THE COW AND THE CAR
In the mid 1930’s, when I was about 10 years old, our father sold ten cattle to a cattle buyer. They had to be delivered to the stockyards in Craigmyle, twenty miles from the ranch. My 8 year old brother, Leo, and I, riding our ponies, started out with this small herd early one morning. Our father was to follow later in his car.
This was during a drought and the grass in the pastures was scanty, this made the cattle much more interested in eating the grass growing sparsely by the side of the road than in reaching our destination. However, we managed to keep them moving and things were going well until we were about halfway to Craigmyle. We were proceeding south along the road when we encountered a much larger herd of about one hundred, cattle complete with four adult cow boys and two pack horses headed north.
The two groups of cattle immediately merged like long-time friends at a country picnic. The cowboys told us that they were headed for Lloydminster, where they had been told that there was plentiful grass and also hay for the winter. This would be a trek of over two hundred miles that would take more than two weeks to complete, with no assurance that the grass and hay would be available at Lloydminster.
We began the process of sorting out our southbound cattle from the northbound herd. This was known as “cutting out” and was a common task, facilitated by the fact that the cattle were branded. It was important not to excite the cattle as they might “stampede” with unpredictable results, none of them desirable. The cowboys with the other herd were doing this while we kept the separated cattle from rejoining the larger herd.
The brand for our cattle was “WW” on the right flank. Branding has been largely supplanted by the use of ear tags, in other than range cattle. The ear tags are easier to install and provide a better source of information to data banks, similar to those used in human genealogical studies, which are used to record the pedigree of cattle.
Then a further complication arose. A relatively expensive new car, driven by a man wearing a suit and tie, and heading north, arrived on the scene. He had some alternate ways of dealing with this situation. The preferable one would have been to go back to the nearest intersection and bypass the obstruction by using the next road a mile over. He could also have waited until a path could be cleared through the cattle on the road to allow him to pass.
The result of this maneuver was that one of the cows knocked a headlight off his car. He immediately started yelling uncomplimentary remarks about people who blocked the road and didn’t let others with important things to do get on with them. When he began to realize that he was outnumbered four to one and that the cowboys were in no mood to listen to a city slicker making disparaging remarks about them and their cattle, he shut up and awaited developments.
We continued with the job of separating the two herds of cattle, and when this was finally accomplished, the northbound cowboys cleared a path through their herd, for the car to pass through, so that the man with the important business could proceed on his way, minus the car’s headlight.
A short while later, our Dad caught up with us. He had coped with the problem by stopping his car on the road and letting the bovine tide flow around him. Needless to say he was greatly relieved to find that we had all of the right cattle. The remainder of the trip went well and we arrived at the stockyards in Craigmyle with all of the animals.
I don’t remember any of the details of the trip home, riding our ponies. I do recall reading that forty miles was considered to be a good day’s march for a cavalry troop, so I think we can assume that it was a very long day.
On the relatively rare occasion that I recall this incident I wonder what happened to the north bound herd. How many cattle completed the journey? Did they find water for the cattle to drink every day? Were they able to get the feed for the cattle that they were looking for? These and other questions are lost in our unrecorded history.
THE SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION
One day at Wolf Hill school we were surprised when the children from the other family, who were the majority of the other children at the school, began to make unkind remarks about us. This was very unusual and we were unable to decide what had caused this change.
When we told our mother about this situation she explained that there had been a meeting of the residents of the school district; as a result, the parents of the other children who had been the school board officials, had not been reelected. Our father was elected as the chairman of the board and our mother as secretary. The incumbents did not accept this graciously, and this was undoubtedly the reason for the actions of their children.
These new duties meant that our parents, particularly our mother, who had been a teacher, were responsible for locating the teacher for the next term. She was able to do this by going to the village of Byemoor, the closest town, and telephoning a number of potential teachers. As I recall the teacher selected was a good choice and served the school well for the next year.
THE CALGARY STAMPEDE
In 1941, Dad drove my brother, Leo, our cousin, Ed, and me to the Calgary Stampede. One event that I remember from the car trip to Calgary was indicative of the way Dad drove. He looked straight ahead and concentrated on the road. Another car came up behind us and wanted to pass, but Dad was either unaware of this vehicle or he chose to ignore it. The man in the other car angrily yelled, “You Road Hog, pull over and let us pass”.
When we got to Calgary we stayed in a tent in our grandparent’s backyard. They lived near enough to the Stampede Grounds so we could walk there. Dad had told us about how when he lived in Calgary, about 35 years earlier, he had found a way into the Grounds through the fence. We looked and the opening was still there. This solved the problem of the admission fee.
Dad spent most of the time visiting his brother, who lived on the outskirts of Calgary. Our cousin, Norm, who was about three years younger, went to the Stampede with us.
Although there was a good deal of emphasis on the military in the parades and in some of the exhibits the main focus was still agricultural. We spent a good deal of time looking at the displays of farm machinery and animals. The chuck wagon races were a daily feature that we didn’t want to miss.
Another attraction that I remember was the miniature cranes inside an enclosure. You paid five cents to operate the crane for a few minutes. With luck you could pick up enough coins with the crane to recover the cost.
THE MISSING BRIDGE
My mother and I were driving home from Calgary when I turned off the highway just west of Delia. I soon realized that I had turned too soon and was on the wrong road. To overcome this problem I turned towards the correct road on the first available rural road.
This road was used very little and I was driving very slowly when suddenly the front wheels of the car fell into a hole in a bridge deck. Because we were going so slowly there did not appear to be any serious damage to the car. The only thing to do was to wait until morning when I could assess the situation more clearly.
In the morning it was apparent that the car had not suffered serious damage. There was a farm not too far away and I went they are to look for a jack or some other means of lifting the car out of the hole. No one was awake at the farm but I found a suitable jack and went back to the car. I was able to lift the car and get it back out of the hole.
I returned the jack to the farm and we continued on our way without any further incidents.
Someone commented, “It was fortunate that you were with your mother and not some other woman when this happened”.