The Simple Lives We Live
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The Simple Lives We Live
I Just Wanted to Play Ball | John Ross (Part 1)
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At 7 or 8 years old, my uncle John Ross was driving the grain truck, sitting on Sears catalogs so he could see over the dash. All he really wanted was to play ball. In Part 1, John takes us back to farm life in the '50s and '60s, meeting Angie while she was on a date with someone else, and a June honeymoon at Yellowstone that came with a snowstorm.
Welcome to the Simple Lives We Live, where we open the little family photo of the bundles and don't start the stories that made us who we are. I'm your host, Kylie Simiano, and each week I sit down with everyday people to capture their extraordinary life experiences, the moments of love, lust, laughter, and resilience that echo through time. These are the stories that remind us of a road to connect us two generations past and show us that the simple lives we live are anything but ordinary. So settle in and let's listen back together. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Today's quote is it is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness. And that is my Charles' version. Today, my guest, we have scheduled and rescheduled a few times, but we're finally making it happen. It is my uncle John Ross. So thank you for being here, John.
SPEAKER_05Thank you.
SPEAKER_02You guys made a special trip. I've got I've got his lovely wife, Angie, here to help as well because Angie is gonna have a lot of she's gonna be helpful in helping you remember sometimes some things. So and different questions that you can elaborate on the answers. So thank you both for taking time, coming all the way from Fargo just to do the interview.
SPEAKER_05We appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02Same here. I thought maybe you guys had some other things going on that you could like, you know, kill two birds with one stone, but that's okay. We we're gonna get it done. So, John, I want you to start off by telling me when and where you were born.
SPEAKER_05I was born in Beach, North Dakota on December 14th, 1947, at the what we call the old hospital with Dr. Bush.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you were a Dr. Bush baby?
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02He delivered you.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Were you all born in that hospital?
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, all of you. Okay. So so that would make you how old?
SPEAKER_05I am 78 years old.
SPEAKER_0278 years old. And how many siblings? And where do you fall in line?
SPEAKER_05I have uh three siblings, and I'm the oldest one. I've got uh Bruce and uh Bruce is after my me, and then there's Craig and then Barb.
SPEAKER_02So three boys, one girl.
SPEAKER_05Correct.
SPEAKER_02And born and raised in Beach.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02You didn't go anywhere, you guys lived out at the farm.
SPEAKER_05We lived out in the farm the whole time.
SPEAKER_02You didn't move into town at any point when you were growing up.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. So if we go all the way back to your childhood, where it all started, right? Right. What were some of your first memories?
SPEAKER_05Some of the first memories that I can really remember out there is we did not have uh originally we did not have uh running water out there. And so we had uh had the uh windmill where we get the water uh was in the yard there, and we get the water there and take it in, and mom would uh use that for washing dishes and stuff, and actually taking, I can remember there's even a picture somewhere of taking a bath in a porcelain bowl. Oh that, and so but then a few years later I remember uh Mr. Johnson came out and was digging the basement underneath the house, and that's when we got uh so that wasn't always there, the basement wasn't always there.
SPEAKER_02There was just the house, and then the basement got put in.
SPEAKER_05Yes, okay. I didn't know there was there was a small area to the north that was open because that's where the coal stove was when we lived out there, and we would go we would go get coal about 12 miles north of where we lived, and then there was an area there we would throw the snow or the coal into, and that was down there, but to the south there wasn't, so that was all dug out so that we could put in water and uh stuff like that and everything. So there was this made it up.
SPEAKER_02How old were you when you guys finally got the water when they had that?
SPEAKER_05Well, my I'm guessing that I was probably four or five, something like that.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So you were born, then my dad, then Craig and Barb. Right. So would Craig have been around at that time or probably around Bruce?
SPEAKER_05Probably was a baby around that time, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yep. But you had electricity. Do you remember? Did you have electricity?
SPEAKER_05We we had electricity and we still had some oil deal because electricity back then was kind of on and off.
SPEAKER_02Okay, a little sketchy, not sure if you're heavy wind would gotcha. So that um windmill, but the the water pump that's still in the yard out at the farm, is that where you guys would pump water and get water from?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, or that was the pump you're thinking of, I think, is next to the the cistern area. Yes, yeah, no, it would have been just across the road. That little road thing, okay, down there towards where the barn was, and that's where where it was was right there. So the windmill would go and we'd pump the water there and and uh stuff like that. Is that one of your chores that you had to go and collect water, or who was no dad did that because he did that, okay. I met because I I know that I was too small to carry that and everything like that.
SPEAKER_02The buckets to really get a good amount of water.
SPEAKER_05I remember that, and then I also remember the first phone that I remember was the old wall phone where you had to oh, yeah, like what do you call that? Well, whatever you do it, and then someone comes on and you give another. It connects you, you save it. Yeah, so we didn't have much of that, and then and then eventually uh we got the regular rotary rotary phone that was uh a party line. So everybody could listen in on anybody's things like that.
SPEAKER_02Were other houses?
SPEAKER_05Oh, yes, yes. And that was for a long time because I mean if we I called, I can remember if I called Angie, we were still on the on you could tell, and then you could tell if somebody would got on the phone to go, yeah, you could hear a click so that you knew that there was somebody listening then because you didn't hear.
SPEAKER_02That's so funny.
SPEAKER_05But uh other than that, I don't I remember we had a dog out there at that time, and I can't remember what the name of the that dog was at the time. I uh if I remember right, it was a collie. I think it was a collie, and I thought I can't remember what the name was.
SPEAKER_02I I just don't were collie's really popular back then because we had a collie. My mom had when I was little, my mom had a collie, which was a lot of people.
SPEAKER_05I think collie's collie's and uh yeah, we had a and then we had a collie and a German Shepherd cross one time.
SPEAKER_02Okay, did you always have a dog out at the farm? Did they try and always have one?
SPEAKER_05Just we had we had them most of the time, but towards the I'm thinking towards the end that we didn't, because uh we had one that the last one uh we had what wouldn't let people into the house or like that and stuff like that. You had to make sure that something didn't happen or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. Did you did you enjoy growing up on the farm?
SPEAKER_05I thoroughly enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_02What did you like about it?
SPEAKER_05Uh well, you know, I think we liked it because I went to a country school and all everybody in that area was from a farm. So all of our friends growing up at that point in time were farm kids, and so we didn't know any better. Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, that that just the way it was.
SPEAKER_02Uh you didn't know you were you didn't think you were missing out because you didn't know you were missing out because nobody well that's right.
SPEAKER_05I said there was there was one thing that I I'd always wanted to be in the Boy Scouts and something like that, but that was not gonna happen because it was something that would have to take us into town and this and that and everything. So, but I think growing up, yeah, I think it was. I mean, I think I think if you grew up on a farm in those days, you had a work ethic that stayed with you uh throughout your whole life. Anyway, I can see that. I I even saw that when I was in the service.
SPEAKER_04Really?
SPEAKER_05I could you could just about tell who came from a farm and who didn't back then.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_05Because I think I mean we we worked, I mean, we all worked, all the kids worked. You that you had something to do all the time, you know. No, and if if you didn't, you had other things we do. I know that like Bruce and Craig and I, you know, if we had some time that we didn't have to be working, we would always have a bat and a ball and a glove, and one would pitch to the other, and one would hit the ball, and the other one would run after the ball, and that's what what we did out there.
SPEAKER_02Um you made the games up yourself and you played because you wanted to play.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Not because your parents told you you had to go practice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then we took uh we we built a uh tree house on the end of the roll and on one of the big trees out there. We got chastised for that. It wasn't very fun because we'd use some of the dad's lumber that we had. Let's put it this way, we heard about it. We heard about it.
SPEAKER_02So those trees when I was growing up, the trees that were out there, were those just small trees just recently planted when you were growing up, or there's uh I don't remember.
SPEAKER_05I'm thinking that a lot of the trees that we played on were not there when you were there. Uh a lot of the tall, tall ones toward the end were rotting out, and I think they were taking out. But there was a lot of new ones that had been planted even after I had left and everything.
SPEAKER_02So that a lot of those are all different now from when I was growing up, too, you know.
SPEAKER_05So those that shelter belt to the east of the house, you know, where that's at, uh, that was done when we were probably in grade school later on on that there, because that was one of the chores that all we all did is we watered watered those all those trees. We weeded all those trees.
SPEAKER_02How many trees are we talking about? To give people an idea.
SPEAKER_05Well, how long was that?
SPEAKER_02It was long. The idea of you guys having to water those trees and pull the weeds is crazy to me, you know, because at that point in time, none of us were old enough to do any field work, okay, per se.
SPEAKER_05Sure. You know, uh we got into the we Bruce and Craig and I and even Barb helping. We got into doing field work a lot sooner than you know, dad would have his we could drag, that was a pretty easy thing to do. Plowing was pretty easy because oh, you went straight and didn't have to do on that and everything. And so we would do things like that.
SPEAKER_02How about um I don't even think I had this on there, but I was asking my dad how old he remembers being when you guys would start to drive the tractors. So, how old were you when you started to drive the tractor? Any tractor, any machinery?
SPEAKER_05I I remember doing the truck first.
SPEAKER_00Okay, oh, like a grain truck or yeah, a grain truck.
SPEAKER_05Okay, uh, because we had cattle out on the field, and and uh we would the night before we would fill up five-gallon buckets of uh grain of wheat of uh oats and stuff like that, and then dad would put the um silates in the truck, and I can remember I would be driving the truck, I'd have about four or five Sears catalogs and sitting and driving the truck in first in first gear, just basically going.
SPEAKER_00How old were you?
SPEAKER_05Six, seven.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_05And I mean it was a different one. Well, I mean, it it was probably older than that. It's when we were, you know, maybe seven or eight, something like that. But driving it was you just kind of go at that and you had the up so that dad could put the silage down, and then we would put the wow, but you always remember farming, you always had the machinery.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you didn't have, but that wasn't too far from when you were born then, was it that machinery started overtaking or the machinery we started.
SPEAKER_05I remember when dad bought the first LF Chalmers, the little LF Chalmers. And I've I don't know if we still have, we may still have it out there. I'm not so sure. And I couldn't tell you if we know I know we had it for a long time because I it would have been, I remember, yeah, uh long time we had that, and that was the easiest one that we would have. It it was more of a utility tractor around the place and everything like that. He would mow use that the mole with uh oh, I didn't even think about that. He would have a mower, uh, he'd hook up to a mower and he would do that and stuff like that, and everything. And that uh that's some things that we kids grew up doing and learning how to so that when it was time we to go to a bigger tractor to do the plowing and stuff, we'd already had some training training on it and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you even saying that the videos, some of the little snippets that I've gotten from that you might see on social media, um, they have I'm assuming it's grandpa clearing the snow. So the different little things that machinery that they had back then to clear snow after big snowstorms and things like that was fascinating.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they had a when we were young, real young, dad had a tractor with a what do I want to call it? Yeah, that a tractor with a bucket on it, and that's what he would use. And also on that, then to do for the roads and stuff like that, he'd gotten a snowblower, one of those that you had to go backwards with. Okay, yes, I think he probably still had that, probably still had that out there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh my gosh. Okay, so it was it was that you went backwards, yeah.
