Waiting for the “Fire Call” & thinking about past journeys: Burley or Bust.

It has been a long time since I’ve shared anything here: maybe due to the pandemic, or maybe due to a lack of travel related thoughts. Many weeks (or months) ago Meme asked me to pick a trip from my youth: which one would it be. Today (02 AUG. 2020) an Incident Management Team (Pacific Northwest IMT1 Team 3) I'm associated with is on “pink alert” to see if we’re headed to the Okanagan-Wenatchee NF in central Washington. Sixty years ago I was on a trip to southern Idaho (Oakley).

Fremar Kennel House

            

Some BACKSTORY: in early 1960 a Bedlington terrier I’d raised since puppyhood made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and things were on the upswing for my parent’s dog hobby transitioning into a secondary profession. After the school year concluded, my parents moved the family’s Fremar (Fred & Margaret) kennel from Burbank to Malibu for a couple of years.  Until the Burbank youth league baseball concluded I commuted with my Dad into Burbank on game days and spent the day with Bill Kuzma (our ace pitcher) and his family. Once the season concluded my folks weren’t sure the best way to keep me busy during the transition to a new school & year. Our Burbank kennel usually had a couple dozen terriers and I was often busy with them. Our new kennel had about 125 terriers and there was a full-time employee residing on-site for their care & feeding. I was left with about 6 lawns to mow, but my parents decided instead to send me on an adventure to southern Idaho.

           

 They had some friends (Chuning) that also had Bedlington terriers, and as it turned out managed a ranch in Idaho, south of Burley in the Oakley area, and had a son (Lester) about my age. As I recall my month-long odyssey started one evening from Glendale, CA via a 24-hour bus ride on Continental Trailways. The route was probably up through Las Vegas (LV), then Salt Lake City (SLC) and over to southern Idaho. I’d visited Las Vegas a couple of times with my paternal grandparents, going on camping trips in southern Utah or the eastern Sierras, but this was my first solo-trip there. I stayed around the bus terminals in LV and SLC. I recall I had plenty of snacks (a bag of peanut butter & crackers and cheese-crackers: oh, yum) and some good reading material (Readers Digest, The Willie Mays Story, a Dennis the Menace cartoon book, etc.). The miles and time seems to have passed quickly, at least in the retrospect of 60-years.

            

The Chunings picked me up at the bus stop in Burley. Southern Idaho and Oakley were quite a culture shock for me in 1960… but a good one.  Some memories of my stay there include turning 13, going to the Cassia County Fair & Rodeo, seeing my first ever electric cattle prode, helping inoculate cattle via the chute, playing baseball with some local ranch kids, and being counseled about the use of some “colorful metaphors” I’d picked up somewhere and used during the ballgame: it was good advice. TV reception wasn't much, and there were few channels, but late one evening I do remember we watched the original 1951 movie “The Thing” –starring James Arness in the title role.

            

Lower Goose Creek Res.

Another vivid memory was Lester and I camping overnight at the Lower Goose Creek Reservoir south of Oakley. We fished, scouted around & swapped stories around a campfire: great time. We got picked up for the relatively short ride home after a day or two. My time went quickly and I’m sure they were happy to see me get onboard a semi-tractor trailer for a trip home more than I was to be leaving.

            My trip south was with a contract trucker hauling livestock south towards L.A., just before the Los Angeles County Fair, so that I’d be home before the new school year. As the lyrics in the Little Feat song go: we drove the back roads so we wouldn’t get weighed. However, I didn’t see anything about any sign of “weed, whites and wine”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JwNaPIbeH0 . Maybe, I’d see some on later trips? My folks picked me up in/around Pomona, and even though it was a great trip I was glad to be back at our new home at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Puerco Canyon Road, next to the Calvin Nursery and Bowman’s African Violets. What was not to like?

Little Feat

            Please have some great adventures of your own out there and stay healthy & happy…