Chapter 7

When I landed in Great Bend, KS my mom picked me up. We went to their new house in Hoisington where they had moved to after retiring in Holyrood. My dad still had his Hungarian Vizsla hunting dog. Back when he bought him as a pup he named him "Dammit" as he said that's what our mom would always call him. When he was a pup my mom woke up during the night from the noise of their rocking chair. She went into the living room and saw dad rocking Dammit. She said to him "Why are you rocking him? You never rocked any of our kids!" Dad said "None of our kids cost $100.00." They got along well still after 40 years of marriage.

I had been out pheasant hunting with dad and mom and Dammit. Dad sent Dammit to my side of the field. Dammit would flush the birds and look at me. I was never good with a shotgun, so my shots mostly missed the targets. After a few times Dammit quit me and walked back over between dad and mom.

I enjoyed visiting with them and kind of winding down. I went to Holyrood and saw a few friends. Once while at my parents' house a Lineman that I had worked with at C&P Electric in Great Bend stopped by the house. He told me about the accident he had. He was up in a single bucket helping the Lineman on the pole change out a broken crossarm. The arm had a phase wire on one end and the neutral wire on the other end. They were at the top of a hill so the wires were heavy. They had removed the neutral wire first to see how low it would hang when they turned it loose. It stayed about 15' off of the ground so they decided it would be OK to let the hot phase wire also float. The Lineman on the pole stayed in the clear as they had no insulated covers with them. When he lifted the phase wire by himself it was very heavy and he tried to throw it off of the crossarm. When he did that the wire jerked him out of the bucket and he went down with it. He had landed astraddle of the hot wire and when his foot touched the ground the wire flashed and burned him in his groin area.

He told me he was heading for California to look for a new way to make a living. I told him that maybe he could find a Contractor that wanted to hire a Lineman that knew the equipment to work in his warehouse and yard. I said that he might be able to find work as an Operator or even a Grunt. He said "But I'm a Lineman! I wouldn't work as an Operator or a Grunt." I said "Take what you can get. You weren't a good Lineman before the accident." He walked to his car and drove off. I hope he found his California dreams. I never heard from him again. I took a call in South Dakota on a wood highline and it was hot and dusty there. They have a 10 year drought cycle there. In the wheat fields I saw the wheat stalks were very far spaced from each other and very short. I was in a local bar talking with some local farmers one day. Of course, the next wheat crop was the main topic as usual. One farmer told me "If I can get 3 bushels per acre I can just break even." We set there nursing our beers and he looked at me again and said "If I can just get 6 bushels per acre I will break even a little better!" South Dakota farmers are eternal optimists!

While I was growing up in Kansas I would have asthma attacks from the wheat dust during harvest. Since the harvest was the only work available there as a teenager I tried to just live with it. The only relief I got was buying a few ice cold Grapette© sodas from the vending machines. But vending machines were scarce in the SD open land and Grapette was really scarce, I finally had to drag up and go back home.