2 - Life On The Farm
I swear this story is true. I remember like it was yesterday.
In my memory, I am standing in Irv Haidle's barnyard, some ten miles east of Fallon, Montana. Technically, he lives at 315 Marsh Road, but the old ranch house is about a mile north of that.
There is not a barn in sight (at least not any barn like you see in kids’ books: red and white, with a nice clean hayloft). On Irv's farm, barns are just ramshackle sheds, built of rough corrugated steel.
All around me, I see old red tractors and beat up work trucks; worn out tires next to stacks of irrigation pipe; rusty 'ol barbwire piled around the edges, just in case you ever need to baling-wire some piece of equipment back together again. There are rough wooden fences, with a few cows out back. There are more than a few semi-feral cats lurking about. Even back then there were very few trees.
But always the overwhelming smell of pigs.
Earlier in the day, Daryl and I had been riding our bikes, sizing each other up; we'd race across the hardpack, as fast as we could pedal, then lock up our brakes to see who could skid the furthest. Proving our worth.
But now, the yard is empty. Maybe everyone is indoors, doing chores or washing up, getting ready for dinner. It's late afternoon, a warm breeze is blowing. It feels like a Saturday, and I am facing west, watching the shadows lengthen, while off in the distance massive thunderheads pile up. They could be a hundred miles away, out past Miles City.
But between here and there - just ranches, cows, prairie, sagebrush. We are a long way from North Carolina, and I am taking stock of our situation:
Where are we? … (long pause)
How the heck did we end up here?… (longer pause)
What kind of name is Irv?!… (I can still see myself scrunching up my brow at the Alice-in-Wonderland weirdness of this place.)
Who would ever marry someone named Marilyn?! … (eye roll!)
I am 5 years old, in the middle of nowhere (immersed in the smell of pigs). Irv is my dad's new boss. Marilyn is his wife's name. This is our new home.
I am judge and jury, reaching my verdict: This place sucks.
Just like that it's gone. The memory ends. Indeed, it vanishes from my life, until one day, fifteen years later, when I'm sitting on campus in Chicago, regaling my fiancé with stories about "Life on the Hog Farm." Suddenly, bam! Out of the blue, there it is again. Unexpectedly resurrected, this primal memory comes racing back, in a whirlwind and a flood.
I am stunned and aghast. Why?
Because my fiancé's name is… (you guessed it) …Marilyn!
We've been married almost 33 years now. My takeaways (then and now): First, maybe you're not as alone as you think (even on a pig farm in eastern Montana); Second, be careful what you say (since you never know if God is listening, and he just might have a wicked sense of humor); Third, what if this same God has embedded clues in all our pasts, so that sometime down the road, when rightly remembered and recognized (usually in a time of great need), our memories of the past actually reveal him with us in our present?
I have come to believe that it just might be possible.
This was my introduction to the American West: I was immersed in it.
Looking back, if feels almost inevitable. Six months earlier, I wasn't allowed around the block. Now I could go as far as I wanted, in any direction I pleased. Here, the whole world was just waiting to be explored. As long as I stayed out of the way, and didn't get in trouble, I was free to do just about anything.
(Note: On a farm, 'stay out of trouble' generally means: Do your chores; make yourself useful; don't lie, cheat, steal, or burn anything down; and make sure no one loses life, limbs, eyes, or digits. Stick to those guidelines and you're pretty much good to go. The rules expand as you approach puberty, but ranchers tend to keep things simple for the kids.
For example, convincing your little brother to pee on an electric fence is definitely not 'causing trouble' - it's education, teaching him not to be stupid. You pick stuff up quickly on a farm.)
I started by learning the lay of the land.
To the north, the Yellowstone River runs big and muddy. Down in the river bottom, you find coons, catfish, pheasants, and in the winter, geese.
I remember when Dad shot his first big Canada goose, and Molly went into the river after it. The goose had a broken wing, but he was fine apart from that, and in no mood to be retrieved by some yellow lab. So when Molly swam out and grabbed him, he dove, deep and long, dragging her down with him. They were under for a full minute, with Dad nearly frantic on the bank, thinking he'd lost her, when up she popped, almost a mile down the river. That goose was still in her mouth. He drowned; she didn't.
Molly was some dog. And we ate that goose for Christmas dinner.
The old Haidle farm lies south of the river, up on the bluffs. The few miles in between are no man’s land, full of big muleys, smart whitetails, and coveys of sharptail grouse. The ranch itself was situated on the northern edge of 15,000 acres of farmland. I use that term charitably.
