Late one afternoon I walked near an area that was closed, bummed me out; when I turned around there were a couple black guys were standing there. One of them said "What are you doing here,N&&&r?" I looked behind me and around then looked back and said "You must be talking to someone else". They laughed, walking away saying "I didn't know white guys had a sense of humor". I never did figure out had happened.
I was sitting in the S.U.B. at Eastern Montana College (Billings, MT - now a University, used to a 'Normal' school meaning a teacher's college), when this black guy sat down with us and introduced himself. He chatted for a while; told us that he did tan by showing us the tan-line under his watch; then he went off to another table. This was the first time I had ever seen a black guy, let alone talked with one.
I was snorkeling about 200 yards off of Green Island on the Great Barrier Reef, taking pictures and generally being completely blown away by the colors, the fish, the whole 'abundance of life' thing going on. Something bothered me but I don't know what. I looked around but did not see anyone or anything around but I was really, really uncomfortable so I headed back to the beach - just in time get evacuated from the island due to Cyclone Muni. The boat-ride back to Australia was on a trimaran which made the 14 ft swells FUN! There were a bunch of us standing the front of the trimaran riding it like a roller-coaster - up to the top of a swell, then drop 14 feet to the trough; there was nothing like it (the fact that it was a trimaran kept all the motion up and down with very little side-to-side motion). Green Island was swept pretty clean by the cyclone.
I was playing with the fire in the fireplace at our cabin in the tobacco root mountains; this annoyed grandma (seems like everything annoyed her) and she told me to go outside to play. I grabbed a handful of kitchen matches and went out to play. Bored with the tiny flames from burning pine needles, I opened the valve on the 40 gallon gas tank and trickled some gas and the flames got pretty large. When the flames began to die, I opened the valve a little more so more gas would come out; hah, this produced even more flames in a wider pool. This eventually got boring so I wandered off to do something else. Nothing burned down and I did not start a fire; the only reason I can think of that I survived was the gasoline was too cold - it is the fumes that burn not the liquid.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
St. Mary's cont.
Most of the people I remember from my time at St. Mary's are from after we moved from 711 W Clark st. A friend name Guy is the only person I remember who lived in that area (sorry for telling everyone that guy in the dictionary meant 'a queer looking person' - at least you had Zorro). Across the street from us were the Prims - Marcia (in my class), Mark (a year behind), Mike - well, you see the pattern developing. All the kids had the initials M. P. and there were at least 5 of them. We were a pack and played all sorts of games; we had a raft on the 'lagoon' that was near the swimming pool (if you went swimming in the lagoon, they would not let you into the pool that day). There was a small woods on the other side of the lagoon where we would drag old christmas trees into a fort. On the street that lead down to the swimming pool was a dairy where we could get really fresh ice cream.
I remember playing British and Mau Mau as a kid; my brother and his friends were the British and us little ones were the Mau mau who were always slaughtered. Think about that for a moment - 1954, Livingston, MT the MauMau rebellion was the stuff of backyard cowboys and indians, cops and robbers play - I think the machine guns were what made them so popular; the "no Annie Oakley" rule did not apply to machine guns. Oh, yeah, the drive-in theatre was pretty close - I remember that we would sneak in under the fence and go to the front row and turn on all the speakers so we could lay out watch the movies. The owner would, at some whim, chase us away sometimes and sometimes not. His son was about our age so the only thing I can think of is that he was making sure we did not see certain types of movies.
The next house we moved to was up on the hill - I think I mentioned that we lived in the second house from the edge of civilization (so to speak). The walk from school to home now included crossing the railroad tracks. Livingston was some sort of rail town, I remember that we had to cross 4 or 5 sets of tracks. In the summers, we would open the ice carts and use the huge trident-like ice pick to break junks of ice off the blocks. We would put nickels, dimes, pennies and sometimes dimes on the tracks and they would get smushed out of shape. Once we put some oil on the tracks where there was a tiny hill on the way out of town. When the engines hit that spot, the driving wheels actually created enough friction heat to partially melt the track - never did that again. The Caseys lived just across the tracks on my way home but they lived on the base of the hill - they were railroad people. I remember running into one of the Casey boys at a train depot in Miles City about 10 years later.
I remember playing British and Mau Mau as a kid; my brother and his friends were the British and us little ones were the Mau mau who were always slaughtered. Think about that for a moment - 1954, Livingston, MT the MauMau rebellion was the stuff of backyard cowboys and indians, cops and robbers play - I think the machine guns were what made them so popular; the "no Annie Oakley" rule did not apply to machine guns. Oh, yeah, the drive-in theatre was pretty close - I remember that we would sneak in under the fence and go to the front row and turn on all the speakers so we could lay out watch the movies. The owner would, at some whim, chase us away sometimes and sometimes not. His son was about our age so the only thing I can think of is that he was making sure we did not see certain types of movies.
