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Get Our Feet Wet | CHAPTER
1 IT
TAKES MANY ESCAPADES TO FINALLY COME OF AGE GROWING
UPBy Wally Hoffman Ó1998 In
the far distance I could hear the wind howling and the rain beating down
and something shaking my shoulder.
Then I heard: “Wake Up- Wake Up”. Forcing my eyes open I see
my Dad standing next to my bed with a lantern. He tells me I have to
help him in the barn with “Molly” one of our cows that was having
difficulty having her calf. I
can hear the wind and rain mercilessly beating against the window as I
crawl out of my warm bed. Getting my clothes on I ask what time is it, and he says
about three. I think about
Molly who was the stubborn little calf that I had rescued from becoming
veal. She looked like a
Guernsey, but was the product of a distant neighbor’s Holstein bull
getting loose and spending two days romancing all the cows in the area.
When I first tried to feed her by sticking my fingers in her
mouth to suck she immediately bunted the pail of colostrums milk all
over me while those big eyes looked at me as if saying -your turn next. She looked like a Guernsey, but had the confirmation of a
Holstein including a large udder producing abundant low fat milk.
My Dad had never liked that ##$@% cow who always continued to be
independent. Milking her was always an experience.
She would move away from you when you sat on the stool to milk
her. Then she would hold
her milk up finally letting it down.
She would then lean on you as you milked, but never kicked.
This would be her second calf
I
ask what about Gus helping us who lives on the next farm, and my dad
tells me there isn’t time to go clear over there.
Knowing my Dad, I knew darn well he is going to tell me what do
but he isn’t going to do it. He
just wouldn’t ever reach into a cow and pull a calf.
The barn is across Whisky Creek and as we walk across the bridge
in the pouring rain with the wind almost blowing us off, I can see it
isn’t the usual docile little creek but a huge raging torrent.
A cow only seems to have trouble calving when it’s the middle
of the night with a storm raging. When
we get to the barn there is the secure warm feeling of the smell of the
animals and the hay. Molly was in her stanchion, but down. We release
her from the stanchion and finally get her on her feet after slipping
around in you know what. I
knew we are going to have to pull the calf, so we tie her to the
stanchion and then get the block and tackle hanging on the wall.
I then reach in getting both hind feet of the calf and pull them
out then tying both feet to the block and tackle.
All this time my Dad is telling me I should be doing it this way
and doing it wrong. Finally
I have had enough and for the first time I stand up to me Dad. Shouting
at the top of my voice I tell him if you want to do it different do it
yourself and begin walking out of the barn into the howling storm, “to
hell with Molly and her calf”. I
was 12 at the time and this was first time I had told him off (I had no
idea whether he was going to hit me or what)? I was mad and didn’t
give a dam. Instead he took
me by the arm and pulled me back to the cow.
He had a startled look on his face and said to me, “Let’s do
this together”. After a lot of straining on the part of Molly, and slipping
around in you know what, and with the usual swearing the calf finally
started to move it seemed one inch at a time.
Almost immediately there was a beautiful heifer calf lying on the
hay we had thrown down being licked clean by Molly.
This
was one of my many incidents of growing up during the 1930s on a small
farm (stump ranch). The
specific community was a place called “Joyce” about twenty miles
west of Port Angeles, Washington. In
actual fact there was only one general store and a sign on State Route
112 that read “Joyce” with the entering and departing sign located
on the same post. The locale for the area is five mile from the northern edge
of the Olympic National Park and about two miles from the Straits of
Juan De Fuca, which separates the United States from Canada.
We hardly ever experienced adverse weather, but did contend with
an annual rainfall of up to about 150 inches per year. The
surrounding community had the appearance of serenity as one looked at
the small farms. These in
reality were “Stump Ranches” where small tracks of land had been
partially cleared of the huge stumps left after the area had been logged
in the 1920s. These stumps
were huge fir and cedar four to eight feet in diameter and about six to
eight feet high, and very difficult to remove. The
center of activity was the Crescent Consolidate School built in the
heyday of logging a result of the high income and land values. The
school is still called Crescent Consolidated School and houses about 120
students for grades’ one through twelve.
