Saddle Sore: Just like Gramps used to do

I’m not sure how the conversation started. We were driving past Lazy Glen when I began telling my grandson about his great-great-grandfather. My grandfather had stopped at an old potato cellar on the south side of Highway 82 for a pit stop. While he was tending to business, a car — probably only the fifth or sixth we’d seen all day on the drive to Glenwood — went flying by on its way up the valley.

Gramps, who was probably around 60 at the time, hurriedly zipped up, climbed behind the wheel and said, “Jump in. We’ll show him what an Oldsmobile can do.” We backed onto the highway and took off. By the time we reached Phillips Curves, we’d caught him.

That’s the sort of thing heroes do when you’re a little boy.

It’s a silly story, perhaps. Nothing of any great historical importance ever happened that afternoon. But there I was, a grandfather telling my grandson a story about his great-great-grandfather. Four generations connected by an old Oldsmobile and a stretch of Highway 82.

That’s not history you find in books. That’s family.

The other day, a friend asked how many wild mountain lions had I seen in my life around here. Easy to answer, I reckon. Two. One in the distance, on the other side of a hayfield across from Tommy and Whiter Moore’s deck as we lazed away an afternoon. 

The other from a narrow spot in the Collins Creek trail, an old wire gate setup, unused but obvious in its existence, marking the spot. Gramps and I had stopped there for a moment to let the horses breathe, and he quietly asked, “See that mountain lion up there?” I did. 

I hadn’t thought about that spot in a very long time. Then, maybe 20 years ago, I found myself riding that same trail alone. As I reached the old gate, I smiled. It wasn’t because I expected to see another mountain lion. It was because, for a moment, my grandfather was there once more. One of these days, I think I’ll ride back that way again.

Perhaps it’s because I spent my very young years traveling, horseback, through our cattle range with my grandfather that many places hold a memory of things we did, or where we were when something happened. Once, I spent a week looking through dark timber for a wide trail that we pushed a bunch of cows along. It came out in Kobey Park, the only thing I remembered, other than it was wide. The logging crews of the 1950s and ’60s changed the lay of the land, but I persevered. 

One day, there it was, about 100 yards of it left as it was when I was very young. Grandpa cussing a Hereford bull for blocking the trail, not wanting the cows to go that way. “Wait here, don’t let ’em turn back,” he said, and off he went, crashing through the timber, to educate that bull the proper way to be going. From out of sight up ahead, he soon hollered, “Bring ’em on,” and I did. 

Things are different now. I ride a different part of the cattle range, and although my grandchildren live less than a quarter-mile away, their lives are busier than ours ever were as kids. They aren’t sitting around waiting for Gramps to take them riding through the mountains. Sometimes my grandson and I haul salt together, but even that takes a little planning. Still, we’ve had a closeness since before his first birthday.

The other day, he came to help me get some stuff done around my house, and as I laid out our plans for the morning, he said, “And then we can have lunch at our favorite spot.” 

And that’s the part that’s difficult for me to put into words. On one hand, I’m still that little boy riding behind my grandfather, remembering a mountain lion beneath the rocks or a Hereford bull blocking the trail. On the other, I’m the grandfather now.

My grandson and I haven’t ridden all the same trails Gramps and I did. Life is different. But apparently, we already have an “our favorite spot.”

Maybe that’s how it works. You don’t deliberately manufacture memories for your grandchildren. You spend time with them, do a little work, haul some salt, have lunch together — and hope that somewhere along the way, without either of you knowing it, a few memories take hold.

Oh, I’ve missed my grandfather, but I’ve come to realize he never really left me. He’s ridden with me all these years, living in my memories. And in some respects, I’ve become him, taking my grandson to our favorite restaurant or teaching him about the mountains as we pack salt.

I even chuckle when I grunt getting on my horse, just like Gramps used to do. 

The film, “Last of the Cowboys” is being shown at the Crystal Theater in Carbondale Aug. 19, 7 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Crystal Theater. Cowboys you may have probably known. See you there.