The next house we moved to was up on the hill - I think I mentioned that we lived in the second house from the edge of civilization (so to speak). The walk from school to home now included crossing the railroad tracks. Livingston was some sort of rail town, I remember that we had to cross 4 or 5 sets of tracks. In the summers, we would open the ice carts and use the huge trident-like ice pick to break junks of ice off the blocks. We would put nickels, dimes, pennies and sometimes dimes on the tracks and they would get smushed out of shape. Once we put some oil on the tracks where there was a tiny hill on the way out of town. When the engines hit that spot, the driving wheels actually created enough friction heat to partially melt the track - never did that again. The Caseys lived just across the tracks on my way home but they lived on the base of the hill - they were railroad people. I remember running into one of the Casey boys at a train depot in Miles City about 10 years later.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
strange triggers
It is cold season again and I have this 'post-nasal' drip thing going so I do that disgusting half snort inhale through my nose to clear it up and -wham- I think of my brother. I don't know why (or maybe I do) he comes to mind with that simple, private act. I miss him. He died over twenty years ago and had gone missing out of my life for 20 years before that. He and his second wife with her 2 daughters moved from Montana to Denver CO and cut the family off nearly completely. Though we were part of it; he said that if he could not have his kids, they weren't his, cutting my niece and nephew out of his life. I think he was upset that we kept his ex-wife as part of family and he sort of made us choose between him and his ex and we did not want to lose contact with his kids.
I would like to think that he was trying for rapprochement; we had some longish phone calls (listening to him talk was like listening to myself - we sounded so much alike; I remember going to the movies with him and one or the other of us laughing and someone from the crowd would shout "sounds like a Coghlan is in the house"). In the mid-1980s, I took the train to see my grandfather on his 90th birthday; I just assumed it would be a big deal with lots of people but it was just me, grandpa Rusher and his new wife. I spent a couple days with them, grandpa was still pretty sharp and we had some good conversations and he gave me some pictures of family.
Grandpa was a character; he was a worker with his own tools too old to go to war (WWII) so he traveled around the country working all sorts of jobs; a person with his own tools ruled. Grandpa was a j.o.a.t.- he bought up land with money his sons sent home from the war and started a farm for them near Roundup MT. He did a pretty good job for a chicago city boy. When the boys got home from the war, they were `pretty excited about ranching; my father met my mom in Paris, married her and brought her 'home' with him; my uncle had about 8 kids. They bought a Piper Cub plane and used it to get to town and back. The trick with the Piper Cub is that it can stay in the air at 50 mph - that is damn near a hover. Since 'the boys' had families (my brother and me on the way - I was a 'diaphragm' baby, and been lucky ever since), they made a vow to never fly together.
Long story short my father and uncle had an argument/fight/loud discussion and one drove into town the other flew into town; one for supplies the other for laundry. Sometime after the plane was prepped to return to the ranch - ranchers buy their fuel in bulk and pay no (or fewer) taxes on it so in prepping the plane for the return trip, it was prepped for one person. The brothers made up in town; it was getting late so they decided to leave the car in town and fly home. The neighbor heard them prepare to land but they were in the wrong field and pulled out of the landing; the engine spluttered, the plane stalled and there was no time to pull out of the stall. The engine crushed my uncle; grandpa says that my father survived the crash but webbing holding him in his seat failed and he fell and broke his neck. The neighbors were there withing minutes but too late.
After I was born, mom lost it - 2 boys, in a strange land, with almost no English. She moved back to Chatou just outside Paris to her parents little house on Rue de Landes.
But I digress - after celebrating grandpa's b-day I took the train to Denver and saw my brother in his home. We had some good talks.
I would like to think that he was trying for rapprochement; we had some longish phone calls (listening to him talk was like listening to myself - we sounded so much alike; I remember going to the movies with him and one or the other of us laughing and someone from the crowd would shout "sounds like a Coghlan is in the house"). In the mid-1980s, I took the train to see my grandfather on his 90th birthday; I just assumed it would be a big deal with lots of people but it was just me, grandpa Rusher and his new wife. I spent a couple days with them, grandpa was still pretty sharp and we had some good conversations and he gave me some pictures of family.
Grandpa was a character; he was a worker with his own tools too old to go to war (WWII) so he traveled around the country working all sorts of jobs; a person with his own tools ruled. Grandpa was a j.o.a.t.- he bought up land with money his sons sent home from the war and started a farm for them near Roundup MT. He did a pretty good job for a chicago city boy. When the boys got home from the war, they were `pretty excited about ranching; my father met my mom in Paris, married her and brought her 'home' with him; my uncle had about 8 kids. They bought a Piper Cub plane and used it to get to town and back. The trick with the Piper Cub is that it can stay in the air at 50 mph - that is damn near a hover. Since 'the boys' had families (my brother and me on the way - I was a 'diaphragm' baby, and been lucky ever since), they made a vow to never fly together.
Long story short my father and uncle had an argument/fight/loud discussion and one drove into town the other flew into town; one for supplies the other for laundry. Sometime after the plane was prepped to return to the ranch - ranchers buy their fuel in bulk and pay no (or fewer) taxes on it so in prepping the plane for the return trip, it was prepped for one person. The brothers made up in town; it was getting late so they decided to leave the car in town and fly home. The neighbor heard them prepare to land but they were in the wrong field and pulled out of the landing; the engine spluttered, the plane stalled and there was no time to pull out of the stall. The engine crushed my uncle; grandpa says that my father survived the crash but webbing holding him in his seat failed and he fell and broke his neck. The neighbors were there withing minutes but too late.
After I was born, mom lost it - 2 boys, in a strange land, with almost no English. She moved back to Chatou just outside Paris to her parents little house on Rue de Landes.
But I digress - after celebrating grandpa's b-day I took the train to Denver and saw my brother in his home. We had some good talks.
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