The school to this day earns more scholarships per capita than
any other school in the state plus sending basketball and football teams
to the state for the B finals.
This
was primarily a logging community in which most residents worked as
loggers with a small farm to supplement their income by producing most
of the family’s food. The
ethnic majority of the people was second generation from Sweden and
Finland and was still bilingual. Most
of the Scandinavian customs still persisted including putting the coffee
pot on the stove before answering the door and the ever-present steam
bath houses in every back yard. I
never learned to speak either language, but I could understand it when
visiting in the homes. Underneath all this tranquility there lurked the presence of
the “Great Depression” that held everyone in its grasp. All the logging camps had been shut down as there was no
demand for lumber, and the mills were not buying logs. Everyone
in the community was of the same social mores with absolutely no money
to buy unnecessary items. We
were forced to live on what we produced always hoping to get from one
season to another. We were
very fortunate that no one went hungry for there were always eggs,
butter, milk, plus the meat and vegetables that were canned.
What little money came in had to be used to purchase staples such
as flour, coffee, etc. These
conditions had the effect of drawing everyone closely together by living
harmoniously and the necessity of helping of each other.
We were all in the same boat as no one was any better off than
the other. When
we started school we were thrilled to have a new pair of blue jeans (I
still do not like blue jeans) and maybe a couple of shirts for the
school year. Many of the
clothes were hand me downs, and by the end of the year usually were
barely held together. Our
shoes lasted until they could no longer be repaired or re-soled and
lasted even longer when rawhide was added for the repairs.
The
actual transition from childhood to the responsibilities of an adult
began as we entered high school. At
the end of the four years we found ourselves having to handle difficult
situations plus suddenly wearing the mantle of an adult.
World War II was to totally and drastically change all of our
lives forever, but did prepare us for those traumatic years. At
home my primary jobs were the care of the six and sometimes eight cows
from which we sold cream. This included milking (by hand) each morning
and night, feeding them, and cleaning the barn.
There was always the task of cutting the necessary firewood so
the house was supplied with dry wood for cooking and heat. The wood came from two sources; the first choice was
hopefully finding a wood log of solid fir left from the logging.
These logs were usually about four to five feet in diameter and
about 40 feet long and about 2/3 usable.
This was before chain saws and we used a “drag saw.”
This was a one-cylinder cantankerous gas engine set on a heavy
triangular frame that operated a heavy crosscut saw (Sears used to sell
them). The top of the saw
(the open end of the triangle) was placed on the wood log then dogged to
the log with the bottom of the saw resting on the ground.
After each cut the saw was moved about sixteen inches to the next
cut. Each round was then
moved to a location where it could be split into firewood, and then
loaded to take home. The
second source of wood was to cut green alder or maple (which grew
abundantly) by hand with a six foot cross cut saw. All
of these jobs were usually maneuvered into joint projects with my
friends and all of us working this together.
We usually would have everyone believe we were really slaving
away cutting wood. We
always seem to be able to find considerable time for climbing the
seventy feet plus tall trees to the very top and swinging them back and
forth until they bent over giving you a thrilling roller coaster ride to
the ground. This worked
most of the time except every so often you would encounter a brittle
tree, which would break off with the ride ending abruptly as a free fall
to the ground. We would
also bend the treetop to the next tree to see who could travel farther
than the other.
To earn
spending money we would locate a large cedar stump left from logging.
This would be cut off at ground level (with a cross-cut saw) and cut
into thirty-inch lengths called cedar spaults.
Those straight-grained pieces, which split evenly, were cut into
cedar shakes. This was done
with long wood chisel with a handle.
