One of the first friends that my father made when we moved from our Southern Minnesota farm to a farm near Litchfield was Bud, who’s real name was Francis. He was definitely more of a Bud than a Francis. Bud would often haul some of our cattle to market at the South Saint Paul stockyards “down in the cities”. On return trips Bud would often pick up some part needed for machinery or something else and return that to my dad or other nearby farmers. The “app” for that was a dial telephone, or perhaps the 1953 Ford pickup, you either called Bud or drove over to visit since there was no such thing as an answering machine, share a cup of coffee and make the arrangements to pickup the cattle and get those machine repair parts.
One of these trips happened sometime before I started grade school, I must have been about 5 or 6 years old – about 1959 or 1960. That’s is a long time ago so my memories of those times aren’t all that sturdy. I think that it was a summer afternoon, dad loaded the cattle we were selling onto Bud’s truck, put me in the cab with Bud and I rode along on an overnight trip to the stockyard. We must have arrived there late in the afternoon. I tagged along as Bud unloaded the cattle. I watched as they left down the chute for their grim destinies. There were narrow pathways between the cattle chutes for the workers, truckers and farmers made from large 2×8 slat gates that could be easily reconfigured to move cattle to different destinations. It all smelled like cattle would smell, people many miles Northwest of the stockyards in South Saint Paul would have smelled them as well.
Being a five year old, cattle are big, as a farm child I was used to that. Suddenly there were these giants – they had draft horses! Those animals looked as tall as trees – they were these amazing giants with huge hairy legs! I am not sure why these horses would be at a stockyard, I assume that the stockyard just acted as the trading place.
After dad’s cattle were weighed and evaluated for quality, Bud went to the stockyard business office to collect the check for dad. They would type out the check and hand it across the counter to the sellers for their livestock. I remember it as a large room with a creaky old worn down wooden floor and panelling, but I am sure that if I saw it now it wouldn’t be all that much larger than a living room. Behind the paneled counter on the paneled wall hung a stuffed two headed calf – another amazing site in an amazing day.
Riding in that truck in the dark was a treat too with all of the dials, and the speedometer all lit up. Much later in life I would listen to Tom Waits tell about the tale of the “Phantom 309” with “dashboard was lit like the old Madam La Rue pinball”, and it reminded me of this trip. I think that know what Tom Waits felt talking about the Phantom 309. Big Joe was not that different from Bud who’s voice was a slightly smoother gravel than Tom Waits voice.
After leaving the stockyard Bud took me to truck stop where he bought me a quarter chicken to eat – it was a quarter of a very small chicken. We sat on round red stools at the counter that I could barely reach to eat my greasy and tasty chicken along with a glass of milk. After supper we went to a hotel in Saint Paul that was probably an unsavory place, as a small kid I wouldn’t have noticed that. I remember the large hotel neon sign flashing red outside of our window, and the sound of nighthawks outside the open windows bzzzzzeeeuuugggh, bzzzzzeeeuuugggh, as they hunted for insects all night. That was the first time I had ever heard nighthawks and their call is seared into my memory. I don’t think that Bud or I got much sleep that night, this adventure was all a bit over stimulating for a 6 year old boy.
I don’t remember the ride home – I suspect that a sleepless Bud had to pour me into the old truck cab and take me home. A few years later Bud failed get around to taking his tetanus shot. He got a minor injury to his hand from a rope burn, and he contracted tetanus – or lock jaw as we called it. Lock jaw and rabies were the two most feared farm diseases when I was growing up. Rabies was almost 100% fatal if not treated immediately with a series of painful shots into the stomach. Likewise lock jaw was almost always fatal. Bud managed to survive his bout of lock jaw. He lived for many years after that, eventually moving in with his girlfriend Mamie, becoming slightly less bachelor but still unmarried.
Toad Aweigh 