SPEAKER_05You did it that way, and we did that from the house to the it would be from the house to the mailbox, that's quarter of a mile. Okay, okay, and so it would do that because uh well when we went to school back then, went to high school back then in the beach, or even the fact of when we went to grade school, because when we went to grade school, we had to go out, we went to country school, we would have to go out that quarter mile. Yeah, the other roads were done by the township, they would oh, they did do them.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. I was kind of thinking, boy, when you had a major snowstorm at that time period, how long did it take them to clear the roads? Because it's not like now, I mean, it's probably not as efficient. Were you pretty much snowed in for a couple days? What could it be a week?
SPEAKER_05Well, there was there was a time back when I was born, I think in uh I was born in 47, so I can't remember. It's either 48 or 49, one of those years, they were snowed in forever. Dr. Bush would fly milk in the mail and drop it.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Did he do that for all the surrounding? Okay, so in my mind, I immediately go to okay, if Dr. Bush is taking this plane and he's dropping off, you know, essentials, some food and things like that. How'd you pay for it? How did they keep tabs, or was it people just came together to some yeah?
SPEAKER_05I don't know about then, but I mean, it used to be, I can remember going into grandpa's place, grandpa Ross's place in town, and I can remember the folks too. They always had a tab at the grocery store. There was always a tab at the grocery store, and at the end of the month you paid for it. And uh lot of that stuff was done, and a lot of stuff was paid off after the harvest in fall.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_05On that, like for all the fuel and stuff like that, and things they would go in and they'd sell a bunch to get the money to do that with.
SPEAKER_02So you saying that kind of reminds me, I think even when I was younger, I think when we had would fill up with gas at times, yeah. There, we could say put it on my dad's tab.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02So that has changed a lot just in like probably 30 years. I mean, really, because that's when I would probably remember.
SPEAKER_05Because I remember during the springtime and the harvest time and stuff like that. I remember they'd bring the fuel out, and at the end of the year, when everything was brought in, then they they would go in and pay for it. You know.
SPEAKER_02So talk to me a little bit about what your parents were like as a child and if there's any specific memories that you want to share about them.
SPEAKER_04Uh, let's see.
SPEAKER_02Because you're gonna probably have different stories than my dad or what I have when I was little with them.
SPEAKER_05We had uh what did I have here on here? What were your parents like as a child? They were, you know, they weren't they were strict to the fact not of being physically strict or anything like that, but they expected you to do what they asked you to do. And I think that's how we we did it. I mean, I don't re ever recall. I mean, you could have an argument with them, and I mean that it you weren't gonna win the damn argument, let's put it on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can totally see that with grandpa, especially.
SPEAKER_05Yes, you know, yes on that. But I mean, and and so that's just the kind of you know, it's one of these if it was good for your grandpa and good enough for me, it's good enough for you. Yeah, on that. So uh I think I've always thought that growing up there, we learned so much more than somebody who doesn't grow up on a farm. I think we we learned what to how to do things. I mean, you had to learn how to do things, you had to learn how to, you know, problem solve exactly right, or think of how can we do this, and and I mean, you know, I can remember when dad and Orville, his brother, when they they used to farm together for quite so many years, and so we had the cousins and stuff like that, but Orval was always a one that was would always they'd always find some way to do something one way, and dad would always find something to do something one way, and and I mean, you know, well, we gotta find something easier to do than this here, and that I can always remember dad got himself. You always had to take the sickles out of the sickle bars and put new ones in because the other ones would get old and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Explain to me what that is. What sickle bars, what are those?
SPEAKER_05Okay, when they would go out and cut the hay with the sickle with okay, okay, yep. You know, you'd have a long, and that then in there you would have the what do you call them?
SPEAKER_03They'd be square when they or triangular.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. So when you had to take those out, they were in there with two bolts with the nail type thing. Yeah, it was something like that, but you would have to punch them out so they were in there. So the added body. Great big or got a great big length of uh rail railroad rail metal and put that on a couple of uh wood slats and everything, and he put those on there and they just go through and punch them out as they went along and everything like that, so that it would they just fall and beah and then when you want to put the new new sickle bars in, then you could just pound it in because he'd have that rail underneath it there that would squash and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So he came up with that. That wasn't something well.
SPEAKER_05I mean, that no, that's what he what he made. He made that himself and everything like that there.
SPEAKER_02So on that problem solve, yeah, make it quicker, more efficiently.
SPEAKER_05Because when we didn't have a lawnmower per se out on the farm for quite some time. We had dad had a had a what you'd almost call nowadays, they had he could dig the dirt out from behind and then mow in front. They had a tickle barbell like that long there. Okay, they used so it's so interesting on that.
SPEAKER_02You really did have to problem solve a lot.
SPEAKER_05Oh, a lot, you know. Also, when they, you know, like for you always, everybody, everybody on the farm always change their own oil and do this and that, and then you had all of the different tractors had to have different someone to have to have this oil, someone after that. So you had to have things pretty well down pat and know which ones to do.
SPEAKER_02To do what, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, on that. So, and dad would always have he had another garage where he had most of that stuff in and would have it up there so he knew exactly what you were supposed to do and everything.
SPEAKER_02So grandpa being more stubborn, we'll say that, right? I I would think we could say that.
SPEAKER_05And um I think they all were back in those days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they wanted things done, they wanted them done a certain way, particular, you know, but it I think it definitely led to him being really particular with how he made his shelves, and that was a very good thing. Like things like that. It wasn't always a bad thing. No, um, how about grandma?
SPEAKER_05Grandma was uh grandma liked to cook. Uh she would always be out there, like back in those days, we would usually have on, especially during harvest time and stuff, we would always have our lunch. We'd all our dinner. We call them dinner and supper.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05For dinner, for dinner, mom would always make something up and bring it out to the field, and we'd eat it out in the field and then get on the do the combine and keep on going. And then she would bring out about four o'clock a lunch, you know, either some lemonade, Kool-Aid bars or something like that, and everything. So, but she was always she always was doing the dishes and always doing the cleaning the clothes, washing the clothes and stuff like that, and helping out dad moving if something had to be moved, well, then dad would move it and she would come with the car or jeep or something, and and pick him up and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So you know the funny thing about grandma that I remember um is, and I don't know if this was how she was as a um when you were a kid, but I feel like even watching the videos, grandma was always very well put together. Like always dressed very nice, always, you know, very classy. Maybe that's the best way to put it. She was very classy, always. Um but very she was always soft-spoken. Was she soft-spoken as a mother, or was she more?
SPEAKER_05I think she was soft spoken. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't, I mean if well, she was young though, too. Was she not? Because grandpa and grandma eloped to get married. And grandma was how old? Wasn't she 16?
SPEAKER_05No, I don't think she was that she was two years younger than he was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, you know, so he was out of school and then she didn't complete.
SPEAKER_05She didn't complete right. She didn't complete her uh high school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um on that.
SPEAKER_05So yeah.
SPEAKER_03She, yeah, she was she didn't wear uh um any type of jeans or slacks or anything for a long time.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, everything had a dress on. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like I feel like maybe that's why I think she always looks very much.
SPEAKER_05Well, and the older, yeah. And if she ever if they ever went any place, she always was, you know, whether if they'd go shopping in Dickinson or something like that, they'd think that that was that was their outing. That was that back in those days, those were the outings and stuff like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So when she was taking stuff out to the field when you were young, was she still on like I want to call it a house dress? Yes. You know, because that's what they baked in with the biggest.
SPEAKER_05Sometimes you'd have pedal pushers on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. But that was not very that was way.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, okay. But most of the time was addressed.
SPEAKER_02Did you like always having um doing the meals for say picnics and stuff? Because when I look back at videos, it seems like picnics were a really big thing for everybody back then. And I do have one where she, you know, they put the scarfs on their head because to protect their hair. Yeah, they she had a lot of um videos with that. Um, but it does seem like she put together a lot of she did a lot of cooking.
SPEAKER_03There was always a hot meal out on the on the when she took it out on the okay.
SPEAKER_02It was it was a hot meal. Always a hot meal. Always a hot meal.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, okay. And then if uh and even if during the regular summer days, we our dinner was always a hot dinner. Yeah, either be steak or this or that or something.
SPEAKER_02So it wasn't here's a cold meat sandwich. It was a real put-together.
SPEAKER_05I don't think we even knew what cold meat sandwiches were until you know, on that there. And then at night we'd have leftovers and she'd still make something up for the evening meal.
SPEAKER_02And you know what's crazy about that is I'm just realizing because they didn't have microwaves. No, it was like it's a fresh, hot meal. Yeah, it wasn't just a warmed up.
SPEAKER_05I I'm just realizing that now because we got it out of the deal and put it in. It wasn't on that. Wow, and she'd do all the dishes and stuff like that. When we grew up as kids, uh we would the kids we would take turns washing dishes and drying dishes on the farm and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Those do you feel that though that did create an atmosphere that washing drying dishes where people really visited and you got to hear about what was going on in everybody's life? Since everybody was around helping out, or did you guys do it in silence?
SPEAKER_05No, I think within our within our own families we did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05On that there and everything. Um and then she would always probably be the one picking us up from school because we went to country school out at the little beaver school, and that was two, it would be a quarter mile and then two more miles. So it'd be two and a quarter miles if you go the normal way that we did. And she'd always take us most of the time, she would always pick us up because dad would be out working. Sometimes if dad was not working in the morning, dad would, but other than that, it'd be mom would take us to school.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So did you ever drive uh not drive, walk to school or ride your bikes to school when it was nice enough?
SPEAKER_05I I remember myself probably not very many times. I I would take the bike, I can remember doing it a few times, but not not a big deal. Yeah, you know, more getting dropped off, picked up and there were some times we would actually uh walk home, not many times, but we'd walk the opposite way because we'd save a quarter of a mile instead of having to go on that. Yes, right, figure it out. That's but yeah, we don't not most of the time on that um or anything. So but it was uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you said for you, school was at a country for you guys when you were there. Okay, so what at what grade did you go from the country schoolhouse to the high school? Or to the school in Beach?
SPEAKER_05I went all eight grades in country school.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So then it was just high school that you were at. And it was the old high school, not what is there now.
SPEAKER_05It was the old high school.
SPEAKER_02The old high school. You never went to the new high school, correct? Okay, I didn't think so. Um what were some of say your favorite subjects, favorite teachers?
SPEAKER_05I think my favorite, we talked about that. I think my favorite subjects was I liked spelling and I liked history.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05Uh was the big thing. The teachers, I I was trying to think. Mrs. Still was one of our teachers, and we had I remember we had two other lady teachers, and I can't remember. I think one was uh what did I say?
SPEAKER_03Uh, we should be down there.
SPEAKER_05You look it up as we go along. Oh, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_03Yes, absolutely. That's okay. Miss Vogel. Miss Vogel.
SPEAKER_05Vogel. Vogel, okay. One and there was one other one too, and I just I don't re I don't remember her name and everything, but those were I knew that I had we had three of them out there.
SPEAKER_02And you enjoyed them. They were they strict, were they um what kind of personalities did they have?
SPEAKER_05Mrs. Still was one of the older ones. Okay, and I think she was probably a little bit more strict, but they they really weren't that strict, uh, you know. Uh and the younger ones weren't real strict, weren't real strict as you would think they might have been, and stuff like that. But uh if nobody's ever been gone to a country school, you have, I think we had like I want to say 12, 13 students between the different grades. Yeah, well, you're not in different rooms, you're all in one room. And so if we're gonna have fourth and fifth grade history, the fourth and they go up to a corner and with the teacher with the teacher at there and stuff, and that's how yeah, it would be and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So and that that schoolhouse is in beach, that part of the museum is that is the museum, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Little Beaver School is the museum portion in Beach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's small, yeah. It's not big, you know.