Each shake was three quarters of an inch thick and trimmed with
no waste on the edge. The other parts of the cedar stump, which
wouldn’t split evenly, would be cut into shingle bolts. These are
large chunks of cedar sold to a shingle mill for processing as cedar
shingles. There
was more money in the shakes when they could be sold but very little or
nothing for the shingle bolts. The
usable cedar stumps were never close to any access road so the shakes
and shingle bolts had to be carried with a pack-board to the nearest
road. We would carry about 110 to 140 pounds balanced on a pack
board. Many times there
would be no market and we would have to store them until they could be
sold. Each
summer soon after school was out we would put up hay as the barns had to
be filled to feed the livestock in the winter.
Every one helped each other as an annual community project.
The grass (along with the weeds) seemed to grow everywhere and
soon after school was out it was time to start mowing the hay fields,
hoping it would not rain once the hay was cut.
It was ordained to never cut the hay until after the 4th
of July. You could always
count on it to rain during that time. Once the hay was cut and left to dry, it was raked into
windrows (we used an old dilapidated dump rake). It was then shocked
(put into small piles about 6 feet in diameter and about 5 feet tall) as
no one could afford a hay baler. Then
two people with hayforks with their backs to the hay wagon would pick up
a whole shock swinging it over their heads placing it on the hay wagon
until the hay load became too high to reach.
When the weather remained clear everyone went from farm to farm
harvesting the hay and hauling it to the barn.
Arriving at the barn there was a large hay fork (either a double
or single), which was inserted into the hay on the wagon.
This pulled the hay to the peak of the barn (about 60 feet) by
horses or tractor where it connected to a tract that ran along the peak
of the barn until reaching the proper place to dump it.
Those who pitched the hay were in the barn to keep the haymow
even and when the load was in the proper position a trip rope dropped
the whole load. There was
considerable amount of ragweed in all the fields. When the hay was
dumped in the barn there would be a big swoosh of refreshing air, but
the ragweed would look like snow clinging to your sweaty arms and face.
This added to the discomfort of trying to breathe in the hot and
stifling hayloft. Then
came time to pick the wild blackberries, which grew abundantly on the
cutover land after logging. With
several five-gallon milk pails and small one-gallon pails to pick into,
the family would proceed with my uncle and cousins to the Deep Creek
area where the berries were both big and plentiful.
To me this was always a very tedious task and always hot, but I
never seemed to be able to maneuver myself out of going. It never seemed
to fail when you would be blissfully picking berries over the logs left
after logging, and bang you would be face to face with a black bear.
Both you and the bear would stare at each other for a second
while the pucker sting tightened, and then with a big grunt from the
bear and a yell from yourself both went in opposite directions.
Never mind the berries in the pail as they went flying in your
hasty departure. The berries
were large and sweet so you nibbled as you picked thinking about how
these berries would taste in a bowl with thick cream and sugar over
them. We usually made two trips for the berries and then gorged
ourselves on the fresh berries as pies and cobblers. The rest were canned or made into jam for the winter. When
school opened in the fall it was also when the Silver Salmon would begin
spawning in the rivers. Our
favorite spot was the local Lyre River a very short river that is the
outlet for Lake Crescent. This
river ends up against a cliff with a huge logjam. This made it an ideal
location to gaff the Silver Salmon when they were fresh and had not yet
turned red. We all
had homemade gaff hooks, which were large halibut hooks with a barb (I
still have mine). On the shank of the hook we soldered a piece of copper tubing
and attached a long piece of rawhide to the eye of the hook.
A willow branch about four feet long was cut and inserted into
the tubing attaching the end of the rawhide around our wrist.
We would then crawl out on the logjam looking into the clear
running water for the ideal salmon.
Lying on a water soaked log we would watch the salmon slowly
swimming past, and then select a good looking fish hooking it with the
gaff hook. When we
gaffed a salmon the pole would break, and we would then pull in the fish
and run to the bank of the river. Gaffing
the salmon was illegal, but since this was done as a source of food for
our own use the Game Department was not too strict.
