My junior year was the funnest year I spent in high school. It was probably because I was an “upper-classman” and because I could drive and participate in more activities without having to ride the bus all the time. By driving myself, I could leave Heber about thirty-five to forty-five minutes before an activity started and make it on time, whereas on the bus, I had to leave at least a full hour early. That wouldn’t work because I didn’t get off work early enough. By driving, I could work at the store until 6PM and still make it to the school activities that started at 7PM.

In Snowflake Union High School there were also some definite advantages to being upper- classmen. By the junior year we knew the teachers and they knew us, and we could get away with some things the freshman or sophomores couldn’t get away with. I also pretty well knew everyone in the school. The seniors were worrying about graduating or giving the freshmen and sophomores a hard time so they ignored the juniors. We didn’t have to worry about graduation and college so we could just sit back and have a good time. The fact that many of us had cars we could drive also gave us a sense of independence which we really enjoyed.

As freshmen and sophomores we were not able to leave campus at lunch time. There just wasn’t enough time if we had to walk to the drive‑in, eat and walk back to school before classes started up again. We were consigned to eat in the cafeteria whether we liked it or not. By the junior year, we had “wheels” and we could drive to one of the drive-­ins if we wanted to and quite often we did. Oh, the joy of being mobile!

A lot of the juniors had steady girlfriends. Some of them went on to marry their high school “sweethearts” as soon as they were out of high school. Most of the group I was in weren’t into that. Most dated, but were not “going steady” with one person.

By the time I became a junior, our school class had pretty well segregated into several different groups. There were those who were constantly in trouble for one reason or another. Many of them just squeaked by in school and a few even dropped out before they graduated. There was the Native American group although at that time we just referred to them as “Indians”. (Our high school had dormitories where the Indian students lived during the school year to attend high school. The government paid for them and it helped the school financially). They tended to stay pretty much to themselves but occasionally fights would break out between the Indians and the first group. Snowflake High School didn’t have many students of different ethnic backgrounds except for the Indians. The third group was made up of those “going steady” who more or less took themselves out of the larger group. Their world revolved around themselves as far as they were concerned, and they were mostly oblivious to what else was going on around them. Then there were the rest of us. It was by far the largest group and I was part of that group. We were focused on getting out of high school and going on to college. I thoroughly enjoyed my junior year of high school.

 

When I was a boy one of my dreams was to be a cowboy and have a horse and spend my time riding the range. Ted had owned a horse called “Bluebird” but it was gone before I was old enough to remember so it didn’t count. I guess that experience was enough for Mom and Dad because we never had another horse except in my imagination.

Uncle Laurald Bigler and Uncle Alma Bigler were brothers and both had horses and ran cattle. Uncle Laurald and Aunt Vera lived just across the street from The Rock House. Out behind their house was a big barn where they kept their milk cows and horses and it was a place where we spent many hours playing. Just in front of the barn and next to their big garage was the “Saddle Shop.” The saddle shop was where they stored the saddles and other tack for the horses like bridles, saddle blankets and ropes. It was like a wonderland to me and whenever I could talk Elsie (Elsie was their daughter my age) into it, we would go into the saddle shop and play cowboys.

The saddle shop was arranged with saddle stands along one wall. When the saddles were not in use, they were stored by putting them on the saddle stands in a line, all facing the same direction. We would go in and select the imaginary “fearless steed” we wanted to ride and climb into that saddle and the fun would begin.

Sometimes we were cowboys rounding up cattle. Sometimes we were cowboys fighting off bands of Indians. Sometimes we just raced our saddles (horses) to see which one was fastest. Sometimes we were roping calves for branding. Sometimes our imaginary horses were gentle and well behaved. Sometimes they were wild broncos. We would spend hours in the saddle shop riding those saddles and making believe we were riding real horses. If our parents couldn’t find us anywhere else, we were usually in the saddle shop.

When I got a little older I got to borrow a horse once in a while and I was in “hog heaven” or should I say “horse heaven.” I remember one time when I borrowed one of Uncle Laurald’s horses called Flash to help drive some cattle up the canyon to a pasture they were using. Flash was an old and experienced “cow pony” and when we got the cows into the pasture, one of them decided to take off. In a flash, my horse lived up to his name and took off after the misbehaving cow. I found myself riding down the field at a gallop chasing this dumb cow. I was hanging on for dear life. I remember hitting my foot on one of the fence posts as we galloped by. I almost got brushed off with some low tree limbs as well. It was a wild ride but after it was over, I loved it.

When I was in my teens, Uncle Mart Porter asked several of us boys if we would like to help with roundup at his ranch down at Young. A bunch of us eagerly volunteered. We rode to Young in the back of his pickup. We got to stay for two or three days. We each got assigned a horse. Mine was named Crescent. He was a sorrel color. I never could decide whether he got his name from the crescent of white on his forehead or from being as hard headed as a crescent wrench. We got up early in the morning and rode out and spent all day rounding up the cows and calves from the hills and valleys on their ranch. We drove the bunched cattle back to the ranch by evening and did the same thing the next day. After two days of it I had about had my fill of being a cowboy. We got to help castrate, brand and dehorn the calves. It was hard work but we had a good time. That was about the extent of my “real cowboy” days.