SPEAKER_05Everybody wanted we always everybody wanted to put the flag up in the morning and stuff like that. So as you walked in, it was uh two rooms. You had the big room for all the the other stuff for the schooling, and then you had a small room where there was a sink, and then where you put your clothes and your jackets and over shoes and stuff like that, and everything on it.
SPEAKER_02Outhouse then? Outside, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so even in the winter, even in the winter, you really needed to go, you had to go real bad. And we had a we had a barn. There was also a barn.
SPEAKER_00Uh there was. So what was that for?
SPEAKER_05Well, people used to ride their horses to school back in the day, and even when I went to school, Janice Pertine would ride her horse to school and put it in the barn.
SPEAKER_04That makes total sense.
SPEAKER_05Janice Pertine at one time then became Miss North Dakota Rodeo, I think. Rodeo queen. Rodeo queen for North Dakota, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that makes total sense why there was a barn. I didn't even think of that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and that there was I think I think there was like three stalls up there, and then when people quit, it was a good building, so that nobody ever took it down, and then she would use it, you know, not all the time, but she she was nice in the spring and stuff, she'd come trotting on in that horse and everything. And then if you we had stuff that you wanted to put aside or anything from inside the school, we'd take it up there and put it up there.
SPEAKER_02So and school for you guys, was it still um at that time August that you started and went until May, or was it a shorter school year?
SPEAKER_05You know, we uh back in those days, we didn't start school until after harvest, right? After we after uh Labor Day.
SPEAKER_02Okay, it was after Labor Day, yeah. Would harvest typically be done for you guys by then, or did it really probably just depend on what it depended.
SPEAKER_05It depends upon the weather. There were times when people you just didn't go to school because you still had some to do, or you had most of it done, and Orville and Dad would be able to get it done, you know, without doing stuff. But there were some times on that.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, now nowadays it would never work because you have you can't miss that many days, you know.
SPEAKER_05I mean it's like okay, mid-August, they're put already in school, it seems like.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it is, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then they take every other day off or something, it seems like.
SPEAKER_02So you're not wrong. You're not wrong.
SPEAKER_05No, so that would because they would have the county fair then in over um Labor Day. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Kind of like the big hurrah before the end of summer and so.
SPEAKER_05They would everybody would bring in their uh fruits and veggies and stuff, and they'd have those, and people would do arts and I mean it was a big deal back in the day and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So the county fair, you talking about that, was um 4 H. I couldn't think of the group. Was 4-H 4-H had that already formed? Was that already a thing?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah. So was that where most people from 4-H still like today, they take all their stuff, or was it people from 4-H, people not in 4-H that's everybody would do it. Everybody was doing okay.
SPEAKER_05I mean, you know, people they'd have they'd have a place in there for apple pies, so whoever wants to and then they could have somebody testing and somebody get a grand prize and then a blue, red, and yellow, I think, whatever, like yeah. They do it for everything.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_05Brownies, you name it. Bring your best. It was right, it was, it would be.
SPEAKER_03When we were kids, we'd make brownies or cookies.
SPEAKER_02Did you have to pay a fee to enter it then? And it was based off of, or how did that work? Where did they get the money to give prices? Do you know? Or they probably just did fundraising, maybe.
SPEAKER_05Well, I think maybe back in those days there was a fund probably set aside like they do now in city government or something. Okay. For that things are interesting.
SPEAKER_02That's funny that you say that that's how you made money.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. On that. So it uh and lot, you know, there'd be a lot of people who would be there with their milk cows or their herfwords and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a big thing back then.
SPEAKER_02Everybody participated, everybody. Everybody went to it, yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, and it's I think the building is still there. That the big building in in Beach, that great big long metal building that I think you're right. I think it's there still, isn't it? It's still at the same fairgrounds that over by where where the baseball used to be over there. Okay, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So what were we talked a little bit about some chores. What were some other toys that you all had growing up?
SPEAKER_05Uh we had two milk cows to start out with, I can remember, and uh milk dolls morning and night.
SPEAKER_02Was there a certain person in charge of that? Or did it rotate?
SPEAKER_05Well, I uh that's what I was trying to figure. I know I did a lot of it, and I I'm I'm guessing that Bruce might have ended up doing some too. I mean, I I don't remember when we got rid of them, but I remember dad finally getting rid of them because but we would we would do that. I would milk the cows, two cows, melt the cows, feed the cats, and and then uh take it up to the house, and we had a separator there that we would put the melt through and separate the milk and the cream. Okay, and did that, and I think, and then we would wash all the equipment from there because right next to where we had it, we had a sink for that to wash everything and dry it out so that the next time we came that it was clean.
SPEAKER_02Was that in the no, was that in the basement or was that it was in the basement, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah, uh and then we sold cream and we put in a five gallon one of those five gallon and we would take it out on old highway 16 before they even before it was even uh paved, and we put it at the corner, and somebody would come once a week and pick that up and take it into the beach, and they would send it to Mandan. And then when Mandan got it and took it, they would take the cream, clean out the five-gallon bucket, and put a check in there for the money that we got and put it back out.
SPEAKER_02Back. So how long was that process?
SPEAKER_05How long did that go on? Many years?
SPEAKER_02Well, so like by the time, how long did it take for you to get the bucket back? Or was it just like oh we each? So you had multiple buckets and then okay, okay. Did that ever change once we had the um cheese factory and beach? Did it then go just this was before then?
SPEAKER_05This was before that. Yeah, this was this was before that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So did you get rid of the milk cows? Did grandpa get rid of the milk cows just because was it worth the money?
SPEAKER_05Well, I think that in the fact that as we were growing up, then we were able to be out on the field doing work and stuff like that instead of milking two cows.
SPEAKER_02Fair enough. Fair enough. Really put you to work, right?
SPEAKER_05Yep. But it was it was interesting because they'd be out, we'd put them out back out onto the pasture, and you knew when it was time because they'd the two of them would start to come walking up toward the deal, time to note the cows.
SPEAKER_02So they kind of told you.
SPEAKER_05They kind of told you when it was time.
SPEAKER_02I always forget that there was cattle out at the farm because I think by the time I was born, I don't know that there was any anybody.
SPEAKER_05There could be.
SPEAKER_02But I remember I'm probably gonna say the wrong names of things, but uh the long troughs? Were they troughs? Yeah, I remember just running up and down those.
SPEAKER_05That's what I did for entertainment, you know, which would have been on the east side of the barn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so much fun. Yeah, and all just going into the barn, all the different things, you know, that were there and whatnot. How many head of cattle did did did you have growing up?
SPEAKER_05Dad, I've always dad would run about 70 head of cattle.
SPEAKER_02Okay, which was a good number back then, was it not? Because you don't have the efficiencies that we do now.
SPEAKER_05And we had trying to think we had one, two bulls, I think. We had two bulls, I think it was. Yeah. But then he'd then we'd have the calves, and he would uh that's where they would be up. He'd bring them in in the wintertime then and feed 'em up on uh those things that you're adding to and everything like that. Everything.
SPEAKER_02Fun to wrap. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But like, and that's like we would have in the summertime we would have hay, we would make hay while the sun shines. And we had round bales, and we didn't have square bales originally. We had round bales. So dad would we'd he'd mow and then we'd rake and then he'd would uh bale the and have them out there. And if it rained, we'd have to go out in the field and push every one of those bales over.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so it didn't get moldy and all that. So it didn't get moldy on it and everything. Okay.
SPEAKER_05And so then we would fill up, we'd bring them in, bring the bring them in, and of course, dad made sure that us boys were the ones that were pushing the bales and this and that and everything.
SPEAKER_02Were they the size that they are now, or were they a smaller?
SPEAKER_05They were the small round bales. The smaller round ones. Okay. We didn't have back in those days, we didn't have those great big things. That's what I was gonna ask.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. So they were smaller. Were they still about the same size as like the square ones, but just round?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Just trying to visualize for myself how about that? Okay, maybe just a hair smaller than that there. Okay. But we would put them up, we would fill the upstairs of the barn. Uh, because in the middle of the barn there was a a latch or a trapdoor. And if we needed to put hay down for the cattle, who when they had their calves, we'd bring them in into the barn, and they'd be in there and have their calf instead of sitting outside and everything. And so we would put the hay down into there instead of having to it was easier just to put it down, yeah, drop it down. And as I think Bruce and Craig remembers that we took turns being down there to take uh having to calve them and everything, so they'd be inside, you know. So sometimes sometimes they'd calve good, sometimes you'd have to pull the calf and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So on that, but um and you know, we don't have the barn anymore. No, because it was really it was shoddy, it was it wasn't very safe, right? For so many years. Uh for me, we played in that barn so much growing up, but it was not a functional barn, no, right? But I would have loved to have seen because when I would look up, when you would walk through this barn and you would look up, you see all the contraptions everywhere, yeah, and how things, but I never got to see that work in real life. I think that would have been super fast.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, stuff like that, everything.
SPEAKER_02So it was great to play the floor as lava, it was great to do ninja warrior games before that was even a thing.
SPEAKER_05You do a lot of that out there, but um so barns are a lot of fun, but it would have been really cool to see it actually functioning, and then before then after we filled the barn up, then we would fill like uh on the east side of the outside on these, we would put up uh the rest of the hay, the and stuff like that, and everything. So on that, but but those that's one of the things that we was always it was always done when it's warm and towards the end of summer and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So make sure you have enough hay to get through for through the winter on that there.
SPEAKER_05So on that, and uh, but I think most most of us started we started working out in the field, you know, either plowing or dragging or cultivating or anything like that. When we were, I mean, we were doing summer during high school, that's what we did. Yeah, I mean we were working, we were working on sunup to sundown for the most part, right?
SPEAKER_02You talking about the the fields, um uh did you have to go and um pick up the rocks and stuff? Did you guys do that as well where you were picking up when we were rocks as well?
SPEAKER_05When we were growing up, yes. We didn't do it every year. Okay, because you'd wait, and then dad say, Well, we're gonna go out and start doing rocks because it takes a while for them to come up with this. I can uh yeah, we would go out and pick up rocks nowadays. A lot of them for quite some time now, there's been a machine where you can just go along and pick them up and get down and pull them up into the back. Yeah, we would yeah, we would we would do them on dad had a flatbed trailer and we'd do that and everything and make a pile.
SPEAKER_02Is that where a lot of the arrowheads I just thought of this? Is that where a lot of the arrowheads were found then when you guys were doing that?
SPEAKER_05Or the arrowheads are any anytime dad would go about hunting arrowheads all the time.
SPEAKER_02He would okay. And uh like how my husband looks for sheds. Yeah, I I think he found all of them because even when we were little, we would try and find some of them. You know, when you would once in a blue moon, but I think grandpa found them all.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but he grandpa would like it when there'd been a wind or something like that, they would have gone step forward. So he'd he'd go out to work because we always there was always feels back in those days that they dug up and didn't put any grain or anything on, you know, they just left it in summer fall, and so he would go out and check that out after a rain or a wind or anything like that. And also when you're doing picking up stuff like that, it's pretty easy because if there's a lot of rock in that area, then a lot of them might be coming back up from before. So yeah, but he was that was his passion.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I could tell from how many arrowheads he has, right? Um along the lines of um the arrowheads, how I remember at times picking up rocks, but you would find a lot of mammals. Well, you'd find a lot of like bowls and plates and things. And so were some of the fields, did they in the past have houses built on them?
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Or what? Because it was weird that we at our age, it was like, oh, we've had these fields in the family for how long? Why are we finding almost like there was little bunkers that came up or something? I don't know, you know, but they had plates and a lot of times.
