Quick Thinking
One of my earliest childhood memories had me sitting in the car with my parents. I don’t recall if my sister and all my brothers were there but I can never remember a time when the car wasn’t full no matter if it was a trip to the grocery store, or the dentist, or just a Sunday drive so I assume that I was not the only kiddo in the car.
To my recollection, we were driving through the city on this day. My memories may be skewed at this point but I think the city in question is Hillsboro. For those of you who did not live in this State or Country some 60 years ago, this is a glimpse through my lens…
The progression of towns ranged in size ran from Banks, a town with Highway 47 running right through it, Smitty’s Laundry, Jim’s Grocery Store, the U.S. Bank, a Post Office, Banks Billiards and boasted to have a population of 500.
Forest Grove was the next town seven miles away. They were a bigger town and had a Piggly Wiggly, Dr. Coon the veterinarian, Dr. Minor the dentist, a movie house, Timmerick and McNicole the jewelry store AND a Sprouse Reitz (a five and dime variety store). To the East was Cornelius, this is where many of the local farmers went for seeds and crops for their fields and they delivered their harvested seed crops to Eichen grainery.
Then there was the bigger city of Hillsboro, it was and still is the County Seat for Washington County and driving past the Courthouse (the biggest building in the city) was a awe inspiring. The front steps looked formidable. I was told there were a lot of lawyers that did business in that building but all I saw was ladies in pretty dresses and men wearing suits scuttling around like ants in a hill. There were one-way streets in this city so a person could only drive from East to West by going around the town first then west on Main Street.
My first vivid memory was of Hillsboro’s Main Street so we had to be traveling West and we were sitting a a red light. I was sitting in the backseat of the car when Mom (from the passenger seat) casually asked Dad a question.
“Did you see that?”
Dad replied just a casually, “All I saw was a gorilla.”
As the light turned green, I strained to peek out the window just as the head of a beast came into view and then passed by as the car began the forward movement. I did not have time to react, to think if there was something I should do, no time for panic or laughter. The first memory of my life lasted only a nano second.
About a year ago, someone is going to remember a memory for a good long time because of our critters in the bull pen swamp as they were driving past the farm. The swamp is close to the road with only a ditch, a woven wire fence and thin electric fence wires keeping the critters enclosed, so the animals are easy to see. The springtime is when there is still water in the swamp and especially after a rain, can be quite bog-like.
Delicious grass grows thick in the mucky swamp and the bulls walk right in and sink well above their belly lines to eat the grass without having to lower their heads to reach the tender new growths. We had several bulls out there on this one day but one bull was really in deep and most contentedly munching away when a car skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. We happened to be working in the yard not far from the bull pen, when the driver hollered at us to what was perceived as an animal in distress, floundering in the swamp.
What to do, what to do? The driver shouted that we had a problem and that the animal needed assistance. He then proceeded to holler at us the appropriate action, “get a rope and give that bull a drink of water!” I’m sure he was thinking that he had saved a bull from an untimely death by alerting us because the driver got back into his car and drove off. We continued working in the yard and the bull finished his meal before dragging his muddy torso out of the swamp to dry off while he chewed his cud under the tall fir trees. The motorist should have just assumed it was a gorilla and let it go by…
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