You have not lived until you have been chased by a Game Warden
through head high ferns holding two 25-pound salmon by its gills with
the fingers on each hand. The
silver salmon were eaten fresh, canned, and some smoked (I still do not
care too much for fresh salmon to this day).
Later in the year when the Dog Salmon (Chum) were running we
would gaff them in the same manner for smoking.
The Dog Salmon are very oily, which made them excellent for
smoking. A
smokehouse looked like the old fashioned outhouse, but had chicken wire
shelves instead of the usual two holer.
Green alder or maple would be cut and a fire started with dry
cedar shakes and left to smolder. We
would filet the salmon (removing the skin and bones) soaking them first
in brine and then place them directly on the racks in the smokehouse.
The salmon eggs we would save for steelhead fishing later in the
year. This was a large
edible game fish similar to a Silver Salmon, which was fun to catch as
they always put up a terrific struggle before you could bring them in
and a source of fresh fish later in the year. After the
salmon came the butchering of the pork and the beef.
We usually raised two weaner pigs, feeding them scraps from the
table and garden plus some grain. This
was mixed with the skim milk and was always my job to slop the pigs.
The day we were to do the pigs it was my job to get up early and
fill a large steel cauldron (which is a large 30 gallon black kettle
with a handle) with water and build fire underneath for the hot water to
scald the hogs (it always seemed that water would never boil). The hogs
were scalded to remove the hair by scraping and were never skinned Once
the hogs were brought out they were killed with a 22 then slashing their
throat to cut the jugular vein. We then attached a gambian (a heavy
stick about 30 inches wide with pointed ends which were stuck into the
hocks of the hind feet) and hang them up to let them bleed properly.
We then filled a 50-gallon barrel with the boiling water and some
cold water along with some ashes and charcoal to dunk them in, using a
block and tackle to raise the animal up and down. We then began the
tedious job of scraping the hair from the skin.
If these steps were not done correctly it was a miserable job
always seem to be raining. They
were then cleaned (saving the intestines for casings), split, and halves
were hung to cool. The
heart and liver kept be eating immediately or making into liverwurst.
After 24 hours the halves were cut up with the hams and bacon
slabs set aside for curing and smoking.
The rest were cut up into steaks, roasts, and chops. The sausage
was made from the cuttings and scraps, some went into headcheese and
scrapple, everyone had their own special receipt for the sausage.
The fat was trimmed and cut into chunks to be rendered for lard.
All this was shared with the neighbors who would also give to you
when they butchered which kept all of us in fresh meat longer.
The
cattle were done later as the weather became cooler. The animal to be butchered was led out and either shot in the
head with a 22 or hit over the head and the throat cut severing the
jugular vein. Inserting the
gambions into the hind hocks so as to bleed properly then hanging them. The animal was then cleaned with the heart, liver, and
sweetbreads being saved. They
were not dipped, but instead began the tedious job of skinning the hide
off which seemed to take forever. A
lot of the hide can be pulled off, other areas was a tedious process of
separating the hide from the flesh with a skinning knife.
The last job was splitting the carcass into halves, which was
always my job (I still have the meat saw).
This seemed to take forever while everyone else sat around with a
cup of coffee or a beer commenting on how much better they could do it. Netting was then put over the halves and moved to the barn
for about a week to age, as the nights were now cool. The meat halves was then cut into the usual roasts, steaks,
stew meat or hamburger. A
lot of this was canned, and again shared with the neighbors The
fall and winter we would go clam digging which seemed to be always at
night because of the tides and always seemed to be raining. With a gas lantern we journeyed on foot to the beach for both
the butter and sand clams. This is when we discovered the large number
of skunks that were on the beaches at night.
