bit of red yarn to the hook’s shank, or we could purchase a cheaply made red fly. We had no yarn so we bought the flies. Every cast, someone had a fish on. The lake was overstocked so there was no limit. We were encouraged to keep all we caught. After a while we quit counting. We would let the fish drop into the boat, and after a flop or two, the hook would fall out. Crappie are notorious for their soft mouth and throwing the hook, and it was “Look, Ma, no hands!” fishing. Finally we noticed the lake was getting a bit choppy. Behind us, we saw the sky darkening, and the wind was picking up. Wayne’s son was the youngest and of slight build, so the boat was not over-loaded, but no boat needs to be on the water with what we could tell was coming. Rowing into the wind went from slow progress to no progress, and the choppy water was now tall whitecaps. We made sure everyone had their life jacket properly secured, and prepared ourselves to ride it out, and hopefully, not capsize. By now we were bailing, as the waves were splashing over the sides of the boat. The motor boats had long since headed in--- except for one! Out of nowhere, it came up on our bow and someone tossed us a rope. The brave soul who cast his lot with us was finding the load to be all his rig could handle. We huddled down to lower the wind resistance, and kept bailing, and gradually we could begin to tell we were gaining. Finally we reached the dock. Within less than an hour, the cloud had passed and everything was calm. I could tell by the look on the ladies’ faces; they would not permit their boys to set one foot back into that boat. The men went back and finished their quest, and that night in the motel, as the four kids slept, the adults cleaned and scaled 210 pan-sized Crappie! After what Mom had witnessed today, the next thing on her list for her sons was swimming lessons!

The city had a nice municipal pool, and lessons could be scheduled so that by the end of summer, we should be swimming like fishes. Well, not exactly, but we learned enough that we had no fear of being under water, we could float, and could survive an unintentional dunking, such as a boating accident. Other than that, it was nice to go to the pool every day, just for the fun of it.

It was becoming more and more apparent that we would still be here for the fall hunting seasons. The hunters on the crew, which was almost unanimous, needed to take their rifles to an appropriate place in the hills to sight them in and fire some practice rounds. I was excited that I had been given permission to go along, though I was too young to buy a license and could not hunt. I had never fired a round heavier than a .22 caliber and had no idea of the recoil of a high-powered rifle, but I was anxious to find out. When the men had finished their agenda, I was offered a .30-40 Krag to fire. I was warned that it would “kick”, and it did, but it was over so quickly, it had no lasting effect. I would have to wait three more years to actually participate in a hunt.

Dad wanted Jean to see the old Oregon Trail, so we planned a trip to the South Pass area. The task of the Oregon-bound immigrant of the 1830s and 40s was a difficult one, with no shortage of danger and hardship. The same could be said for his counterpart heading for California, and the Mormon families bound for the communities of the “State of Deseret” settlements. One of the hazards and hardships was finding a way around, over, or through the Rockies. Most of these passages were difficult and dangerous, and risky for man and beast alike and destructive to the rolling stock. South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the Central Rocky Mountains and the Southern Rocky Mountains. The gradually sloping pass furnishes a natural crossing point of the Rockies. The historic trail became the route for emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails to the West during the 19th century, until the railroads were connected at Promontory Summit. Dad located and photographed some of the places where the deep wheel-ruts could still be seen where the traffic had cut deeply into the rock outcroppings.

We enjoyed our leisure that day doing “toutisty” things, and Dad was checking out all the streams we crossed. There were several, but they were small and bordered with brushy willows, making fishing difficult and tangling the line almost automatic. Finally, at one stream crossing, he had to try out some of his newly-acquired trout flies and managed to entice two brook trout, the first I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe they were actually real because they were so beautifully marked and colored. I think all trout are beautiful, the rainbow, cutthroat, and German brown, but for sheer beauty, my favorite is the brookie.

The red brick schoolhouse had been built about as far up the hillside as was practical or possible, and directly below one of the castle-like outcropping monoliths, initiating much joking and wishful thinking about finding the building gone any Monday morning, the victim of a fortuitous rock slide. But here we were, on the first day of the new school year, and with a summer-full of days and nights available for a dramatic deliverance, there stood the rock as it had for a few eons, and would likely continue to do so for a few more.. I began to see some familiar faces; there was Bruce, whose back gate opened onto the alley four houses to the west of us, and Hershey Blake, whose name I remember, simply because it is hard to forget. The Martinez boy had grown another foot, or so it seemed; he had gotten off to a slow start in school and was ahead of us in age and physical development and liked to bully the other boys just because he could. And there was Beatrice who was always neat, from her white socks and sandals to the bow in her hair with not a hair out of place. Had I hung around for a few years, we might have been soul-mates. When her mother starts letting her use makeup, she can cover that little pink “port wine stain” birthmark located, unfortunately, smack in the center of the bridge of her nose. It didn’t bother me: at least it wouldn’t keep me from carrying her books.

Autumn was here; you could feel it in the air. And you could see it in the foliage along the river. From the vantage of the schoolyard, most of the town could be viewed at a glance, and the afternoon sun was taking a lower track that put a golden wash on everything. The willows and cottonwoods along the river were at their peak of golden yellow, and in this light, the bluffs of White Mountain were mimicking their hue. On the hill around the school, some of the trees had started shedding their leaves which gave us a magic carpet for our walk down the hill. It seemed as though the residents liked having them on the ground as no one had done any raking, only the breezes were piling them here and there. A kid will go out of his way to walk through a puddle, or a pile of leaves, though I pursued this passion only in moderation so not to embarrass Beatrice, or get her sandals and socks dusty. At the bottom of the hill, she would go to the right and I would go left.

My friend Bruce was an avid Batman fan, and wanted to “be” Batman for Halloween. His mom was a wizard with a sewing machine and said she would help him if he could get the material for a costume. He came and asked Mrs. Logan what she did with the worn out sheets from the motel. She had been giving them for the war effort for the cellulose in the cotton fabric, but she didn’t know if that need still existed. She would “look and see”, and was sure she could come up with something. So, Bruce got his material, and his mom went to work. The finished costume was a work of art, with the pointy little horn-like ears, and the mask covering the upper portion of his face, with almond shaped eye-slits, and the beak-like appendage down to the tip of his nose. She made the gauntlets for the gloves, and leggings for boot tops and pointed scallops on a floor-length cape. He wanted to be Batman and with that costume he was Batman, almost. Since the sheets were still white, he was Batman’s ghost!