Lost Pillars

Roy was our fencer. He'd worked for a neighbor herding sheep for 28 years, then decided he couldn't get along with him anymore, and came to work for the ranch. He was 72 years old, and spent the next 18 years repairing, maintaining, and building, on the ranch's 2,000+ miles of fenceline, and countless wire gates.

He refused to use a 4-wheeler, and walked every mile of fenceline, and shook every post. Even on the “Forest” where the government forbade driving, Roy would walk 10 miles to the end of the allotment dragging posts and tools with him.

His tools were as simple as his lifestyle. A hand-style post-hole digger, a shovel-- which he only trusted Ray to sharpen for him, a heavy tamping bar, a big old iron post driving mallet, fencing pliers, and a bucket of staples. His quarters consisted of the only modern things he ever used: a little camp trailer pulled behind his pickup.

Beginning in March, or as soon as the ground thawed enough, Roy would begin his rounds of the lower pastures in preparation for calving and branding season, then work his way up country ahead of scheduled cattle movements. He'd spend the summer in remote summer country, then work his way back down ahead of the cows.

In the earlier years, he often spent winter at headquarters. He'd surround his little camper with straw-bales for insulation. His laundry room was the fire-pit out front where he'd boil water in a big tin tub. A lot of the time he'd just buy a stack of blue jeans, then just wear the same pair every day until they wore out. In later years, he'd rent a motel room for the winter. The ladies at his favorite restaurant always looked out for him and would get worried if he didn't show up on schedule.

One year we got a severe blast of winter in October which drove the temperature down below -30 F. Ray was out-of-state at a meeting, and everybody else was so busy un-thawing their own vehicles and water sources that nobody gave old Roy, who was still 10 miles up-country, a thought.

Roy was resourceful though. He had to be. You don't survive by yourself out in the middle of nowhere if you don't have some common sense and self-motivation. He moved out of his camper into an old cow-camp cook-shack which had a barrel stove. He'd already parked his truck in the big storage quonset “just in case”. He didn't want to be afoot, and had learned alternative methods to start his truck when he got in a bind. I don't know as I'd recommend Roy's, but it worked for him. He would build a fire under his truck, then prop that trusty old tin tub over the fire.

Ray and Kristy checking on Roy in summer country.

When most people would have turned in their shovels for an easy chair, Roy was busy building what is probably one of the longest lasting legacies on that ranch. Good fences. Miles of them. Roy's arthritis finally got to bothering him too much, so at the age of 90 he officially retired and moved to town. He died a few years ago at age 100, and the friend who was looking out for him made sure he was buried in one of the most gorgeous wood caskets he could find. It would probably be the only piece of furniture Roy ever owned.

It was sad to lose him. He was an American icon out of a silently lost generation-- the generation that came through the Great Depression, fought in WWII, and stood strong for character, work ethic, morals, principles, responsibility, and accountability. Pillars of a successful society. We've lost more than we know.

"Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread,

and abundance of idleness..."  Ezek. 16:49