Meet Me in Kansas City!

In the fall of my senior year of high school, I attended the American Junior Hereford convention held in Kansas City during the American Royal Livestock show. As secretary of the Wyo. Junior Hereford Association, I went as one of the delegates to the convention. The other Wyo. delegates, which included my older cousin, and our sponser were to fly out of Denver on the evening of my high school homecoming football game.  I had been asked to homecoming for a first date by guy I had liked for some time, making this a special date. Our flight left that evening, so unfortunately we were only able to attend the game. Troubles with the flight out of Denver meant that we arrived in Kansas City much later than expected, acutally just in time for the morning session of the convention. Euphoria from the nignt before and weariness from the trip swirled together in my mind during those opening sessions as I struggled without success to stay awake. However, I did make a mental note of the handsome tall blonde delegate from Colorado who was one of the presenters.

Lunch sponsered by a registered breeder from Nebraska included a slide show presentation on his operation.  Following the lunch and presentation, delegates filed by thanking the  host for his generosity.  Near the last of the line, I thanked the host family and started the walk back to the hotel for the afternoon sessions.  As it happened, the Colorado delegate I had noticed that morning was just behind me in the line and joined me for the walk. As we walked we found out about each other.  His name was John and he was attending CSU planning on going to vet school.  His family ranching operation had many similarities to ours including extended family and cousins. We sat together during the afternoon sessions, enjoying each other's company which resulted in his asking me to the dance that evening.  I was delighted but also somewhat mortified because I had very little experience dancing, and certainly not western dancing. Thankfully, my paltry dancing skills did not deter him and we spent every available moment together during the rest of the convention.

All too soon, the convention came to a close and it was time to part and head back home.  The Wyoming delegation was scheduled to fly out of Kansas City an hour before the Colorado group, so we came up with a plan for me to trade seats with one of the other Colorado delegates enabling us to fly to Denver together.  The Wyoming group had a layover in Denver before catching the flight to Cheyenne where my cousin and the girl who traded seats with me were to have someone to take them back to UW in Laramie.  Our plan would have worked out just fine except that a severe thunderstorm in Kansas City delayed the Colorado flight, which created a domino effect of complications.

The first group arrived in Denver just fine, but since the Colorado flight was delayed, I missed the flight to Cheyenne.  John's younger brother, a freshman at CSU who had used his car while John was in Kansas City, was supposed to bring the car to the airport to take him and others back to Ft. Collins.  However, he had an accident with his brother's car and so a fraternity brother was there to provide a ride instead. Oh my, how to work through all of the trouble we had created that faced us then. John ended up borrowing a car and taking me home to the ranch twenty miles beyond Cheyenne, a 130 mile round trip out of his way. My cousin assured my mother that he would not have let me trade seats if he had not thought John was a great guy.  Although my parents had little reason to put much confidence in the decision making of seventeen-, eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds, everything eventually worked out. 

  In coming years, our younger sisters eagerly anticipated attending the American Junior Hereford Association convention in Kansas City hoping for a similar experience.  However, each person's love story is unique, so none had the same experience there, and the homecoming date before Kansas City became a distant memory. Thus began a relationship that has lasted over 44 years!

Country Bible School

In our ranching community, everyone had to travel a number of miles to town, to school, shopping, church or to do anything.  Many did not go to church very often if at all because of the distance, so every summer my mother organized a Bible School for the country kids. Bible school was held in an old two-room school house that my dad had attended as a child. The school house sat lonely on the wide-open prairie, no other buildings in sight, no trees.  Two outhouses, one for boys and one for girls, anchored the barbwire fence which kept the curious cattle out of the small school yard.  The school had no running water either, so it seemed like an adventure to go back in time in these surroundings. We kids enjoyed getting together with our cousins and other neighborhood kids that we either had not seen since school was out, or saw rarely because we went to different schools than they did.

Bible school began in the afternoons after lunch with all ages together.  One child carried the American  flag, one the Christian flag and one in the middle carried a Bible in the opening ceremony in which we all recited the pledge of allegiance to each.  We then sang songs, accompanied by an adult playing on the old upright piano left behind. We vigorously acted out the songs with motions, Praise Ye the Lord Hallelujah, Deep and Wide, Happy All the Time,  or robustly belted the lively tunes like I Have the Joy, Joy, Joy.

 We separated into two age groups, one for the younger kids and one for the older ones.  An adult leader would share a Bible lesson with questions for us to answer.  We would memorize verses from the lesson.  Each group had an age-appropriate craft that reflected what the story was about.  We would take a break after this going outside to have kool-aide and cookies that our moms had baked, each taking a turn to bring refreshments.  Outside we played games such as Red Rover or tag burning up  restless energy before coming back in for a final large group session to summarize what we had learned. We had Bible Drills where we tried to be the fastest to find a verse in the Bible, or contests to see who could recite the memory verse for that day. We always had a missionary story and offering for that endeavor. Stories of sharing the gospel in foreign countries fascinated us with the unknown cultures and customs.

