Monday Memoir, April 10, 1965

 It appears that Easter was on April 18 in 1965, a very late occurrence of the holiday.  This Saturday  began rainy but did clear off. I would say thank heaven for small favors at that. Actually a pretty big favor. We paid for clearing with some rough wind but it did help things dry out. I can hardly stress too much how miserable rain and mud made all the work. And that spring seemed to be a very soggy one.

April 10. 1965   Sat

 It was raining hard when I woke up and I feared it would never stop, but it did. Just while we did the chores, half the sky cleared and a terrible wind came up. I mean it was fierce. We had a time with the hay. At the pasture we slopped around in the mud. Got home rather late. I walked up for mail. I got nothing. Nuts. That ruined my day or nearly. We talked when I got back for ages and didn’t do the midday chores until 2:30. All too soon the day was shot that way. Charlie Mike is now encouraging me to mark Dusty off and find a new guy. Well, I don’t think I will, on second thought. Not until he tells me we are through. Just because he doesn’t write does not mean much, does it? The evening chores weren’t too bad. It’s wonderful what a little wind and sun will do to the mud. It vanishes.  I just wish real genuine spring would come. The old ditcher train pulled out today. Now the tracks will look empty again. Boy, I feel lonesome. I wish I knew where and how Dusty is and why he hasn’t written. I played cards and finished my book outline tonight. I’ve got to start accomplishing more somehow or other. I waste time and I think that is almost the worst sin.   It’s late now though and I must get me off to bed. I am awfully tired and feel rather sick really.

After managing with the changing weather, I first got no mail and then wasted hours on "talks" which were fruitless and pointless about 95% of the time. It really chafed me to sit idle and listen to stuff that did not encourage or enlighten me one whit and then still have to do so many hours of work with half or more of the available time already gone.  I rarely dared to just get up and walk out--all hell would have broken loose, I imagine.

Of course I did complain to Charlie Mike a bit about the fact Dusty had not written.  There was no one else I could even mention it to. Under those circumstances his advice was probably sound but I did not want to follow it. My complaints were just frustration and wanting so much to have the lift and hope that a new letter would bring me. So I tried to rationalize around or past that, and generally I managed.

The 'ditcher" I mentioned was a special work train that carried a crane and a type of power shovel machine to clear washed out areas, get landslides off the tracks etc. The crew would have been small, one or two to operate the machines and maybe a helper for each operator. We did not get acquainted with them that I recall.

What book outline was I referring to?  Possibly Cindy or a compilation of my planned training articles which I thought could be combined as chapters of a book. The whole time between high school and college I still worked on my long-term goal to become a 'real', that is a published author. That being one of those almost impossible things, it did take much longer than I had hoped or wished.

Many evenings I would be tired and discouraged, disgusted and perhaps given some other indoor tasks that I was almost ordered to work on. Sometimes in rebellion or depression I would just play records, shuffle papers around or play solitaire. And then get mad at myself for not doing any of the projects I really cared about. Depression was so insidious and hard to fathom and deal with.

I was now nearing three years since my perceived "life sentence" had begun. There was no end in sight, either. I might hope, wish or dream but reality was about as solid as an adobe wall. Much of the time I truly felt as if it was going to go on for the next fifty years.  Why did I not just run away? Why did I not ...why did I not do so many things. A mixture of  a misplaced sense of duty and responsibility and a total lack of confidence or faith that I could do other things and survive. Even that  the world I had known would not end with a catastrophic bomb-type disaster with destruction and damage avalanching  upon my head.  It is often sad to look back and know it was not nearly as inevitable and iron-bound as it seemed. If I had been born male or second instead of eldest, how different life might have been. Yet I never wanted to be male and certainly would not have transitioned if that were possible then. I already really had many of the down sides of that gender, and none of the privileges!

Pictures--I never took any of the mud and mess, the river running high and the myriad difficulties that happened under those conditions. They would not be very interesting anyway! So I will dig around and see if I can find anything else.Ah ha--burros are cute, especially the little ones so here for some odd eye candy are three babies. The first one I think was Little Pete. He was sold back in September 1964 with several others. Next is Jennyfur and probably Jennyfur Junior or "JJ" and last is Charlie Mike and me with Lila's new baby, Robin, born about the time of this memory. They really served little purpose to our  'business' (I can barely use that word in this context! ) but we generally had quite a few.