SPEAKER_05I I think you know, I've as I've read back in different books and stuff like that, settlers and stuff would come and just stay for a while.
SPEAKER_02That makes sense.
SPEAKER_05They made uh this area was quite an area where there was a lot of animals, and you'd get a lot, there's a lot of people would be out hunting animals and stuff like that for their furs and stuff like that, and they would just they'd put up a makeshift stay for a week or so. Sure, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Campsite little and then just leave probably a lot.
SPEAKER_05And that and everything, so which is amazing because I I I read a lot of that kind of stuff, and it I just sit you just sit there and think, oh my god, you know, I know well, that's where I was talking like, okay, some of that makes way more sense than what I had playing on in my head. So I because I know there's a lot of places that if if it looks real big, they'll bring in a uh crew to kind of check it out to see how big an area it really is, and everything like that. So I don't think in this area we had a lot of that there, but we had a lot of you'd have 10, 12 people come and do hunting and stuff like that. Yeah, follow the stuff, and especially more to the west, too, when the where the buffalo were a lot, probably not more. People don't realize there's a lot of buffalo around here at that time, too. That way we were way back and everything expanded.
SPEAKER_02Our towns are way yeah, yeah, yeah, on that and everything. So what did what did the family do for entertainment when you were young? Did you guys have a TV? You didn't have a TV.
SPEAKER_05We had uh we well, we got a TV at one point in time, black and white, uh mostly snow. Yeah, once in a while you could put a some metal on a on a rabbit's ears and get it a little clearer, but so we get to watch some westerns on there and stuff like that. But yeah, we didn't have one for a long time. The TVs when we did FTV guide grandpa would come out and uh pick me up when I was real young and uh take me in and I would mow the lawn for him with his secular boat uh and he'd give me 50 cents and I'd uh go down to the variety store and I'd buy baseball cards with my 50 cents. But also if it was on a day when there was a ball game on Saturday, if I happened to be, there would be there was always a Saturday afternoon baseball game on Saturdays, black and white.
SPEAKER_02On the TV.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay, okay, and so I'd watch get to watch then, and then uh then we we finally did get a black and white TV, and everybody else was getting colored at that time.
SPEAKER_00We were just a little bit behind, a little bit behind.
SPEAKER_05So we uh the one thing I remember dad would do because he knew that I like to watch baseball, and on Saturdays we got one extra hour at noontime, so I could watch one hour of baseball baseball with uh so you always love playing baseball because you and your brothers played all the time, and you were watching baseball and I played baseball and softball till I was 52 years old.
SPEAKER_02Did you miss it?
SPEAKER_05I don't know, but I did. I no, I uh when we when I started college, I did college when I came back from the service I uh we got married and we went down to Ellendale to school. And we were down there for a year and a half because they went to a two-year school then. But I played softball for Ellendale and we played little little towns around uh on that and then I played uh uh baseball for Edgely same summer, played both towns or K programs. For it I Edgeley was what about 30 miles north of yeah, yeah, Boston. And I would I played uh league baseball, or not league baseball, but uh city baseball for them. And so we would go around to small towns and play baseball. And then when I got into college, I didn't I played softball, just uh not a school where it was what do they call it? In a mural inner mural on that and everything. I love doing that, and then one night, one day somebody asked me, they said, Do you know what umpire? And I said, I don't know how hard is it. Why? Well uh two Jamestown and Valley City were going to be playing a ball game that night uh City League and the umpire couldn't be there. Oh somebody asked me if I do it, so I did it. I had all the equipment on, and I thought, boy, John, this is way out of your league to the playing time. I had a blast.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_05Yep, I had a real good blast. I didn't I didn't have a problem with the teams. I I just I just I was so afraid I was gonna miss a curveball coming in or miss a cider coming in. Yeah, I didn't have a problem with it. I and I'd so I just kept like from then on, whenever I played uh softball, like every place we ever went to, I'd always play softball, usually two two nights a week, and then I would always umpire, usually the weekends and the nights off that I didn't. I just I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_02What ages did you umpire for? Was it more the younger? Was it more college?
SPEAKER_05Was the uh the ones in Dickinson would have been uh City League?
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So all the way up to old pros and the ladies and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Did they have the co the coed still at that time too, or is that something they did, but uh feedback?
SPEAKER_05I didn't, yeah, I I didn't I didn't want to umpire them. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So go um going back to the entertainment, you guys playing a lot of uh baseball, you said growing up, and you were able to watch watch some baseball. Um did you play a lot of cards? Did you guys just make up mostly games, like building Fords you said with in the trees and things like that? What else did you guys do for entertaining?
SPEAKER_05No, we did um we had BB guns.
SPEAKER_01We did a lot of okay. Who has done?
SPEAKER_05Well, everybody at some point. At some point, okay. Yeah, we were always, yeah. But uh we were always uh uh a lot of we had a lot of blackbirds out there, and so we were always shooting the blackbirds and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, always birds to be shooting.
SPEAKER_05I mean, they'd come in droves, you know, the blackbirds and the red blackbirds and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Uh was you you've always been into hunting and fishing too. Yes, did that start at a really young age? Did that what no start at a young age? If you always hunting and fishing in the state.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, you can see we're in that one picture, I think that you took.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yep, yep. You with the pheasant.
SPEAKER_05Huh? With the pheasant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Did grandpa always take you out?
SPEAKER_05Grandpa Dad would take us out, and uh he took us out at a young age to learn how to learn how to hunt. And that was good. I've always said that with that was real good because dad always, it was one of those deals that I remember him saying, you are going to learn how to hunt, hunt the right way, and you're gonna learn how to take care of your whatever you shoot so that you don't do it. Somebody else doesn't have to be. Okay, with uh Charlie Shaw. Oh, and uh they would trap all winter long.
SPEAKER_02Really? Yeah, so what would they catch?
SPEAKER_05Mostly they were going after, I think, beaver, okay, coyotes, yep, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Anything that because there's a ton of pictures, even you guys were a little older because I was probably a little, but um it seems like you would get together a lot for maybe it was a night or a hunting weekend, and there's lots of, I'm assuming they're coyotes, yeah. Um, and things like that. Was that important even as you were having kids that you guys would get together to do some hunting? Because I feel like there's a huge, like a lot of pictures of you guys hunting over the years.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. There was uh well, I know that when I got out on, you know, we got married and everything in hunting that I would uh I got new friends and we would hunt with them. But if I didn't get a get a license, I would call Bruce to see if they got a license and and he'd say yeah, they did, and and then he had your brothers and everything like that, and they would get license. And so I would I would go with him and run the kind of help take get the I called him yesterday to see if it was all right if I said this. Oh, okay. Because I would uh I would run the draws for them to flush the stuff like that, and they'd get something and then help them get it taken care of and stuff like that. And I there was one thing in uh there was one one opportunity when we were hunting one time and we were going along, we were getting towards the end of the end, and nobody had a deer yet. And we were driving along, and all of a sudden there was a bunch of deer out in the field out here, and so I said, Well, let's back up. We had two vehicles. I said, Well, just back up and and then you just kind of go around and you should be able to get to them because they were just kind of standing out there. Well, they got to them all right. When they got done shooting, I said, Does anybody have any shells left?
SPEAKER_02What were they what were they hunting for?
SPEAKER_05Deer.
SPEAKER_02Deer deer, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05Deer were having a joy with them because they had no clue what was happening because they weren't hitting anything. So that's so funny. It was so but I think then we went around the ways, and all of a sudden, I think, and I'm trying to remember somebody finally got one, and it was getting dark, and they finally we finally got one and got it back when it was dark, and we made sure that we back in the day to get going and everything because somebody had come looking for us or something like that, and everything was yeah, that was that was I just thought about that. I'm sitting there looking, my god, how many shells can I go? It was a funny we all had a laugh. I mean, it was just one of those things that that you remember always when I have a hunting story to tell about living with my nephew tonight. My god.
SPEAKER_00That's so funny.
SPEAKER_05I think totally other people. It's not a table and we used to dad would take us we go f like present hunting and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02He taught us so fishing. I'm I'm just thinking with because you guys all like to fish, but fishing's more done in the hot weather.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Did grandpa take time off to actually go and fish and teach you guys how to fish, or was that something he loved me? We're gonna go fishing together.
SPEAKER_05What we did is uh about twice a summer we would go up to the 18 mile beaver. I think you remember, are you familiar with the 18 mile beaver? Uh-uh. Okay, north of town. If you go 18 18 miles north, you come to the little beaver. Oh, okay. It's underneath the highway on old highway as you go north up towards Trotters.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_05And um back then, there you could, there was a gate there, and you could go back in, I don't know, quarter of a mile, third of a mile. And there was a little picnic area back there that people would go on to just have picnics. Just it was an area, there's nothing there to have it on. I mean, you brought your own stuff and everything like that. So we'd have a picnic and then we'd walk down to the beaver creek down there. And sometimes there'd be quite a bit of water, sometimes there'd be hardly any water, whatever. But we would always fish, dad, and all of us would always fish there with uh we'd have worms and just and all there was was bullheads in there, you know. Bullheads, and if you got in into the water, there'd be a lot of leeches. So you could be crawling leats and everything. Yeah. I know. But yeah, that's where we started learning how to fish.
SPEAKER_00You wouldn't eat the bullheads. You would eat the bullheads.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Howard says they eat the bullheads too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Actually, a couple times when we were doing harvest, when Orwell and Dad were doing harvest, I can remember we had them, we had them at uh Orwell's place.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05One time. And then we've had them in the past, not very often, and everything. But the reason it is because trying to clean them is yeah, that's you're having to pull rate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And stuff like that. But there is some weight.
SPEAKER_02And so um but it's not like walleye. Wally's a little easier.
SPEAKER_05Oh no.
SPEAKER_02Whatnot.
SPEAKER_05And that's so. And so from then on, you know, in high school, I don't think we did much fishing. I I don't recall because we were all doing something different in high school. It seemed like uh in the summer we just worked you know constantly. Fishing was out of the issue. But if we did do anything, we'd go up and have a picnic up there on that. And then for me to start fishing, my well, I went in the service. And when I got out, we went to Ellendale, and Angie was working, and I was going to school, and on her days off, she would go fishing by herself to dad uh trout lakes around there, and she would she liked fish because her dad had taught her, and so she'd go do that, and I'd be going to school. But during some other times, I'm I'm trying to think where else we so did Angie kind of get you back into fishing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she's she's a fisherman in the family. Yeah, we did. That's awesome. And uh but I'm just trying to think there was some other times when we were Ellen when we not Ellen, but um Valley City when we lived in student housing. Yeah, we lived in we lived in student housing, which was uh right along the river, and so I would go out on the river and get a couple fish right away in the morning, put them in the sink, and then go to class and then come back and clean them up again and that there, so but that there, but yeah, uh dad would take us, we'd go pheasant hunting, that we saw that, and then we'd started everybody was got into the deer, you know. We were all deer hunters, uh, and things like that. And dad would always he'd always help us, and then when we got into high school, we started more or less of having other friends that we went hunting with and stuff like that. Once in a while, dad would go or we'd go along and stuff like that. But I can remember the first time, I think the first sec first couple times I ever went deer hunting. I went with dad and probably I think there was I think Grandpa Ross maybe been I can't but I wasn't hunting, I was just along for the ride. Yeah, and then also mom and dad hunted together sometimes. Mom, yeah. We did that, and then like I say, then I went into service right after high school. Well, I when I got out of this got out of high school, I went to uh Dickinson State for two quarters and Dickinson College and I decided that we didn't like each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a lot of people, like college in general, yeah you know the second quarter when I when I was sitting in class one day going, I think I was in this class last quarter.
