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I found another book relating the story of a man not ready or even willing to take the step from an old style of life into a modern one: The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton. He is such a good writer of the old cowboy way of life and the old grizzled characters who inhabited that way of life. The word "farmer" can be substituted, too.
Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer tells the same tale. Two good buddies go their separate ways when one steps into the business world, becomes a banker, and is elected to public office. Monte Walsh can't bear to leave his old world behind, and even refuses to ride in a newfangled car.
In an early memory of mine, a man still comes walking across the section and into our pasture on a cold winter day, partially disappearing in blowing wisps of snow, then reappearing again. He was an old cowboy-type who worked around the community awhile. Whatever the agreement Art Hansen had with A. C. Weig, he was breaking it, probably starved out or froze out, maybe both. At any rate, he took off walking across country to our place and mooched a warm supper and a warm place to sleep that night. Of course, that didn't sit too well with my mother, and she got Dad to take him into town next day, after a good breakfast, I'd imagine. When gone, he had left a .22 lever action rifle. I don't remember the circumstances of why, but it got put up high in our basement where I couldn't reach it. At least I couldn't be stopped from standing there looking longingly at it. Eventually the rifle got reunited with its owner, and I believe the man drifted on out to the western part of the state, according to Dad. Not long ago, my mother said of Dad, "He could talk to anybody." And I imagine he enjoyed having the drifter for company.
In The Good Old Boys, Kelton has his main character thinking to himself after he couldn't remember the name of a failed homesteader, "Sad, how quickly a man's name got lost. It was hard to make a big enough track that your name was long remembered." I remember talking to my wife about that very topic a couple of weeks ago and said to her, "At least when I Google my name, some information comes up on the internet." But there's always an engraved tombstone, too. I wonder if Art Hansen has one.
Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer tells the same tale. Two good buddies go their separate ways when one steps into the business world, becomes a banker, and is elected to public office. Monte Walsh can't bear to leave his old world behind, and even refuses to ride in a newfangled car.
In an early memory of mine, a man still comes walking across the section and into our pasture on a cold winter day, partially disappearing in blowing wisps of snow, then reappearing again. He was an old cowboy-type who worked around the community awhile. Whatever the agreement Art Hansen had with A. C. Weig, he was breaking it, probably starved out or froze out, maybe both. At any rate, he took off walking across country to our place and mooched a warm supper and a warm place to sleep that night. Of course, that didn't sit too well with my mother, and she got Dad to take him into town next day, after a good breakfast, I'd imagine. When gone, he had left a .22 lever action rifle. I don't remember the circumstances of why, but it got put up high in our basement where I couldn't reach it. At least I couldn't be stopped from standing there looking longingly at it. Eventually the rifle got reunited with its owner, and I believe the man drifted on out to the western part of the state, according to Dad. Not long ago, my mother said of Dad, "He could talk to anybody." And I imagine he enjoyed having the drifter for company.
In The Good Old Boys, Kelton has his main character thinking to himself after he couldn't remember the name of a failed homesteader, "Sad, how quickly a man's name got lost. It was hard to make a big enough track that your name was long remembered." I remember talking to my wife about that very topic a couple of weeks ago and said to her, "At least when I Google my name, some information comes up on the internet." But there's always an engraved tombstone, too. I wonder if Art Hansen has one.