 

When I was in elementary school I used to look forward to the day when I would be able to ride the school bus to school with all the big kids. I looked forward to the adventure with great anticipation. We never got to ride a school bus in elementary school except for one or two field trips. Heber did not have a high school at that time. When we started high school we had to travel to Snowflake as did all the high school age kids from all the towns within fifty miles of Snowflake. Each town had one or more school busses. Heber had one big one. Pinedale and Clay Springs had one small one. Show Low had two large busses. Students from Taylor and Snowflake had to get themselves to school

Riding the bus was quite an adventure at first. Our bus driver was Phil Webb. He was a good driver but he didn’t put up with students breaking the rules. If we tried to change seats while the bus was moving or if we stood up to get something out of the rack above the seat, he would hit the brakes and sometimes we would end up one or two seats ahead of where we had been sitting. If we caused any problem or didn’t obey him, we got to sweep out the bus when we got to school instead of heading for our first class.

The bus ride to Snowflake took almost exactly one hour. The distance was only about thirty-five miles. The bus reached our bus stop which was on the street behind our house at approximately 7:10am. Ours was not the last stop in town. After leaving Heber the bus went to Overgaard and then back to the main highway to Snowflake. If you missed the bus and had someone to take you, you could catch the bus at the Overgaard road junction when the bus came back from there. Some people did that quite often but we did not have any way to get to the junction so if we missed the bus, we just missed school for that day. That never happened in the four years I rode the bus. By the end of the first month of riding the bus, it was no longer an adventure. It was simply a “necessary evil.”

Since the bus left so early in the morning, the girls used the bus as their “hair salon” most mornings. Since I didn’t have sisters, this was quite educational for me the first month or so. The girls would get on the bus with curlers in their hair and then fix their hair on the bus as we were traveling to school. Seeing a girl in curlers was not a big shock to me later in life when I began to look for a wife since I’d spent four years riding the bus with girls in curlers.

The girls’ hair style during those years was “ratted hair” glued in place with hair spray. The girls arranged themselves on one side of the bus so that the girl in the seat behind them could “rat” their hair while they were “ratting” the hair of the girl in front of them. The boys that were not going steady with one of the girls tended to sit on the opposite side of the bus. That is where I sat. I just watched in awe to see how big a mass the ratted hair would become. After ratting, the very outer edge of the hair ball was smoothed flat so that the hairdo was smooth on the outside with a mass of ratted hair on the inside. Then the hair spray was applied liberally to glue it all in place. It’s a wonder we all didn’t die of asphyxiation from inhaling hair spray fumes. When it was all done, the girls’ hair looked quite nice but I learned to be careful not to touch it or bump it. If it was touched, one of two things would happen. Either it would break into pieces or your hand or shirt would be glued to some girl’s hair. Since I was afraid of girls, I tried very hard to avoid both consequences.

As a result of my bus riding experience, I came to appreciate smooth hair that was not coated with hair spray. After the hairdo came the make‑up. I could not believe what girls put on their faces and on their eye lashes. Those were the days of heavy mascara and bottles and tubes of “Cover Girl” did their best to hide all of the girls who rode the Heber bus but didn’t do a very good job of it. Needless to say some of the girls were better at applying make‑up than others. I learned to appreciate girls who used very little make‑up or had the more “natural” look without the heavy make‑up.  After a few weeks of watching the girls, it became routine and I spent the time traveling back and forth to Snowflake studying or visiting with friends or trying to sleep on the bus. A lot of people slept on the trip home at the end of the day.

In winter, the bus became a battle ground because there were only a few heater vents on the bus. Usually the bus driver would allow the bus to run for a few minutes before beginning the pick-up run, but by the time it got to our stop the heat was still barely beginning to come out of the heater vents. You could tell immediately when you got on the bus where the heater vents were. There would be a group huddled in the seats around the vents. The battle came in trying to displace someone near a heater vent so that you could get closer to the vent to get at least some heat. Ruses, bribes and physical assaults were all used to try to get someone’s seat close to the heater. If you were lucky, you had a friend who boarded the bus earlier than you who would save you a seat next to the heater. As you can imagine, saving seats was not popular and was often ignored. The heater usually had the bus warmed up a little by the time we got to Snowflake. If not, then there was a mad rush off the bus to get to one of the heaters in the school to thaw out before classes began.

After riding the bus for four years, I would not wish that torture on anyone. It was always a great relief to be able to drive myself to school or ride with my brother. When we moved to Texas I heard the proper description for those busses. In Texas they were called “Yellow Dogs!” I will have to agree that it was a “dog’s life” when I was forced to ride the bus to school day after day.

 

Behind The Rock House we originally had a garage and a wash house. When I was probably about nine or ten years old, Mom and Dad decided to add a “shop” onto the wash house. I don’t remember a lot about the construction. I think Dad and the boys did most of it. It mostly amounted to extending the garage roof further over and adding a shop room onto the back and side of the washhouse. We also put an upstairs over the shop room where we could put mattresses so people could sleep up there.