SPEAKER_05And you thought, by God, I was.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_05And then had somebody come down and aren't you gonna go, aren't you gonna go take the final test in biology tomorrow? No, why? Well, you're still in it. No, I haven't gone to class. Those were the days when no counselors or anything. I mean, you didn't so you didn't know everything. So so I decided they decided that I wasn't gonna go there, and I decided I really didn't care if I wanted to go there and what I want to do. So that's when I decided I was gonna go into service, and but I couldn't go until the next spring after I turned 18. So during that okay, so I was 17 when I went to college.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that's what I was gonna ask. When did you graduate high school? Were you 17 when you graduated high school? Okay, so you went for how long of college?
SPEAKER_05Just two quarters down. Two quarters, okay. Yeah, I was in my head, I was thinking too much. Yeah, I did the summer and fall.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_05And uh summer. Or no, not summer, fall and winter.
SPEAKER_02Spring, the winter, okay.
SPEAKER_05And then I and I think that was done in March, and uh in March, uh Mike Shaw, and there was three or four, and Joe Nissler and I we went cute hunting down south around Galva down on the Badlands down there, stayed overnight in the winter and sheet over unbelievable with those type of deals and everything, and just uh doing that, and and then I actually went in the service on April 4th. I volunteered my draft so that I could get in for only two years. So we're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_02We'll talk about that later.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
SPEAKER_02But um with the hunting, was it different back then? As was it easier to get a tag? I keep going, is it easier to get a license? I'm like, okay, it's called a tag, whatever. Yes, it was. Absolutely, yes it was.
SPEAKER_05We didn't have it.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was wondering.
SPEAKER_05Back way back then, there wasn't a lottery. You just went and got a license.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and if you had your license to hunt, was there a certain you could only get one?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you either got you either got a a dole or a or uh like a mulier.
SPEAKER_02Oh okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05Like that they told you which one you could Yeah, you could either and same with white, you know, you but you you had you bought a license, and that license would told you what you were gonna do. So you wouldn't hunt, yeah. Actually get what how is it now that you put in you you put in on a lottery basically now, but in there.
SPEAKER_02You pay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05You're paying, you pay nowadays. You pay if you want to do a mule deer buck, and the licenses are all gonna be the same price. Yes, yeah, and so your first you have three choices. Choice number one, white uh mule deer buck, choice number two, white two, whatever.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Oh, you have okay, gotcha. You put in what your order is in a sense, right? Gotcha.
SPEAKER_05Well, nowadays there's so many that a lot of times you don't get what you want and everything. And if you don't, and I wouldn't I would never put in a second and third.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Because you only want the one I only wanted that one.
SPEAKER_05So what they did is now they give you out points. So if you don't get one, you have points towards getting that again.
SPEAKER_02So more likely the next year, or the next year, or the next year.
SPEAKER_05We got it was bought every three years. Okay. You would you would come around getting it and everything.
SPEAKER_02So not back then though. You go buy a license.
SPEAKER_05You go buy a license.
SPEAKER_02So everybody in the family could get a deer if we want, which is probably why you had so much. I'm trying to think, because downstairs, is that where you would have to be a few years ago? We had a lot of canned meat. Yes. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_05We had a lot of canned venison and a lot of canned because they didn't freeze.
SPEAKER_02You didn't have a freezer, you had to can it back then, as my dad.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we did have a freezer, but they can they can't.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Same, same with Angie's dad over in Webel and everything there.
SPEAKER_02They can they canned most of it. Yeah. Okay. So going back to childhood, sort of, we're we're I'm jumping all over, but that's okay because it different things come to you at different times, right? I want you to talk to me about what were your ambitions and dreams when you were young. Were there certain when you were little, I'm gonna do this when my son is a name builder.
SPEAKER_05I wanted to be a baseball player.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I was but you never know. Maybe he had different ambitions. I knew you didn't want to be a farmer. You didn't want to be a farmer.
SPEAKER_05Um, but um I no, I didn't at that point in time, I didn't want to be a farmer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can appreciate all the work that had to be done on it. Sometimes people are like, I need time on that.
SPEAKER_05And uh so I didn't really, yeah, I won't want to be, yeah. When I was in high school, I really didn't know what I wanted to do, but I've always wanted to play ball. And I wasn't able, I I was able to play ball, and it didn't matter to me if I was where I was at, but if I was playing ball, I was having fun. Yeah, I mean that was just the way I liked it and everything, and that's why I think I made it. The reason I ended up quitting at 52 was I had all of a sudden I couldn't throw my my right arm, I couldn't throw ball without banging it in the yeah, and everything. We'll come to find out I had to have back surgery on it. Yeah, yeah, that'll well that took care of commission for that took care of golfing and took care of playing ball playing ball and everything like that. So, but uh no, I didn't I really didn't have any ambitions at at that point in time. I just wanted to play ball. Back then, people were I don't know if people really, you know, now in high school they have counselors and they have people coming in to try to show they show you tests, yeah. They show you what you can do and everything like that. And when I got out of college, you know, I went to college to be a teacher, and that didn't work because I had some interviews and I could have taught, and I got thinking to myself, holy crap. You know, I'd I'd say, how much you you know, what do you want me to be doing? Well, you had student, student uh teaching in FIED, so yeah, you can be the football coach, assistant basketball coach, you can be the assistant girls basketball coach, you can be the track coach, you can be this and that. I said, Any, what do you want me to teach? I don't know. When you get here, we'll figure something out.
SPEAKER_02So they've more hired for the coaches, and teaching was more of an afterthought almost on this one, this one place was and it was a down in South Dakota, and they were a split school here and here.
SPEAKER_05And so on that.
SPEAKER_03And I looked through the when he graduated, there were an abundance of teachers, you know. So he sent out many, many, many resumes to people, and he a lot of times they neither did them back. And I think he only ended up having how many interviews?
SPEAKER_05Well, and then that well, that first one there that I had he showed me the football equipment. And I said, This is your football equipment?
SPEAKER_01Really old.
SPEAKER_05He said, Yeah. I said, Are you planning on getting anything new? No, I can't afford it. I said, I don't think this is good for us. Wow, you know, and uh and that was down in South Dakota, you said?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05And I don't know. I oh I had one other one someplace, and that I just so actually then I got on a horn, and uh we had some friends that I went to college with in Ellendale, they were down in Texas. What was the name of the town in Texas? I can't think of it now. And so we thought, well, let's go to Texas. So I got hold of a place down in there, and uh I did some stuff over the phone. They were gonna hire me as an I was gonna be in the police department as a detective.
SPEAKER_02And you had a teaching degree. Yeah. Well, they needed those more than they needed teachers, apparently.
SPEAKER_05Why I didn't go down there is after graduating from college, then we took all we were headed down to Texas and we stopped in Beach because I put a bunch of my stuff that we had in grandpa's garage. Back then he didn't have much, you know. I mean he said, Yeah, put it in there. And so then I went down to the place where I had my car insurance and told him that I needed that I'm gonna be in Texas, so you're gonna have to switch. Why go down there? I said, Because I got a job down there waiting for me. Well, then he said, Well, are you afraid of heights? No, not then I wasn't. And Disney, well, I got somebody that might hire Ian Dickinson. So I went down the next day and got hired as an adjuster for somebody, and that's how I got started. Well, but I didn't, yeah, I didn't have. I wish I like it now the way the kids uh are able to there's more options. Here's all more options, and there's people coming out and talking to them and everything like that.
SPEAKER_02Where you know job shadow, what is what is a day in the life.
SPEAKER_05You you're more oriented to different things than we were back then. We were only we we were farmers, yeah, you know. So what else can we get into and everything like that? Right, and that you would enjoy. Yeah, so I did I have anything, not really. I I didn't really have anything growing up thinking of what I want to do except play ball, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, yeah, what you loved, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I did, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, what were Christmases like growing up?
SPEAKER_05Christmases were pretty pretty fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I remember my mom could not do the dishes, but we were so excited when Uncle John came. Just so everybody in the moment I have to play, give me the little preface there. So we would eat, we'd have a wonderful meal, and hurry up and eat. Get your play the money, and John would be in the living room. Let's let's open some presents and my mom's trying to play.
SPEAKER_01Wait, wait, wait, wait, you know what?
SPEAKER_00But my mom was like, John's gonna make sure we can open those presents in good time. So the water Christmas is like for you growing up. They must have been fun because the fun.
SPEAKER_05We would always on Christmas Eve, we would always have a supper. And mom during the days prior would be baking, what was it, Fatiman and different things like that. Cookies. We would always have dad would always we'd always have fresh oysters because oyster stew was a staple. And then there was uh orange salad that she always made that I love, and then I don't think any anybody else did.
SPEAKER_03And um you mean the salad with the with the shrimp in it instead of the shrimp salad. Aspic.
SPEAKER_02It was a tomato aspic salad that Barb still makes to this day. Yeah, and you and probably my dad are the only two people in that.
SPEAKER_05I I can eat the whole orch.
SPEAKER_02I don't know how to explain it to people who might be listening, but look at it and it makes you kind of want to get it when bar makes it every I'm like, none of us you look at it, like and that was the nice thing when everyone went to bar, bar was always it now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she knew somebody would eat it. And so we would have uh usually grandma Gilman would come out, okay, and and Grandpa Ross and and uh Floy, or when he got remarried and everything would uh come out.
SPEAKER_02Uh so it was a big family, like you did have some um extended families. Yeah, it wasn't just you.
SPEAKER_05No, and us in the no folks, no. We would have other people out there too. We had uh, and dad would go in and uh we'd go in the day before the day before we'd go in, he'd get the oysters, fresh oysters. Dad always got a small bottle of uh Mogendale wine. Oh yeah, whoa.
SPEAKER_00Was it good?
SPEAKER_05I don't know. We didn't get to have any, but that was that was a thing, and you know he was that the only time that they drank? Huh?
SPEAKER_02Was just the wine at Christmas? Was that the only time?
SPEAKER_05I never saw grandpa or grandma drink, so I he would have a sip, and if somebody else was there, they would have a sip on that. And dad at one time would have a beer way back in the day. We would go to uh I can't remember uh Bud Bud and Margaret chance what way when they lived in Beach, we would go in there once in a while, and Einar Justiceon would be there and they would have a Hams beer and talk and argue if they wanted to drive Shivis or Fords. Oh my gosh. His dad would probably have one that's they didn't did not drink. Yeah, I don't ever know remember seeing them, so never. So if if we ever had thought we were getting by with anything and putting it in our drawer upstairs, when we went to get it, it was gone. It was gone.
SPEAKER_02It's so funny though that he would buy a bottle of wine for Christmas.
SPEAKER_05Well, we've always wondered about that.
SPEAKER_02I would love to, you know, wouldn't wouldn't you love to be able to ask him that?
SPEAKER_05What was up with that? Yeah, yeah, that and everything. So but we yeah, because we always everybody always the one thing we always got was some 22 shells. Okay, because we all had 22s. Uh, and then we all everybody always got a something that they wanted. And a lot of the times it'd be all three of the boys getting the same things, and that was okay, yeah. That was okay because that's we all on that, and then we'd get our normal socks and jeans and different things like that, but some other things, you know, a couple of dollars and stuff like that, stuff like that. And we thought we were in, I mean, we we didn't we thought we were died and gone to heaven, yeah, you know, yeah on that.