 Bible school went on for two weeks in mid-summer.  On the final day we had a program, inviting our dads and grandparents.  Many a child in that rural area heard the gospel in Bible school for the first time, and in following summers.  The seeds were planted for understanding God's love and the path of salvation.  I know that these times helped me to understand biblical truths and impressed on me the importance of  missionary work around the world and in our own community. We always looked forward to these two weeks in the summer.  The adults who made this time possible will probably never know the impact on our young lives.

A Special Sense of Humor

My dad was a very quite reserved person, a man of few words, but that reserve camouflaged a wry sense of humor.  Rather than sing us to sleep, he would threaten to sing if we didn't go to sleep at night! His favorite song "Cranky Poodle" had humorous lyrics and a loud clap at one point that always surprised those who heard it for the first time: "Cranky Poodle bit my pa, cranky poodle done it, if there'd been a prize for runnin' fast, my pa would sure have won it!" Singing this song to a young cousin of mine who was riding in the front seat of the car next to him, Dad let loose of the steering wheel and clapped his hands together once very loudly while singing.  My cousin's eyes were wide with surprise and fear that the car would go off the road. 

Dad was in a play in grade school, a one-room schoolhouse out in the country.  His character had a very long name which he would rattle off many years later that we never could catch in its entirety:  Johonnas Hubbard Lubbard something something something Van Slackamore Jones.  He would quickly slide the words by when we were not prepared, so we never figured out what the middle part was.  His teasing smile and the twinkle in his eye let you know that he enjoyed this game, and he always won.  We never did catch all of it.  Mom made him promise to tape it so it would not be lost to posterity forever, but we cannot find the tape.  I am sure he is smiling as us even now.

The birthday spanking ritual was another of his favorite escapades.  All of us, cousins included, knew that we would get a birthday "spanking" from Dad.  He would put the birthday boy or girl over his knee and ask how old you were and then begin to give gentle swats for how many years old you were.  However, he would always stop part way through and ask again, "How old are you?" which meant he had to start over.  Then he would loose track of how many swats he had given you and have to start over.  The end result meant that you received many many more swats that you were years old.

Dad enjoyed wrestling on the floor with the younger kids.  My brother and sister would try to wrestle him, but he always managed to get them wrapped in his arms or legs. My sister was famous for squealing, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe!" when he would have her legs or arms pinned against the floor. Years later he wrestled with his grandchildren in similar fashion.  Everyone loved the fun of trying to be stronger than Dad or Grandpa.

Dad loved telling a good joke and was very effective with the punchline.  At one family gathering there was a tape recorder going during the dinner.  There were multiple conversations all muddled together, but everyone was silent when Dad spoke.  He did not talk a lot, but when he did, everyone wanted to make sure they heard what he had to say. Dad was a man of few words, but he made them count and enjoyed the result.

Baby Bunnies and Birds

In the summer when Dad was mowing in the hay fields, he would occasionally come across a nest with baby cottontail rabbits.  He would get off the tractor and catch a baby bunny or two and tuck them inside his plaid snap-closure work shirt.  After getting home in the late afternoon, he would come to the house with a slight smile on his face dusty from working in the field, reach inside his shirt and hand us the baby bunnies.  Their variegated brown fur, which camouflaged them well in the field, was soft to the touch covering their tiny frame. A tiny little puff of white fur for the cottontail tucked  under the bottom was only evident when they hopped along.  Their big brown eyes opened wide with wonder and fear, tiny noses quivered and short ears laid flat on their back.  They would try to hide under an arm or burrow in the fold of our clothes.

Since the basement was not yet finished at the time, we fixed up an enclosure with a piece of plywood blocking off a corner.  We used my brother's play barn and silo laid on its side covered with a towel to give the rabbits a place like a burrow to sleep and hide.  We fed the baby bunnies warm milk in a jar lid. After having their noses dunked in the milk , they quickly learned to drink it just like a cat would.  The bunnies eagerly awaited their milk, standing on their hind legs to get it sooner. Freshly picked grass from the yard and bits of lettuce and carrots supplemented their diets.  Because we gave them lots of attention playing with them daily, the bunnies were tame in no time. We would take them out on the front lawn to play, but we had to watch carefully to keep the cats and dog away. However, they also grew very fast and soon were too big to keep in the house, so we would release them out away from the house in the hopes that the cats would not get them. 

One summer, I had also rescued some baby sparrows from a nest that had fallen down in the barn.  It seemed logical to me to keep the birds in the enclosure with the bunnies since the sparrows weren't able to fly yet.  The birds and bunnies made for interesting roommates and watching them interact with each other was comical.  The birds would hop around the space stretching their fledgling wings.  The bunnies were curious but not very brave. This arrangement worked fine for a little while, but on coming home from church one Sunday, we found the sparrows roosting on the music rack on the piano upstairs. Mom had enough at that point and the animals were out of the house.  Any further attempts at keeping baby bunnies or birds had to be done outside in the garage or barn.

I enjoyed being able to have these experiences with wild animals, nurturing and caring for them.  I imagined being a naturalist  watching and  understanding animal ways;  life on the ranch allowed me glimpses of that life.