At some point, Irv and his brother figured how to run an irrigation pipe from the river up to flats around the ranch. Their innovation transformed dry highland plains into lush fields of corn or alfalfa. You can still see those massive green center-pivot circles in Google Maps. But zoom out just a little and you quickly realize this is harsh, unforgiving country - life on the edge of the badlands. When you live here, you do well to remember it.
But for me, that farm was like the garden of Eden.
One night I watched a thunderstorm work its way across the prairie. I was watching from the top bunk in my bedroom, where I could peer through a little porthole window in our trailer home. Outside, flashes and flickers would light up the pitch-black night for miles around, momentarily illuminating the entire countryside. It started quietly, off in the distance, but gradually the storm drew nearer. Then came the booms, crashes, and rumbles, followed by sheets of rain. All the while, more lightning and thunder. Our little trailer rocked in the wind. The storm went on for hours.
When I woke, the world had been reborn.
Pools of water, oceans of mud and grass, all glistening and alive in the morning sun. And there were frogs everywhere! I collected dozens of them: big frogs, little frogs, baby frogs. For over an hour, I found and caught them all over the farmyard, carefully carrying them back to a little "frog corral" I had built beside the trailer.
Then just like that, they were gone, everywhere all at once. I have no idea where they came from or where they went - it never happened again.
I remember hunting for dinosaur bones.
Irv's son Daryl was a year older than me. He let me in on a secret: when you found big bare patches in the sage brush, that was because dinosaurs died there. Or maybe a buffalo. So we'd trundle out into the prairie (it was all around us), with shovels and picks, and work up a sweat. But we never found any bones. Maybe we just didn't dig deep enough.
One time we did stumble across a pit full of dead pigs.
In retrospect, it should have been obvious. Every ranch has a place (usually downwind, out of range from the house) where ranchers dispose of animals that have died. Of course, neither of us knew about it, or we probably would have visited sooner.
As it was, we were out walking through the sagebrush (staying out of trouble), when there it was – a big jagged gash bulldozed in the ground, piled high with decomposing pig carcasses – just waiting for farm kids like us to come along. The summer sun had been doing its work, and many of the specimens were now bloated to twice their original size. Flies were everywhere. The air was ripe.
Somehow, we got the idea to try throwing rocks at them, to see if they would pop. Not just little rocks, mind you; we wanted the biggest rocks we could lift. (The pigs were already dead, so this clearly didn't count as causing trouble.) Daryl and I dragged small boulders for nearly an hour, heaving them in gigantic arcs as high and as far as we could. Occasionally we'd score a direct hit, and there would be a massive, squelching explosion of guts and maggots. (As every farm kid knows, maggots are disgustingly irresistible, or irresistibly disgusting, whichever you prefer.)
I remember rolling on the ground, laughing till we cried while we tried not to gag. Then we'd get to our feet and try it all over again.
It's odd which memories stick with us through the years.
I wonder what Daryl remembers about those times?
On the farm, I learned to ride a horse. I got to wrestle calves (they generally won). I remember the sounds and smells of branding. I remember the particular scent of pig feed; the old refrigerator with little bottles of pig medicine; how there were pigeons in the rafters.
And always, the inescapable smell of pigs.
I watched the farmhands castrate hogs, and I couldn't wait until I was old enough to help. I was so keen on growing up. Farm life will do that to you.
On the farm, everyone worked. At Noon, if the men were still out in the field, Mrs. Haidle would hand the sandwiches to one of her kids, and they’d just hop in the truck to go deliver lunch. I wanted to do that too.
Sometimes, when Mom would pick us up at the bus stop, I could talk her into letting me drive the orange Datsun station wagon down the mile-long stretch back to farm. I could work the clutch and everything, all the way up to third gear. Just one more step toward being grown up.
I wonder how Mom felt about life on the farm?
I learned to read the same year I learned to drive (age 6). This opened up a whole new horizon in my universe: the world of stories and books.
The school in Fallon didn’t have kindergarten. They just did grades 1-3 back then (if you wanted grades 4-12, you had to ride the bus all the way to Terry). But I remember 30 to 40 of us running around on the playground.
Fallon still felt like it might have a future back then.
Mrs. Irian was my first teacher: she was a saint, or an angel, or maybe both.
Mrs. Irian didn't just teach me to read; she instilled in me a lifelong love of learning. Once she figured out that I was smart, and eager, she just lit a fire and got out of the way. I devoured my math workbooks; I raced through readers. I'd beg her to let me take work home each night (in first grade!). I was constantly asking, "What's next?"
