Page 16 - TalesoftheParadiseRidge-Fall2020_Neat

One thing I remember at a very young age was playing a stamp for sugar, a stamp to get meat, and tokens to
Superman. We had a couch with wooden handles and buy gasoline. With five boys and low income, Dad did
a chair to match. I would ask mom for my Superman what he could to keep food on the table. One way Dad
cape, and she would take a family towel and safety pin it kept meat on the table was by shooting deer year-around
around my neck. I would then climb up on the handle of with his .303 Savage rifle. Many at the mill did the same.
the couch and “fly” out and land on my stomach on the Today you call it poaching, then it was called a necessity.
couch cushions. According to the family, they all said I However, there were still game laws and game wardens,
was “Looperman.” and on some occasions, the game warden would come to
the mill and search the houses. When the game warden
Being the youngest of five brothers, I was often excluded was spotted coming into camp, the word spread like
from the games the older boys were playing. I would wildfire. You could find people hiding their deer meat in
try to play with them, and very often, they would run many different areas and in many ingenious ways. One
into the woods to hide from me. On one such day in the thing they would do was to sprinkle turpentine around
summer, my brothers and their friends were playing the doors of the house so that the game warden’s dog
“ditch’em.” I tagged along pretending I was part of the could not smell the scent of the deer in the house. Others
action. Running down a not-so-used trail, I stumbled on a would wrap the deer meat up in blankets or sheets, run
broken gallon jug, slicing the edge of my big toe. I let out down over the hill, and hide it up in the trees until the
a scream, and my brothers came back and took me up to warden had left. During one visit, the game warden
the house to be tended to. The toe bled a lot and may have walked down the hill and wandered around. When he
needed stitches. However, we were at least 30-plus miles came back up, he visited one house in particular. He told
from the nearest doctor. The cut left a scar on my big toe, the woman of the house that if she was going to hide the
and if you look carefully today, some 65 years later, you deer in her sheets, she shouldn’t have her initials written
can still see it. on them. Everyone got quite a laugh out of that. We were
seldom, if ever, out of deer meat. I like to joke that I cut
Another bloody incident that occurred was not funny at my teeth on tough venison steak.
all. One of the jobs that the children of the mill usually
had was cutting kindling for the cookstoves and heating The .303 Savage rifle was a gift to Dad from his Uncle
stoves. One day Joan Burns was cutting kindling with a Bob. Uncle Bob lived in Palo Alto and knew people in
double-bladed ax. She held the ax with two hands raised the police department there. When the Second World
it straight above her head to swing down. As she did, War broke out and the government started relocating the
the backside of the ax split her head open. The axe did Japanese citizens, they collected any arms the Japanese
not penetrate the bone, but the split in the skin did a lot owned. The arms were then supposed to be loaded on
of bleeding, and there was a lot of fear that she might be boats, taken out to sea, and dumped. Uncle Bob was there
seriously injured. Fortunately, she was not. in Palo Alto when they were loading a truck with the
arms and made the comment that his nephew, who lived
I spoke earlier about Mom’s gasoline engine wringer- in the mountains, could use a rifle to help feed his family.
wash machine. The machine was indirectly the cause of One of the officers reached, in grabbed a rifle, and said
the first corporal punishment I ever received from my that one had already dropped into the ocean. Thus, Dad
father. As I stated, the machine was not perfect, and it got a rifle and he did help feed our family and others as
needed to be worked on quite often. On such an occasion, well.
Dad was working on the engine with a set of socket
wrenches. They were sitting on the ground near where he Dad went hunting one morning and came home with a
was working. They were bright chrome and shiny and to small, live buck. In fact, he was a very small buck; he was
a three-year-old, irresistible. I decided I wanted one and still in spots. What happened to his mother, who knows,
so I took it. Dad told me to return it. I did not. I started but Mom immediately fell in love with this baby. She
to run knowing that I could outrun my father. I took off named him Bambi. We have a picture of Bambi taken in
lickety-split; I just knew I could make a clean getaway. 1943. He is still in his spots at that time. What I remember
Unfairly, Dad took about two long steps, took me by the most about Bambi was that he had been on Mom and
arm, gave me a swat on the bottom, took the socket from Dad’s bed and jumped off and broke his leg. Dad
me, and told me to go play. I was devastated. disassembled a tin can and made a splint for his leg. Mom
nurtured him back to health. What happened to Bambi is
Times were tough in the early 1940s. Most families were not clear in my mind. All I know is that he did not make
living from hand to mouth and even the mill was having our next move.
a rough time making payroll. Many food commodities
required either tokens or stamps to buy them. There was I spoke earlier about having cold running water in the
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