Uncle Roger

20 March 2017

While driving across Wyoming this morning, I got a telephone call from my Uncle Roger.
Roger, my mother's bother, is eight years my senior so he was more like an older brother than an uncle.

One day, when I was 12, Roger and I were going back out to the field, don't remember what he was doing, but I remember well when he shifted the 1949 International KB2 pickup into “super low”, opened the door, slid across the seat and stood on the running board, pulling me across the seat with him, into the driver's position. I had to look through the steering wheel to see over the dashboard. Roger instructed me to use only the gas pedal and drive around the field, he closed the door and stepped off the running board... the pickup was idling in super low, it had to be going all of 2 miles an hour. I stepped on the gas and the truck would lurch forward, which would throw me back in the seat, and my foot would come off the accelerator, and the truck would lurch back to 2 miles an hour, only seconds later I would be recoiled forward by the seat's rusty, bare springs, mashing down on the gas pedal as the truck lurched forward, only to be thrown back into the seat again and repeat, over and over again. Adding to my poor control of the accelerator, the field was quite bumpy and had a dead furrow running down the middle. The lurching motion would get so bad that I would have to take my foot off the accelerator for fear of being thrown through the windshield. Kind of like shaking a marble in a tin can. Only to try again and again. I drove around the field for an hour before I figured out how to control my foot on the accelerator. It had to be hilarious to watch.

After that Roger taught me, over the years, how to operate the tractor, how to use a plow, disc, field cultivator, how to lay a land (you start plowing in the middle of the field so you have to eyeball a straight line to the opposite side of the field, typically a half mile, it was high art and if you did it well you were well respected by other farmers.) I learned how to cut hay, rake hay, operate a baler (I wasn't much good at stacking bales, most were heavier than I was), and use a Farmall stacker (one of my favorite jobs). I learned how to tell when the wheat was ready to swath and how to roll the swath with a side delivery rake when it was too wet to combine. I learned how to operate a combine and haul grain. It was a tremendous education and Roger was a patient teacher. I still love farming and have tremendous respect for those who turn the soil.

I learned a strong work ethic from Roger. He was (is) an outstanding individual, always looking for the brighter side of any situation. He always stood up for his fellow man and never had a harsh word. He has the greatest sense of humor and always had a joke. I was truly lucky to spend so many summers with my Uncle. When I got in the Army I needed the moral sense that Roger taught me.
So Roger calling me today really made my day, thanks Roger Hill you are the best! Glad I can share what you taught me with others.

NOTE:  this was written on the 20th of March,  2017.  That day I was driving to Denver to have an operation to remove my right lung.  Carol and our daughter Kristen were driving in another car.  So the call really picked up my spirits.

Love, Van