SPEAKER_02What was it about the oysters? Because I have heard of oyster stew from so many people for Christmas. What do you guys have any background on that? Why was it oyster stew for Christmas?
SPEAKER_05We just like it. We still do, we still every every Christmas we didn't.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if it was a tradition somehow in their family. We never really asked.
SPEAKER_02For so many people, oyster stew is like the big or growing up, that was the big thing for them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, well, you didn't have that at our house when you came. Do you remember what we had growing up? What do we have at my my parents' place?
SPEAKER_03We had shrimp all the time.
SPEAKER_02I still have that today with my kids. It's gotta be deep bread trim. Yeah. Any other traditions with Christmas?
SPEAKER_05Um dad and getting the Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_00Did you guys go and cut down your own?
SPEAKER_05Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Okay. He did. He did. He did. So Grandpa went and picked it out himself, and was that his thing or what?
SPEAKER_05In town where they were at, you know, they were. Sell them in town. He would and most of the time he was the last one to get a tree. So we've had trees where they were put in.
SPEAKER_02Well, did he not like Christmas?
SPEAKER_05Well, yeah, he did, but you know, he just wait, we've we've had them where there probably weren't many spines on them at all. They were dry to the bone. Usually he'd try to get them and then we'd put them in sand and water out in the garage or something like that. But once in a while he wouldn't get to them on, and there wouldn't be anything left except the so the tree wasn't a big deal to him.
SPEAKER_02Not at all.
SPEAKER_04Not at all.
SPEAKER_02Because I look at pictures of when I was little with Christmas, and the thing that pops out to me, and I've mentioned it so many times to Cole, Grandpa was on the floor with us, almost in every picture with us while we were opening gifts and looking at the gifts with us. He was sitting on the floor right there with us. And I thought that is as a kid, obviously I did not realize. But now looking back at that, I thought, well, he was he was right there wanting to know what we got and you know, playing with us with whatever toys. And um, now looking back, it's like that's pretty amazing because you didn't notice it at the time or didn't think anything of it. So was there a favorite Christmas gift or birthday gift that you've gotten when you were little?
SPEAKER_03I don't think so. Yes, I was. What don't you remember your horse? Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05I got uh yes, yes, we talked about that yesterday. When I was growing up, Annie Olga gave me a horse for my birthday.
SPEAKER_00Your aunt did?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Why okay?
SPEAKER_02So why did she why did she give you a horse? So you weren't expecting it. You you didn't tell her you wanted a horse. She gave you a horse.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Calico.
SPEAKER_02What was your response to that?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I loved it.
SPEAKER_02Best gift ever, best day ever. How long did you have the horse for?
SPEAKER_05We had the horse for quite some time. Calico, and then we we actually we got another calico had a foal, and then we had another horse, we had a black horse. Pedro. Pedro was yeah, and uh calico was uh spot horse, okay, and she had a strawberry room, and we had them we didn't ride them often, and so that after a while, uh dad traded or sold them to I believe it was up north to Timothy Lane Madison, I think. No, he sold them, he sold your horse. We just weren't we weren't riding them as you know we would we would ride them once in a while out in the past pasture once in a while, once in a while we go in the in the plowed field thinking that we were we we pretend that we were riding like the Indians did in yes, yes, stuff like that and having a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Did your did grandma and grandpa know that they were getting you a horse? That she was getting you a horse.
SPEAKER_05I have no idea. I mean, that's how young I was at that time.
SPEAKER_00Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I don't I don't know. I really don't know.
SPEAKER_02I it's isn't that so cool though that you didn't even say you love it, and that was such a big surprise.
SPEAKER_05And that was that was, I mean wow. I remember one time, I think I think all three of us got shotguns. I want to think.
SPEAKER_02That was that was grandpa, by the way. That's grandpa's idea.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because he got my brothers all guns one year. Yeah. He came in, and oh man, were they excited? But I think it might have been the most exciting for grandpa to give them. You know, that was I think he looked like he was tickle pink, yeah, you know, when he was carrying those guns in.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, that that's I think and uh our family all all together was pretty well oriented into hunting and yeah, stuff like that and everything. Um, I know that's awesome. I never I never did skeet or anything like that. I that I really didn't get into, but I I did like hunting. Yeah, I hunted, you know, we hunted over the period of time we hunted deer, antelope, elk, uh pheasants, grouse.
SPEAKER_02Where did you hunt elk at?
SPEAKER_05Uh south of Livingston.
SPEAKER_02So more in Montana. Yeah, okay. Have you ever hunted a moose? Do you ever get a moose? Haven't ever had a moose that well.
SPEAKER_05I didn't, you know, I put in a couple times for it and I didn't. I have eaten moose. I thought I thought that elk was good until I ate moose.
SPEAKER_02Is the best.
SPEAKER_05The best. Can I give you a story?
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05When uh my first my job with Farm Bureau when I was an adjuster, we lived in um Bismarck and Fargo, and each year all the adjusters, Farm Bureau would take us up to Canada fishing, up into Ontario, and we go fishing up there, and then on the way back, we'd stop in War Road at a place and have sup uh early supper.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05They come home.
SPEAKER_02Where's that at?
SPEAKER_05Huh? War Road? Uh the Boydette and then War Road. Are you familiar with the top of Minnesota?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Okay, so way over there. Yeah, okay. That's why I've never heard of it. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05And we'd go in there and I'd always have a steak. Yeah, we'd all have steak. I'm going, God, this is the best. I mean, this is a sweet. I like this steak. It happened, kept going, going. Then one day read the great big article in the paper, the uh restaurant had been closed down because uh the ribbon uh what do they call uh ribeye? No, the uh they didn't call them the Indians up there, they called them the ariba uh whatever people on the reservation were a certain um yeah, yes, yeah, okay. And so they were buying mousse okay and pawing that off as shape, as beef.
SPEAKER_02The restaurant was?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and so that's how I thought to myself, this is really great. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they had to be charging beef prices, I would think, for that steak when it's actually moose, right? Because nobody knew that it was actually moose. But that moose is the best.
SPEAKER_05Have you had buffalo?
SPEAKER_02I've had some bison, yeah, like bison burgers or whatnot. Um Grandma, which I've enjoyed a lot, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Grandma Ross used to uh work at the what do they call it?
SPEAKER_03Uh food bank.
SPEAKER_05Food bank and beach. And so when they would do it, they let them take one thing home after working. So she I can remember one time she came home and she said, I brought this bison roast. And I thought to myself, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00Was it good?
SPEAKER_05We put it in the crock pot, didn't they? We did it put in a crock pot like you would with so it just like falls apart. Yes, with potatoes and carrots and stuff, delicious, yes. Yes, it was so we've we've had it since then and stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the mousse was terrific.
SPEAKER_02Man, yeah, and everything too bad that that's close to it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I've always I'd always thought about that. And uh it would have been fun. I would have if you know, but it costs so much to take one of those real high-end deals where you go up into the Yukon and get yourself something like that.
SPEAKER_02If you can guarantee a moose, it might be worth it. If it's no guarantee, then it might not be, but yeah.
SPEAKER_05But uh I've always thought of that, and I've always thought of a grizzly bear. I've always thought just because I can say I could say that I had shot one that so on that, but yeah, that's I don't think of anything else that I hunted other than that there.
SPEAKER_03So well, we mentioned rabbit because I'd put it.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, rabbits.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05When we were kids on the farm, we would always go out. We all had our 22s, and we'd always go out and get shoot rabbits.
SPEAKER_02Did you clean the rabbit or did grandma well?
SPEAKER_05We didn't do those there, those were just um we'd we'd sell those. Oh you know, back in the day, you'd get something for them.
SPEAKER_03But we've had we've had them where uh we've skinned them and Angie's made uh uh um well, did the typical mushroom soup, you know, and okay like that. Or in a pot pie or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll throw it in with pheasant. Um my husband makes a pheasant. I love pheasant. But they'll throw the rabbit in with that, and I won't know what one's rabbit or pheasant. I will tell you that, and sometimes I'm like, just don't tell me I'm eating rabbit. Yeah, so it's good.
SPEAKER_05And then she'd make uh sandwich spread with it, with the maidenies and oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I need uh goose and and duck, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, yes. I didn't have to prepare correctly or they're dry, I feel like you're not gonna prepare it, you don't like it.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and I the reason I would do it is because I there was people that wanted duck and wanted geese, and then so so when I was in college in Valley City, I would go uh goose hunting and duck hunting.
SPEAKER_02And I think more popular there, huh? Is it more popular there?
SPEAKER_05Like the goose uh that that's their flight, that's their okay, their flight area. So uh so I would uh I went out. I had a friend from Valley City who was going to college that I knew real well, and his dad had a place out there, and and his dad said, if you want to hunt ducks out here, he said, You just come out here and hunt ducks, and you know it was nice because I'd be the only one out there, and it's just a nice little hidden from anybody and stuff like that. I had a couple people that wanted duck, and I said, Well, I ain't gonna clean them for you. They said that's fine, just bring them in and oh nice, and that and then for the uh geese, the same thing. Uh we had people that they wanted them, so we'd do it. When we lived in rugby, then I'd go out and do some uh goose hunting, but not too often on that. So but it was fun. I mean, I I enjoyed the honey part of it and stuff like that. But yeah, and I would never I would never have uh done it if and just leave the stuff, but if somebody wanted it, that's yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, not just for sport, but yeah. Yeah, but I really didn't like duck because it's uh real dark meat that I don't to me, it just didn't yeah, I didn't like it.
SPEAKER_02My husband always says, because I don't prepare that kind of stuff, that it's hard to get just right. It can be drier or as yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_05It depends upon. I mean, the old, you know, like from grouse, the old statue is put it in with the with the mushrooms.
SPEAKER_03Mushroom too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's always the way it goes and everything.
SPEAKER_02So um so John, what are some of your favorite childhood memories? That you when you think back, well, the first one was a huge, in my opinion. Where's that at here? But what are some of your favorite childhood? That first one.
SPEAKER_03Oh, this one here.
SPEAKER_02They came prepared.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_03I love that. This one starts with um so it's gotta be down there, right here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the relative meetings, oh the meals. Back most, you know, like back in the day, if it was Christmas, if it was a birthday, if it was Easter, if it was anything, everybody got together. I mean, the grandpas and the grandmas and the uncles and the aunts, it was hell's bent for there'd be 30 people at you know, at the exit. And so those were the times when you got to see your nephews, I mean your cousins and stuff like that, and everything, and and got to play with them and visit, and you got to see, you know, like the uncle, Aunt Francis, and oh yeah, stuff like that. People like you know, we'd be out to their places and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02That was that was family, was I feel like such a bigger even when I was growing up than what it is now, a lot of people live so far apart, yeah, that it is hard to get together often.
SPEAKER_05Um, everybody's got something to do with unfortunately, you know. But back then the children were not into the things that they are into now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good and bad. And it there's some positives, but there's a lot of negatives to that too.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah, and uh maybe I think you were gonna talk about going down to um to the Black Hills, if I remember right.
SPEAKER_02Because you guys did go to California, my dad said, a few times to see grandparents.
SPEAKER_05We went, we went, I can remember going twice out to California to see uh mom's dad out there, uh Paul Reitinger. And yeah, I we were talking about that coming over. I can remember going out there twice. It depended upon the age group, but at some point then I'd be in school and the other ones would end up going and stuff like that. And uh I went there, and where else did I go, dear?