One day she took me downstairs to the library – I was enthralled; there were shelves upon shelves of books! I discovered Savage Sam (the superlative sequel to Old Yeller) and my imagination exploded. I read Born Free (the thickest book on the shelves), just to prove that I could do it. At home, I devoured the Chronicles of Narnia. There were worlds upon worlds here, just waiting to be discovered. And I wanted to read it all.
Mrs. Irian was also kind.
One day after a huge rainstorm, the school yard was flooded. We were sternly warned to STAY OUT OF THE WATER! And for good cause: the area around the merry-go-round was as muddy as our pig farm; the region under the swings was practically a lake.
I remember huddling together with my friends, arguing that technically, some enterprising pioneer actually ought to be able to jump out over the heart of that great body of water and land in the swing without ever getting wet (thereby still adhering to the letter of the law, if not the spirit).
"No way!" they gasped.
"Why not?" I countered. "I'll bet Daniel Boone could do it. I'll bet I could too..."
"Impossible!" they cried. (Farm kids learn early how to goad each other on. It's part of their education.) So one thing led to another.
My first leap was actually successful. I landed in the swing, to the great astonishment and admiration of my fellow first graders. I pumped my legs back and forth a few times like it was no big deal, built up some momentum, then launched myself (as cool as a cucumber) out of the swing, through the air, over the pond, back to terra firma. Tada!
I had swung on the swing. And I had STAYED OUT OF THE WATER!
The crowd went wild. (Farm kids love it when you figure out how to break the rules while keeping the letter of the law. But remember that part earlier about teaching your little brother not to do stupid stuff? Sometimes you've got to learn those lessons for yourself...)
It was the encore performance that got me.
As before, I launched myself back over the huge pool of water, but this time, more confidently. And this time, I missed the swing. It was so oh-so-close. (But as my dad used to say, "Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades"; I'm pretty sure he was on to something.)
Close wasn't good enough here. I got absolutely drenched.
The crowd roared with even more approval. (Farm kids love accidents.)
I was soaked. But instead of marching me down to the office, Mrs. Irian just shook her head, took me out back, and plunked me down in her white VW Bug. "You'd better sit in here for a while; just roll up the windows and let the sun dry you out. Here are some books to read while you wait..."
I read for hours. I don't think she ever told my mom. It was my first taste of grace.
Maybe she really was an angel.
Speaking of angels... Fallon marked my first brush with God.
Like most folks back then, we went to church on Sundays (twice). Mom even sang in the choir. We had a book of Bible Stories. We said grace before dinner, we said our prayers before bed. But none of that made much of a mark on me.
Yet somewhere in my 6th year of life, over the course of several days, I had what I can only describe as some sort of spiritual experience. I wonder if it was like this for Moses, with that burning bush?
One night in my bed, I felt an overwhelming sense of God's realness - he was as real as rain and pigs and frogs and thunder; I just knew with absolute certainty that he was there. At the same time, I felt equally convicted by a strong sense of wrongness - I was a sinner, deserving of wrath, no “ifs” “ands” or “buts” about it. (Ironically, I have no recollection of doing anything particularly bad around this time. Heck, I hadn't even gotten in trouble lately! So I don't think I was reacting to a guilty conscience or fear of getting caught.)
I felt overwhelmed by a sense of my plight.
I remember praying long and hard: "Lord, I know I am in deep trouble with you... If you will please, please, PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I promise, pledge, and solemnly swear, that I am going to try so much harder and do so much better..." (Note well my spiritual beginnings: bargaining with God.)
After an hour or two of spiritual angst, I'd drift off to sleep. The next morning, I'd have no particular recollection of the previous evening. I'd go about my day, exploring life on the farm. But each night about bedtime, the feelings of dread would return. The scene would repeat itself, like Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about the cattle. Was it a sign? If so, what did it signify? This happened for three or four nights in a row.
Then just like those frogs, it was just gone - it never happened again. Somewhere in there, I think I became a Christian. But that's another story, for another time…
Those were my golden years (ages 5-7). But like a river, time refuses to stand still. Irv died in a car crash back in 2011. My old school closed down in 2013. The farm went up for auction a few years later. Like so many small towns in Montana, Fallon is a shell of what it once was.
But even back then, there were storm clouds on the horizon.
In 1976, Dad got laid off and we headed west to Billings. The river was accelerating, and none of us anticipated the cataclysm ahead…
Member discussion