I don’t remember whether the motivation to build a shop was because we needed more sleeping space in the summer when Vard came home, or whether it was to provide a place where Terry and Vard could work on projects (both of them had taken shop in school and were always building something), or whether it was a way to teach construction skills to all of us. Whatever the reason, it was built. We built some stairs on the west wall that provided access to not only the room above the shop but to the attic of the garage as well.

The upstairs of the shop became a favorite place to sleep in the summertime because it was cool and we could have our friends over to “sleep out” if we wanted. I think I slept up there every summer until my brothers left on missions or for school and a bed became available in the house in the summertime.

The shop also became a busy place. It was a place where we had a workbench on which to work and construct “things”. We organized it so that the tools were on a peg board on one wall. Terry had a “shopmate” that had a table saw, sander, lathe and drill press all in one, and we used it a lot. We spent lots of time in the shop, either downstairs or upstairs. The wash house wasn’t used much except as a place for the freezer and for storage. It also became the location of the “separator” we used to separate the milk from the cream (see “Separating the Milk from the Cream”).

Later when I took shop I also used the shop at home for doing things. Dad and I overhauled the Volkswagen engine in there and I had a small welder. It was a fun place to work and create. I can remember Terry and Vard building a motor scooter that never did work very well. We also tried to put a motor on the back of a bicycle to make a “motor bike” but that didn’t work too well either. I think Terry was more successful with some of his wood working projects. We used the shop to good advantage when we were in scouts as well.

Later in life I realized the value of having a place where kids could putter and create “things.”

When all of us kids left home, Dad used the shop a lot himself. He bought some new equipment and used it to work on various projects. He reorganized the tool storage and made it more user-friendly. When I think about the shop I still have fond memories of the time we spent there, both upstairs and down. The last time I looked, the homemade sign Terry put up under the electrical switch box still had the same message we became familiar with as we went in and out of the shop. It simply says, “Douse the lights!”

 

Probably because of my interest in agriculture, my parents allowed me to become a “farmer” in a small way. I got to drive the tractor at a young age. We owned a 1949 model Allis‑Chalmers tractor. It was orange in color and was about as temperamental as a mule. My interest in machines and mechanics may have also had something to do with my getting that “privilege.” Along with the tractor we owned a flat bed trailer, a two‑bottom disc plow, a harrow, a cultivator and a two‑row planter. We also had what was called a “buzz saw” that was operated using the tractor. We seldom if ever used the cultivator, but we used most of the other implements. The tractor and plow were a special team.

I don’t know exactly how it got started, but I assume Dad must have been the first one to use the tractor and plow to plow garden spots for various families in Heber. He was followed by Ted. Later Vard got the job, then Terry, and finally me. Since there were few, if any, other tractors or plows in Heber (maybe one other one) we plowed our own lot beside The Rock House so we could have a garden. Several others in town also planted large gardens so we would be hired to plow their lots as well. Some were regular customers and some only once in a while. I think the charge was about ten dollars for plowing and harrowing for a normal sized lot. Usually the job would take a couple of hours if everything worked right. That was where we often ran into a problem.

The first challenge was to get the tractor started. It didn’t have a starter so it had to be cranked. You had to be a certain size to be able to crank the tractor to get it started. Sometimes it would start right up and sometimes it wouldn’t start for love nor money.

Once you got it started, the next challenge was to hook it up to the plow. You had to back the tractor over the plow since it hooked onto the tractor underneath. Oh I forgot—you had to first remove the draw bar because the plow attached at the same point where the draw bar attached. If you were strong and lucky, you backed the tractor right over the plow and you could line up the attachment without a problem. More often than not, you had to spend a lot of time either re‑backing the tractor or trying to move one wheel without moving the other so that you got everything lined up right. There was certainly some skill involved but also a lot of dumb luck as well. Most of the time it took at least two people to hook on the plow but I got to where I could do it alone.

To plow you usually started in the middle of the field and just went around and around until you reached the edges of the field leaving a furrow around the edges of the field. If preferred, you could start at the edges and end up with a dead furrow in the middle. The plow did a nice job of turning the soil over. You just put the wheel of the tractor in the furrow and the tractor would almost drive its self down the field. You only had to pay attention when you got to the end of the field and had to turn around. Sometimes the tractor would just quit running for no obvious reason. Sometimes you could get off and restart it and sometimes it refused to start (like a mule). I finally learned to just walk away and leave it for a few hours and then come back and start it again and finish the plowing job. Depending on the “attitude” of the tractor, a plowing job could take two hours or a full day.

After plowing the field, you had to take the plow off the tractor, put the draw bar back on and then hook up to the harrow. The harrow was like a large rake that you pulled over the plowed ground in different directions to break up the clods and to leave a nice flat seedbed for planting. The harrowing was the easy part. When you finished harrowing, the field was ready for planting. It always gave me quite a sense of accomplishment to see a field ready to be planted as a result of my efforts and patience with the tractor. It was also a way to earn a few dollars on the side which always came in handy for a high school student.