SPEAKER_03Um, you said you never took a vacation at all, except for one time.
SPEAKER_05Oh, Dad, I remember we went down to the Black Hills one time. It rained out on the farm, so dad decided we're gonna go on vacation. So we got ready that morning. We drove all the way down to the black hills, and we went out to a pond and caught some fish, and then we took the fish and took them in, and they'll cook them for you at a restaurant in town. Oh that we stayed overnight and we went, probably went up and saw the faces, I presume, or something like that. All in and the next day we were home by supper time.
SPEAKER_02So it's just a night. Yes, just one overnight.
SPEAKER_05That was a big vacation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Hey, grandma didn't have to make the fish or something. No, that's right. That's right. How about summers? Summers, you said you basically just worked. It was sun up to sundown, so it wasn't um anything else that you guys.
SPEAKER_05What I did is uh I I'm out there is like I was able to play baseball, little league baseball. You did mom would mom would take me in. And uh I was also able to play junior legion baseball. Mom would be sometimes I didn't get taken in, so I wasn't able to, but yeah, and then I remember I was I took swimming lessons at the pool. They took me in for swimming lesson, mom took us in for swimming lesson. I don't know who all went, I but I know that I did, and it could be that nobody else did. Uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Did anybody else play baseball or just you? I like did my dad? Because I don't think my dad did. I don't think he said anything about baseball.
SPEAKER_05I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02He did he did football. Yeah, so you didn't do football, you were baseball.
SPEAKER_05You I played I played high school football. You did play high school football two years at uh Valley City State.
SPEAKER_02Football?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you have not even mentioned football, but you played football in college, you played all four years of high school and then two years at Valley City, yeah. But not baseball.
SPEAKER_05No, I didn't play baseball down there.
SPEAKER_02So just through Little League, did you high school? Was there a team for high school?
SPEAKER_05Uh high school was uh junior legion.
SPEAKER_02That was junior legion. That's okay. Okay. Um and then after you put okay. Now I'm just thinking of timelines here. So I've got I've got to mark these off my list because I mean we talked about, but I'll give you, I'll give you the how because I'm thinking of Dickinson, you went for two, and then all of a sudden you play for Valley City. So I'm trying to wrap my head around where this all came in at. It's confusing. Yeah, we're all over the place. It's a lot of lights.
SPEAKER_05It starts. I'll I'll start it out, then I went in the service.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_05I won't go into the other part. I'll just yeah. I went in the service and I got out of the service, and we went to Ellendale. And I I went out in Allendale and went out for football, but I couldn't, I found we couldn't find we found out that I couldn't play because I had actually gone out in Dickinson too. So I couldn't play.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_05And so what I did there is I would be the scout team to go out and do the other ones like that there. So we did that, and then uh when we lived in Ellendale, the college went from a two-year school, went from a four-year school to a two-year school at somewhere, so I had to go someplace. So we just decided to go up to Valley City because it was straight up to Valley City. So we left we left Ellendale in a car with all our belongings to go to Valley City, but we had to stop in Ellendale first because I had a ball game I had to play that night before we before we got there. Baseball. And uh I so I played up there for what was it, two years?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so how old were you when you played for Valley City?
SPEAKER_05I would have been uh I turned 20. No. 21. 21.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And you had played at Dickinson when you were like 17.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It might just making sure I'm getting that up. Okay, so when you were um in junior high high school, you guys did not work, you did not work anywhere else besides the farm, correct? You didn't have a job outside.
SPEAKER_04You were like a meeting, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you didn't have a job per se. You did work, yeah, but until basically the service, and is that what I'm understanding?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, when I went in the service, when I got back out of the service, I got back out in February, the month of February. And I actually worked at the Dairy Queen Beach for Mastells when they wasn't it mass with Mastells when they had it. So I worked there a couple months until spring, working on the farm and everything. And in that time, Larry Crisco, who was my classmate in high school, uh, gave me lessons how to fly because he had gone down south with uh spray duster and gotten his license that he could do all that and also teach. So I have soloed and flown planes.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Well, like you said, though when you grew up on a farm or whatever, I guess you are a jack of all trades. You gotta figure out how to do it all. Like learn how to do it all.
SPEAKER_05I was still flying when we were in Allendale. I would go down to Aberdeen and and and fly once in a while, but it got too expensive to continue it. I mean, trying to pay for school and do this and that. And everything it was it's still due school, huh?
SPEAKER_02The the time though too to do that.
SPEAKER_05So the only time on there I went, I got to uh when we were in Allendale, I met the guy at the pharmacy, was it? Yeah, you you said it was a drugstore, and so I would go in there and I'd buy airplane magazines because I enjoyed me. He he noticed that and we'd visit and stuff. Well, come to find out he was a pilot. And so one day out of the blue, he called me up and said, You want to go flying? And I said, Well, what do you mean? He said, We have a plane down someplace. We don't know where. So the what what do we say it was there? It's a civil civil air patrol. He was in the civil air patrol, so he says, We can, he said, I'd like to have you go along so that you can look and help me. Look. So I spent a day with him while searching for the searching for the plane. The plane.
SPEAKER_02I'm not like in days when I'm like, I guess.
SPEAKER_03The tip of the iceberg. We we uh lived as students in the student housing in Ellendale, and they were old World War II internment camps for the um Japanese. And they haven't had them in Ellendale?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, for student housing.
SPEAKER_03And they were do they still have those there?
SPEAKER_05Okay. There was nothing left of them when we were there.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_05We had to uh in the wintertime and anything, we had to put insulation or clothes in between because it was wide open. You could look right up to the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Super cold. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05And we had to go down, we would have to we had to go down to Aberdeen to get uh they had a place in Aberdeen where you could buy used appliance appliances and stuff, and and we would go down there to get a stove and a refrigerator and table and chairs and do they even have a place like that for appliances?
SPEAKER_02I think all appliances just die now. I think they do too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_02I think they just die.
SPEAKER_05I know they die. That's what we did.
SPEAKER_03We went down there and it was one of those um old stoves. I don't think even your mom had one like that. It was older than whatever she had, but it was inside was like a deep fryer. Yes, I see. They're coming back. Are they coming back?
SPEAKER_02People are building things like that now again. Yeah, because they were more um kind of more efficient in a sense. You had everything right there in the most, but yeah. So now I'm I want to know what do you guys want to talk about first? Do you want to talk about um how you met Angie and talk about them, or should we talk about Vietnam? Or should I try to figure out which one came first? I think you met Angie first. Yeah, so we can talk about that first. So, how did you guys meet?
SPEAKER_05Uh we met at a dance in Golva.
SPEAKER_02In Golva. Angie's from Weibo, correct? So you were going to school there, you were from Beach, and you guys both ended up at a dance in Gulba.
SPEAKER_05Golva. Most of the kids from Beach always went to Golva to dance down there, was in the city hall down there. Oh, always stuff like that and everything.
SPEAKER_02There's only one city hall, probably.
SPEAKER_05And uh Angie, Angie was down there with uh a friend of mine as a date of a person that I knew, a friend of mine named Bob Lorenz.
SPEAKER_02And uh you were on a date with Bob? You were on a date with Bob. I just wanted to clarify. I didn't know if it was a date or was it friends.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah. She was on a date with Bob, and I was down there. I wasn't on a date with anybody, and I saw her, so I asked him if I could dance with her. Yeah. And uh so how old were you? How old was I? Yeah, I'd have been 17.
SPEAKER_02And how old are you, Angie? I would have been 18. Oh, you're older, yep.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, she's older.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know this.
SPEAKER_05That's why I am pushed around so much. So I I asked Bob, I said, are you gonna take her out anymore? And he said, he said, why? Well, if you're not going to, you know, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00So well boy, Bob really caught a lot of U A N G. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_05So that's uh yeah, that and so we how did you date? Huh?
SPEAKER_02How long did you date before you got married?
SPEAKER_03Oh my, let's see, that was um that would have been when I was senior.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So we're dated.
SPEAKER_03Well, it was kind of on and off there for a while, senior-wise.
SPEAKER_05No, it would have been before I was a senior.
SPEAKER_03That's true.
SPEAKER_05It would have been the summer before I was a senior. Yeah. Because then senior. Or maybe, yeah, and then we dated to the senior for a while. And then before I went to NAM.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we kind of were pretty steady then before you went to Vietnam.
SPEAKER_02So you were still dating while you went over there, or still a couple of still. Okay, okay. So how long um did you date then before you got married? Even just let's say from the time you guys met till when you got married. How long at the time was that?
SPEAKER_03Three years, three years? Because you it was two years would have been the service.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, probably that something like that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Do you remember much about the wedding?
SPEAKER_02Did it go as planned? It went fine. It went fine. There's a little big.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we went to uh I was I had gotten a apartment in uh beach at the time. Oh yeah, right. On that. And uh so Dick Ross was my best man.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_05Right? And so he came over and we decided we'd have breakfast. And we had so we had breakfast at uh your uh your mom's mother.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Oh, where my grandma's taco was taco work.
SPEAKER_05Okay, it was a gas station right across from where the uh dairy queen used to be.
SPEAKER_02Oh really? There was a restaurant in there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there was a restaurant in there.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, so that's where you had to be.
SPEAKER_05We had breakfast and Dick and I had breakfast and then we looked, oh shit. So we had the we got over, we got over there in time though, just quickly.
SPEAKER_02Which church did you guys get married at? It was uh St.
SPEAKER_03Peter's in in Weeble.
SPEAKER_02In Weeble, okay. So you were having breakfast in Beach. Yeah, and it was in her church too. Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05And then afterwards we went over to her place for a while and everything, and then we drove to uh Billings. Billings stayed in Billings overnight because then we left there and we drove out to her friend's place out in Washington.
SPEAKER_02And that's where you guys kind of honeymooned. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05The whole thing. Well, wasn't it? And then what on the way back? We got snowed in.
SPEAKER_03Snowed in at the Yellowstone Park.
SPEAKER_05We got married in June. And we went out to Washington, and on the way back, we decided to come through Yellowstone Park, wasn't it? And we were gonna come down through through the um what was the name of that town?
SPEAKER_03Well, we were where your folks got married, I think. We were gonna come through that way.
SPEAKER_05Deer Lodge. No, not Deer Lodge. No, I can't remember the name. But anyway, Red Lodge. Red Lodge. We were gonna come down through Red Lodge. And well, we that night we got a room in a log cabin, and you could hear the mice running around in the log cabin. Woke up the next morning and looked outside, and there is snow.
SPEAKER_02So you got snowed in. How long did you have to stay there then?
SPEAKER_05We took off, we were able to take off, but then we found out we were told that we couldn't the the rest of the way was uh shut down, so we had to turn around and go all the way back around and everything on it. So so yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you guys didn't have the big dance, the big reception, or anything like that. No, and you were about 20, 21 when you got married.
SPEAKER_05She was dad had to sign for mom signed for me. I wasn't 20 yet.
SPEAKER_02So you were 19 and you were 20.
SPEAKER_05You were 20.
SPEAKER_03Wow. No, I was 21.
SPEAKER_02So you're just about to turn. You got married in June, you said though. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because she her birthday is in March. In March 47.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and she was born March 14th of 47, and I was born on December 14th of 47. So we're nine months apart.
SPEAKER_02Nine months apart. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05And that's so she always she always got carded whenever we were.
SPEAKER_02You always looked younger, yes. I thought you were younger. Not and that's not to say that you look old, John. That's not what I'm saying at all.