Al Jacobs (a classmate who still comes to all of our reunions)
probably became the lead trapper. We
would spot the skunks with a light and then shoot them for the furs.
I was never adept at this or getting the smell off after the
skinning. We sold the fur
for 10 cents each if they were in good shape.
During the
Christmas break in our junior year in school we figured why not extend
our holiday. We had
collected several jars of skunk oil.
The school was heated with a steam boiler and this skunk oil was
liberally spread over most of the radiators in the school.
It took ten days to get the smell out and it lingered for the
rest of the school year. No
one ever could put the finger on the culprits who had done this
dastardly deed. When
we started high School camaraderie developed among the twelve of us,
which grew into a bonding so strong, it continues to exits to among the
eight of us who are still here. This was illustrated when we recently
celebrated the 60th year since graduation, which reflected
the close relationship among all of us. The group during high school was
fulfilling all kinds of activities so intensively it became like a
family with a brother/sister relationship.
As an example the school several times threatened to expel us for
some these innoxiously acts, but could hardly expel the whole class. Through the
many kinds of escapades we all stuck together.
In our junior year we received a new class advisor (Ann Marie
Best Koller). She came with
a Masters Degree in English from the University of Washington, and
immediately became integrated with our class.
Through her we learned of the world outside our community.
She also opened the door to music, drama, history and the
classics in such a way they became adventures.
This was during the depth of the depression and she appreciated
getting a job even in this remote community.
Her salary was $90.00 per month.
She rented a two-room house for $5.00 complete with cold running
water and an outside privy. Ann
Marie and the class became friends for life.
Although she never participated directly in our pranks, she
conveniently looked the other way because she was always on our side.
She later went on to earn a Ph.D. in English, teaching at
Stanford. She comes to our annual re-unions each year and has now
related to us she always knew all about our antics. During
our senior year we decided for a Halloween joke we would put an old car
on top of the flagpole. The
car was a 1926 Model T Ford somebody had abandoned.
The flagpole was an iron pipe set in concrete so it was necessary
to perfectly balance the car on the top.
We used a team of horses, a block (a pulley), and a ¼ inch
cable, which we rigged to a “gin pole”.
A gin pole is two long poles in the form of a triangle which is
raised almost vertical and anchored and kept in the air with a cable.
With the whole class participating and a great deal of maneuvering, it
took us over two hours to get the car balanced on the pole. That no
adult noticed what we were doing amazes all of us to this day.
The school took two weeks to get it down, however they never
accused us, as they did not think we were capable of doing this. Every
one had “Stumping Powder” at home, which was low percentage
dynamite, and with caps and fuse used to split stumps for clearing the
land. We discovered some
left over firecrackers from a prior 4th of July, to which we
attached a long blasting fuse. The
length was set for about ten to fifteen minutes.
The firecrackers would go off and echo throughout the school
while we were in class all very innocent.
The school administration was going to expel all the boys in our
class, but the girls said if one goes we all go.
The school never did get around to taking any action. We
very often (sometimes instead of attending school) would go to Agate
Beach or up to the Olympic Hot springs, usually with a case of beer or a
gallon of white port wine. No
one would be intoxicated, but we all had a good time as we basked in the
warm waters of the hot springs. The
road to the Hot Springs was a treacherous winding road up the side of a
mountain above the headwaters of the Elwah River. Why we were able to
make it up and down by car and motorcycle with no one getting hurt
remains a mystery to this day. In
the summer between our Junior and Senior year three of us decided to
enter a bid for a portion of the annual wood contract the school let
each year. The school had a
monstrous wood-burning boiler used to supply heat and at one time even
generate electricity for the school.
This used about four hundred cords of four foot wood each year
and the school would put out four wood contracts The School Board was
initially reluctant at first to let us have a contract, but we convinced
them to give us a chance after having our parents agree to fill the
contract if we did not. This
was for one hundred cords of four-foot alder.
