Jonie and Annie

A sled like this one was an incredible gift. When snow packed the roads, dad's would secure a long rope to the front of the sleigh, secure it to the back bumper of a car and pull it with a number of other kids on roads that did not have a lot of traffic. This is my Radio Flyer, and I am wearing the red plaid coat I wore whenever I went with Grandpa Cles and my dad to get meadow hay in the hay lands or whenever I went with both of them to feed cattle. I am guessing I am just a bit older than two in this picture.

I remember going with grandpa and dad once, and we loaded a cow and calf. We always had names for some of them, and the one we hauled that day was Ol' Red, a Jersey Hereford cross. Since she had was a range cow with some dairy genes, she always gave a lot of milk, and she always had large calves. We kept this cow for years.

We stopped on the drive at the side of grandpa and grandma's house in the old truck, either the green or red Chevrolet. They were both different years, but they were the same make of truck. Since we only had one cow and a calf, we probably used the smaller of the two: the red one. When we stopped, the cow stumbled before she started to kick the side of the truck.

"Sow, you old Red son of a bitch," my grandpa said. (I have no idea what "Sow" meant, but I remember my dad saying that to cattle that kicked when we had them in a barn, trying to get some milk to start a new born calf with some energy.)

As a two-year-old, I said the exact same words as clearly as anyone could say them. I remember my dad laughing. Grandpa did not even smile. "We're going to have to start watching what we say in front of Jonie."

In the second picture, I am standing in front of the same Buick that appears in the one above. I wish I could find one of these. I figure that the same Frenchmen who named the Teton Range designed the front bumper. It was a classic car from the era when Marilyn Monroe was about to become queen of Hollywood.
This picture shows the old chicken coop that was behind the house on South Main. The Chevrolet truck is in the background with a load of loose hay. The area to the right led to a stack yard area where the cows could come to eat out of the long manger.