Pop's Fence

While attending a conference in Casper Wyoming this last week, I took some time and drove out to a residence where I spent a summer with my grandparents.  They only lived there for a few years, and I only spent the one summer with them back in 1977 when I was eleven years old.  Nevertheless, the memories of that summer are strong. 

Pop (that's what I call my grandfather) let me help him build a fence.  Pop was never comfortable with building 'regular' things.  chainlink or even a wooden slat fence was not good enough.  He bought lodgepole pine trees and was determined to build a ranch-style fence with three horizontal levels of rugged round wood.  I sat straddled on many a tree with a bladed bark-stripping tool.  Once the bark was stripped, Pop would soak the wood for several days in 55 gallon barrels of oil.

Once the verticle posts were cut to length and notched to receive the horizontal menbers, we hand-mixed post concrete in an old horse trough and set the posts at exact heights with levels.  Then we notched and nailed the horizontal members.

Just as we were finishing the fence, Pop suffered a very serious heart attack.  We very nearly lost him that day as he lay in the driveway, and I don't mind admitting that I was scared to death.  Pop was always immortal to me, and if he could die, then every other unimagineable nightmare could also become a reality.  He received one of the first valve transplants from a pig that was ever done.  The doctors said it might give him a chance to live a few extra years -though he was not expected to ever fully recover. 

Pop never cared much for that prognosis, so just to be obstinant he lived for more than twenty five more years.  He went on to raise (and yes, ride) award-winning cutting horses in Thermopolis Wyoming.  Of course he had to build -by hand mind you, his own indoor rodeo-sized arena.  He finally died on Easter morning while performing his morning exercises, which included walking several miles.

Now that I think of it, he never really lost his immortal status with me.  He never stopped living.  He never accepted his own weaknesses, and never expected less from me than my very best.  It was like a tall glass of cool well water to a man dying of thirst when I stopped by that house on Yesness Lane last week.  The thirty-three year old fence is still standing strong.  It looks rugged enough to go another few decades. I'm sure Pop would expect no less from me.