The trees were no problem, but we had only two cross cut saws and
one hundred cords is a lot of wood to cut with a cross cut saw.
We had an about 75 cords cut and delivered by the first of August
by working 10 to 12 hours a day. It
had been a hot and dry summer and a large forest fire broke out at the
west end of Lake Crescent. We
went to look at the fire and to our surprise were hired for eighty cents
an hour to work for two weeks as a part of the fire crew.
I was kept on for another week in the cookhouse as a “bull
cook” which is doing all the menial chores connected to cooking and
food preparation. This included cutting firewood, doing dishes, pots and pans
and anything else the cook could dream up.
In the Army during WW II it was called “KP”. Needless to say
when we returned home there was a real struggle to finish off the wood
contract, working 12+hour days. We
now had some money in our pockets and decided we had earned a vacation,
as we had worked our tails off all summer.
A fishing trip was planned hiking into the Seven Lakes Basin,
which is fourteen miles on the Ridge Trail beyond the Sol Duc Hot
Springs in the Olympic National Park.
The Basin is a series of lakes formed by melting glaciers.
Each of us had pack boards and like carrying the shakes packed
about 100 to 125 pounds of gear. This
included two heavy wool blankets (we did not have sleeping bags) and a
tarp. At night we wrapped the wool blankets around us Indian
fashion laying down the tarp on a bed of needles and moss (you always
seem to miss a couple of rocks). A
frying pan, axe, knife, bacon and canned goods completed our packs. We didn’t know about all the dehydrated foods.
Once we had made the laborious climb up to the ridge we came to
the turn-off to the Seven Lakes Basin. The main trail continued to the
Blue Glacier and in the distance Mount Olympus was looming in the
background. It was a
picture post card view. Why
don’t we go on and climb the mountain and see what it looks like?
It was an instantaneous decision, and it did not occur to us we
did not have the necessary climbing equipment or food. This was a
two-day trip and we about froze on the Blue Glacier, as we did not have
sleeping bags, but only the two heavy wool blankets.
The snow was like little round chunks of ice, but we always
seemed to always have good footing.
The four extra days almost totally exhausted our food.
The trip was worth it as I can still remember the grandiose
scenery and looking down on the world and Vancouver Island.
Coming back we dropped down into the Seven Lake Basin. We were
almost out of food, and stuffed ourselves with fish out of the icy lakes
broiling them on a stick over the fire. The fish almost jumped out of
the lake when you cast a dry fly. We
realized time was running out as school was starting but had to go
fishing one more time at the headwaters of the Sold Duc River.
Reluctantly we climbed out of the Seven Lake Basin in the pitch dark, as
there was no moon or other lights.
We had no flashlights, and used the fungus that glowed from
rotten logs fastened on our backs to keep track of each other.
When we gained the Ridge Trail it was pitch dark. This was
extremely dangerous and foolish as the trail covers some very steep
ground and cliffs. We felt
our way along the trail trading positions, and soon crossed the bridge
over the Sol Duc River. We were ready to fish, as soon as it became
daylight. In
the fall of 1938 I returned for my final year of high school.
After graduation, in the summer of 1939 I worked in a logging
camp at the extreme NW tip of Washington (Neah Bay) by making beds,
washing dishes, and finally setting chokers in the woods.
I was able to earn enough to begin my departure from the area by
way of Washington State University.
World War II began in September, 1939.
There was no way we could anticipate the tremendous ensuing
events of World War II that would change all of our lives forever!
Two years into my college in 1942 I joined the U.S. Army Air
Force as an Aviation Cadet. I
completed pilot training and flew 35 missions in B 17s over Europe in
the 8th Air Force. My
first visit home was February 1945.
After the war I returned to Washington State University on the GI
Bill receiving my BS in Agriculture in 1948 (my wife her “PHT”, put
husband through). I have
never really returned to the – “Joyce Stump Farms” except for
visits and reunions, but the nostalgia of the area still exists. |