SPEAKER_05I just we uh it was it was kind of funny. Probably wasn't a lot of people, but I would be able to go over and drink in the shamrock for many years when I got out of the service.
SPEAKER_02Did you have to be 21 then? Yeah, oh what's still okay. Maybe it was 18. I could I don't know. No, no.
SPEAKER_05And uh we had there was a wedding that we'd gone to, and and she was with us, and he comes over and says, Is your wife 21? Yep, has she got her ID here?
SPEAKER_02Yep, okay, that never asked, but never asked you, but then later on you found out.
SPEAKER_05Well, he found out because after we were married, we went in, we stopped, and then I said, Got a birthday drink? Well, what's that for? I said, I turned 21 tonight.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he said, yes, yeah, dear like deer in head like that, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. That was so funny.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, it was fun. He he laughed about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, that's we we went all the way out there and we had a good time out there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, everything went fine. Okay after the lizard.
SPEAKER_02Um, let's now we go back. Well, let me ask you this question first, and then we're gonna talk about Vietnam if that's okay. Who in your family do you feel like influenced you the most while you were growing up?
SPEAKER_05I think my dad did.
SPEAKER_02And in what ways?
SPEAKER_05I think dad taught us how to work. Uh and how to think for ourselves. And you know, and I think on any farm you learn that through either your mom or your dad, depending upon whomever. I mean, you can't just call somebody and say, come out and fix this or anything like that, you know, because most of the time they didn't have enough money to do things like that. You know, so they had to, and so I think that's I I think I think both mom and dad, but dad the most, because this is the way it's gonna be, and here's why we're gonna do it this way, you know.
SPEAKER_02Explain it to you, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because your grandpa or us did it and I've done it, and that's why it's gonna be done this way.
SPEAKER_02You know, did he so did he ever take suggestions? Did you ever have ideas of what if we did it this way? Could we try it this way to see if this was easier? Did he accept that? No, no, okay, no, some don't, some do.
SPEAKER_05And I think and I think I mean, and I didn't never you know, never pushed the issue or anything, but I think you can always look back at at things that you wish we couldn't have done easier because you you know, but it it's ingrained, and I think a lot of times as we grow up in things, our sons and daughters and things like that kind of think we're old-fashioned. Well, I think we could do it better than this, yeah, yeah. Easier and quicker than that. Yeah, but I enjoyed I enjoyed working with the cattle when we had them. Uh, you know, like we would we'd have to brand, we'd have to, you know, um everything. Uh I enjoyed that. I I enjoyed going out and fixing fence because there was nobody else out there and the damn cows weren't gonna talk back to me or anything like that, you know. Yeah, you know, and I I just there was I didn't mind doing that.
SPEAKER_02You just you saying that, do you feel like do you miss the quietness of life back then? Where you could go out and it was quiet and you could think nowadays we have so much that's why I keep telling her I want to be out in the middle of the forest someplace. I totally understand that.
SPEAKER_05She said, What do you what do you want to do? I want to be a bush pilot and just live out in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02I know. I told yeah, the quietness and not have all the go-go.
SPEAKER_05When we're out, when we go, we used to we used to go fishing forever. We've done you know, like 10, 11, 12 flying trips where we're the only people out there for a week. It's quiet, you know, except for the the bears you see in here and all these, and we've come up and should I tell the story about you?
SPEAKER_03Oh, you can if you want.
SPEAKER_05We were up the first time we went out, we flew clear into into a place up in um not Ontario, Manitoba.
SPEAKER_04Manitoba.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And they let us off and we got there, and I we took all our food in, and I was sitting out there, and I was talking to uh there was a mouse sitting sitting there, and the mouse was sitting there, and I was talking to the mouse, and she comes on the house. Well, who I'm talking to? Oscar. Oscar. But anyway, when it wasn't too long after, all of a sudden I hear this yelling and screaming and everything. I go, what? Well, she'd gone up to the outhouse, which is a ways away. There's the bears up there.
SPEAKER_03What do you do in that situation? I came back real quick. The bear didn't come after you, or uh uh they are probably more scared of us than and so from from then on all that.
SPEAKER_05But I still was scared when she would go out to the outhouse, she took two pins along, banging a match with covers through the just like symbols.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, they get scared with that, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it's good to know. Yeah, if I'm ever compared to I don't know that I'll ever put myself in that situation.
SPEAKER_05We did it, we love to do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was it was great. You wouldn't believe the next morning after you sleep of how many different tracks there are in the sand from different animals, you could just it's but they leave you alone.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, they left you guys alone at least. Okay, interesting.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we live well, we lived in Nevis for a while, uh, which is in in Minnesota. Are you familiar with Minnesota?
SPEAKER_04A little bit.
SPEAKER_05Do you know where um Park Rapids Park Rapids is?
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05So you take that road up, and the next town is gonna be Nevis.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and then we lived about four and a half miles out in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02Nowhere. How'd you find that place?
SPEAKER_05We we'd always we went fishing up in on to uh like Cabitogama like Capitogama up north for 20 some years, and about five, six years into it, Brant and Michelle would they had the kid had and they would come out to see us. Well, it took them two extra days and stuff like that. No, when we were living in in Bismarck at the time, they come out so when we were eight hours as you well know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So when we were up there, one day we said, Well, let's go look around and see if we can find something up here that we could do, and that way we're only three hours from the kids and back and forth, yeah. So the owner of the resort, who we know tremendously, he said, What were you guys doing? I said, We were looking for some place that maybe moved to to be from the kids, easier kids. Well, he says, I know a place. And I said, Where? The place where we live. We live, he says, we live down in uh Nevis, outside of Nevis, there in a great big we got great big house out there, and because their kids were still going to school during the time, so they would live down there. But now they had all graduated and he didn't know what to do with it. And he was actually renting it from somebody out of Cal out of Minneapolis. He said, Why don't you stop there on your way home and take a look? I'll let him know that somebody's gonna he had somebody out there that was mowing the lawn and stuff like that. So we stopped there and we got there and I said, Oh, this is nice. It used to be a horse, horse barn, used to be a horse training place.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05So there was 115 acres. Oh wow, and a hundred of that, hundred and some of that acres was the neighbor had his cow calves on there throughout most of the year, and the other had barn, a big shed, and krells, and everything, about four acres, five acres of all that, and that was the area that we would rent. And so the first thing I did is we got out of the car and I took the phone out. Yes, there's we're service service here. So we looked around, and the guy we would look through the house and everything, and looked through everything, and I said, Well, yeah, this should be good. So we called him up and he said, Well, if you want that, he said, I've still got a what do you got, a two-year lease yet? On he said, You just pay my lease up or each each month, and he said, We'll move out and you can move in. So that's what we did. We moved we did that within a we moved in in the middle at right after a blizzard, didn't we? It was uh you we had to get a patrol to come up and take snow for three-quarters of a mile and come in. And uh we got in there. Oh my goodness. And so we it was it was great. We loved it.
SPEAKER_03The kids loved it coming up there because they we could take them fishing down at the little thing they did when they hopped out of the car was the cows.
SPEAKER_05Say hi to the cows because we had they had uh uh water pump and water tank there right next to the yard, and they would come up there and and uh drink for our kids.
SPEAKER_03So fun. They brought their bikes one time.
SPEAKER_05There's lots of bike trails on the ball, and then we didn't have any sleds, but so when they would come up in the winter time, we were kind of sitting on a knoll, so we had uh cardboard, they'd go out there and do things on with cardboard, and they all learn how to ride their bike on our property, yeah, and on there it was a big enough on it was a deck on three sides of the house. Nice, oh big deck, so we had three three places where we had our table and chairs depending upon the sun and the weather, and how beautiful, yeah, wind and all that. All that and everything on that. So we had that, and then we they had we had uh propane fuel, propane tank out there, but then also inside they had a a um fireplace that was a fireplace that to be used to heat the whole house. I mean, it was a really big one, so we got a lot of we used the propane most of the time, but a lot of times we would have uh fires, and so we would have a lot of uh wood out on the decks and stuff like that. Well, we had we had deer, we had fox, we had uh uh sand hill cranes every year. Two sandhill cranes would come in and have two babies and stay all year and then they'd leave and come back the next year and do the same thing. We had uh wolves. We had wolves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, one night I heard this terrible screeching like babies, you know, that were howling, you know, and it what it was was the babies.
SPEAKER_05So the wolves, the wolves had a den about two miles from us.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_05And they would come and they mom and pop would come and do the thing about a hundred yards from our place. There was a swell out in the pasture out there, and that's in the spring they'd do that. And so we were used to them. I'd be walking out in the yard, and all of a sudden there'd I but go over and there'd be a wolf there, and he'd be looking at me, and I'd be looking at him, and I'd just wave and wait go.
SPEAKER_04Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_05On that, and then but then they'd bring the babies up the babies up and dig around for the mice underneath the go hunting, yeah. Yeah, on that. And then we used to once in a while we'd have the raccoons come up there too, and that but there was a bear up there, but we didn't get to see it. Yeah, we didn't get to see it.
SPEAKER_03Our neighbors said that it was up at our place when we were going.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we didn't see it.
SPEAKER_02So you always lived there for two years, knowing it was only gonna be for two years, or did you live there?
SPEAKER_05No, we ended up living there for about seven years.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you did end up okay. Yeah, wow. The only reason we had to leave.
SPEAKER_05The only reason we left we'll get into is when I've got diagnosed. So otherwise, we were we were you're gonna retire there. We we see more cars in one day now than we saw in a year, which is depressing a little bit, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, my hummingbirds, they were all out there in full force, you know. You know, because they fight so much, so there were three sides to the house that you could put up feeders, and the birds were oh my, there was all kinds of birds. The eagles would come there, he'd make sure they were fed.
SPEAKER_05Because they they there was one eagle, he'd sit down at a tree down there, and when I'd come out, get rid of a squirrel or something like that, he'd hear the he'd hear the uh noise and fly in. Shoop it up, go eat it and go back and sit and wait for more. She has, I don't know if she's at him now, but she has pictures of it coming down, sitting right there, eating it right in front of our window, stuff like that, or anything like that. Yeah, that was a lot of it was breaking to you. We had the deer, and I like I said, and then we also had um a bobcat come through a couple times.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we put up uh turkeys, uh you know, one of the trail trail camps. Oh, trail camps, yeah. So we got to see a lot of things in the night, even that we didn't realize.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we had a big big garden. I had 36 tomato plants one year.
SPEAKER_02Did you can? Oh, yeah, yeah. So you guys did a lot of gardening, a lot of canning.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we did a lot of it, and what we didn't use I would take over to the uh VFW.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if we if we had a lot of stuff, we'd take it over to the VFW and away free.
SPEAKER_05You know, we had we had tons of pickles and tons and tons of stuff.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. So we planted there were no trees around the house. So we scarfed up ones that were cheap, you know, from the conservation service. And uh so we planted a lot of trees and a lot of berry trees, and and I canned a lot of those type of things too.
SPEAKER_05Before we left, we actually had apples. We had honeydo apples for the future.
SPEAKER_03Just in time for somebody else to make it.
SPEAKER_05That's why we got them, we got them for one year.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, yeah, that was our dream home. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um thank you for listening to today's episode of The Simple Lives We Live. I hope this story reminded you that everyday life holds beauty, meaning, and lessons worth sharing. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to follow the podcast and leave a review. It helps more people discover these stories. Do you know someone with a story worth telling? Reach out and let me know. I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with me on Instagram at the Simple Lives We Live. Until next time, may you find joy in the ordinary moments and gratitude in the simple lives we live.