{"id":21176,"date":"2024-07-10T00:58:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T06:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=21176"},"modified":"2024-07-09T16:59:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T22:59:17","slug":"reminiscing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/10\/reminiscing\/","title":{"rendered":"REMINISCING"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bryce Angell – The outdoors has always been a large part of my life. My father was an outfitter and guide for 35 years and I was there to shoe and care for the horses and help him do the cooking. We took many great trips into the Yellowstone area. Even now that I\u2019m older, we still ride into the Tetons, Yellowstone and surrounding areas. My poems are mostly of personal experience. I am now retired and enjoying life to the fullest. I plan to do more riding and writing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

E<\/span>very year, this time in May, my mind reflects about my father. He passed away two years ago at the age of 97. He never bragged about being smart but had the working man\u2019s savvy. He understood the common man. He was quiet yet quick to contribute a joke or two that I\u2019d heard a thousand times each.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of his favorites was to pull a grandchild aside and convince him that his grandpa was the fastest gun in the West. In other words, he could pull his six-shooter from the holster and aim it so fast that it would almost be a blur. Back then it was called drawing the gun. He would take his drawing-the-gun stance, look at the grandchild, and say, \u201cWanna see me draw?\u201d The grandchild, standing there wide-eyed with wonder, would always say yes. His grandpa wouldn\u2019t move a muscle and then would say, \u201cWanna see me do it again?\u201d That performance always brought on a laugh even though we\u2019d all heard it so many times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dad\u2019s memory was sharp as a tack right to the very end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once or twice a year I would drive him to the Henry\u2019s Lake area where he was born. We would drive the back roads, allowing him to reminisce and tell me stories that I\u2019d heard countless times.<\/span><\/p>\n

On one particular ride we stopped at an old and unoccupied cabin. The cabin could not have been any bigger than 12 feet by 12 feet. My father\u2019s eyes were fixated on the wornout structure. I almost knew the upcoming story by heart. He then proceeded to tell me how he and his family spent a Saturday night with the Jones family, the owners of the cabin. He was six years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was January and cold. My grandparents were helping the family insulate their tiny home. After the work was completed, instead of going home, they decided to stay the night, due to an unexpected blizzard. A spread of venison stew and scones warmed the bellies of everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the children were sent to bed, sleeping on planks barely feet from the ceiling where the heat would rise and keep them warm. The parents would enjoy games of pinochle all night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dad said that after a few minutes of trying to get to sleep, he could hear someone outside screaming. He told grandma and she passed it off as the wind. He said he remembers hearing a woman screaming again for help. He told grandma again and this time she also thought it sounded like a scream. She opened the cabin door to see the school marm half frozen to the entrance gate. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>The school marm had been driving home in the blizzard when her car got stuck in a snowdrift. She then attempted unsuccessfully to walk home. Lucky for her, she wandered onto the cabin and much needed hospitality. Grandma brought her in, placed her next to the woodstove and her life was saved. Dad said he remembered it like yesterday, even though it happened 90 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

My cousin and I were talking and we both agreed that there were times when talking with our fathers we were not listening as we should have been.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spending time with my father and allowing him to bounce his memory and stories off me should have been priceless. I regret I didn\u2019t ask more questions. If\u00a0 <\/span>only he were here to tell those same stories, I would absorb myself in every detail and focus on being able to know him even better.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 Bryce Angell<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, this time in May, my mind reflects about my father. He passed away two years ago at the age of 97. He never bragged about being smart but had the working man\u2019s savvy. He understood the common man. He was quiet yet quick to contribute a joke or two that I\u2019d heard a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cowboy-poetry","7":"category-commentary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21177,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21176\/revisions\/21177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}