From Gene’s Notebook

…out in the Oklahoma Panhandle, almost 50 years ago, I was moving some hay bales that had wintered under snow and rain.

Two other men were working with me, one out of Alabama called “Heavy,” and the other out of Texas called Bob. I was out of Miami’s suburbs, out of college and on the outs with my folks. I was called Gene, and still am.

Each time we lifted a bale from the ground onto a wagon behind a tractor, a small snake would slither away, its home in the bale disturbed, and also because it sensed Spring was coming to the Plains.

Bob and I were working fast. “Heavy” called out, “Slow down! Right now! I mean it.” “Heavy” weighed about 300, Bob about 140, same as me.

We didn’t answer, but we slowed down, right to “Heavy’s” pace. Later, we went to the foreman’s house for lunch, where his look-don’t-touch ranch woman-wife served us mounds of meat, bread, and potatoes.

Still later, we went into the yard between our bunkhouse and the foreman’s where we shot 22s for dollar prizes. I lost, “Heavy” lost, the foreman lost and Chico, vaquero supreme, he with castration blood under his nails, lost, but Bob won. He won about 10 dollars, and then went to the bunkhouse, grabbed his gear and walked down the road to the mailbox.

He yelled back from between the budding trees, “I quit; the money will help me get back down to Amarillo.”

We then drank some beer, and hung out under a tree, wondering who the foreman would get from the country jail the next morning to fill Bob’s place ….

Some north wind blew in, the far-away cattle huddled and we knew that our Spring for the last three days would turn to a final taste of Winter ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky
July 1, 2008