Memoir: Chapter 43: Tending my little cousin Sue while my Aunt Vesta has a hysterectomy and deciding to live with Aunt Darlene for a year because my Uncle Crae was still missing in action

Just as I was getting ready to go back to Boulder, Mother called and said that my Aunt Vesta needed someone to come to Washington and take care of her baby while she had a hysterectomy which just could not wait.  Margie had gone to high school in Richland a year, but for some reason she could not go or Mother thought I should.  I don't know all the reasons that she decided I needed to go up there immediately.
I was mainly worried that Dean would end his basic training and would come home while I was gone, and I would miss him altogether.  But I knew if Margie couldn't go there was nobody in the family old enough to take that responsibility besides me.

Baby Sue had nearly lost her life when she was very young. When she was born she appeared to be so healthy that the doctors decided she had not been affected by the incompatible blood types of her parents, one positive and the other, my aunt, R-H-negative.  Then suddenly Baby Sue started to fail and had to be hospitalized immediately and her blood transfused.  She had recovered but now, sadly, Aunt Vesta was telling Mother that she was showing some signs of brain damage they thought, which her older brother Jim had escaped when he was transfused.  They had gotten to him in time. 
When I saw Sue after I took a plane to Pasco, I thought she was such a beautiful child I could not believe anything could be wrong with her.  She had black curling hair and the most gorgeous big blue eyes.  But after I took her and started handling her I could see that at nine months old she was slightly stiff.  I did not want to think it, nobody wanted to think it, but she did seem somewhat brain damaged.
I thought the very least I could do is give a month out of my life to her.  What kind of life was she going to have if she was indeed impaired. Nobody really knew then what that damage was going to consist of, but she was a pretty easy baby for me to tend.
She turned out to have quite a severe case of cerebral palsy and was completely deaf, but my Aunt Vesta went to college and learned to teach children who were handicapped as she was. Eventually she learned to read lips so well that her boss was not aware for three years she was deaf.  She continued to work until she was very close to retirement age.  She is one of the biggest success stories I know about of someone conquering such a severe handicap.  How could I possibly complain about my lot in life I always used to think when Sue with cerebral palsy had risen to the challenge of making a life for herself with such perseverance and courage. 

In those days women stayed in the hospital longer after an operation.  Aunt Vesta did not come home for ten days or so, and I stayed a couple of weeks more so that she could have time to recover before she started to lift Sue again.  She needed me there to lift her until she would not risk her stitches tearing loose if she did.

That was a sobering time for me, but I did not regret helping her out, and tending Sue caused me to start thinking about another plan I had to get better acquainted with another little cousin, the daughter of my Uncle Crae, my mother's brother, who was still listed as missing in action in the war with Japan.  His plane had gone down in 1945, and in spite of ground searches, had not been found.  The pilot had radioed they were going down on land.
Crae's wife, Darlene, lived with her daughter Trudy in a house on the east side in Salt Lake owned by her mother.  Her youngest brother was still going to high school.  Her youngest sister had just graduated from high school and was going to BYU. Her mother worked and Darlene took care of the housekeeping and cooking while staying at home with Trudy who was about five years old.  
I was thinking about asking Darlene if she and her mother would rent Margie and me a room.  We could easily take the bus to the University from her house.  It was a very safe neighborhood.  I didn't know if Margie would be willing to share this room with me, as I thought since she was planning to enter the nursing program, she would soon be going to live in the nurse's dorm, after she had completed her first year of requirements.
Margie wasn't too excited about the idea.  She had been thinking she would go to the freshman dorm as I had.  But I tried to convince her this was probably our only chance to interact with this little girl and her mother.  I thought that it was best thing we could ever do for our missing Uncle Crae, as I didn't see how we could even know Aunt Darlene or Trudy just seeing them to an occasional family reunion.  We could talk to Aunt Darlene if we stayed with her, and try to draw her out about her loss.  I knew it was tremendous. I thought we could also catch up on some sister talk we had been missing all the years she and I had been separated.

 
Well, maybe because Margie had not gone to Washington to take care of Sue and I had, she agreed to go along with my plan even though I knew she doubted she could have as much fun as she could to the freshman dorm.  And our experience staying with Aunt Darlene proved to be even more austere than I feared.  Aunt Darlene was absolutely convinced that Crae had made his way to a Shangri-la from the plane and was still alive and happy and would come home someday.
But I talked to her a lot.  Margie and I had classes at different times.  I don't know what she did, but I found out Darlene had lived a very hard life.  As the oldest of eight children, she had always been the babysitter while her mother worked, as her father had deserted the family.
She said one night she was home and she looked up and saw her father on the back porch.  He looked back at her, and then he just simply walked away again.  I thought that was such a sad story.  Her mother was a more cheerful sort than the melancholy Aunt Darlene who found her comfort in the church.  Her mother, who had a steady boyfriend, was not religious but expressed some pride because the daughter who had just graduated from high school was engaged to one of the Prophet Brigham Young's great grandsons, I have forgotten how many greats.
Darlene was one of the few Mormon girls I knew who had insisted on going on a mission.  That was where she and Crae met.  They married, and Crae had not lived to see Trudy who was born after his plane went down.

But Crae was a good guy.  I always felt his spirit was close.  He was happy that Margie and I were trying to do something to help Darlene get over her grief.  Darlene had a hauntingly beautiful face, but I thought she had been damaged by the restricted life she had been forced to lead after her father abandoned his family.
One time I was talking to Darlene in the kitchen, and suddenly there was an exchange between us that I can only describe as a contact of our spirits.  That is the only time I have ever experienced such a thing.  I thought this woman had one of the purest spirits I have ever known even though her opportunities had been so limited.
Not long after we left, Darlene's mother had to have a knee operation if she was to keep on working and supporting her son, and she suffered a fatal heart attack after surgery.  Darlene really was the head of her family now but fortunately her brothers and sisters were independent.  She just had Trudy to worry about, but she never married again. The church was always her comfort. 

Trudy, her daughter, grew up to be a very beautiful young woman who proceeded to have a large family.  She made sure she would never be lonely, but her husband stuck around to help her raise hers.  She had all but forgotten us from the year we spent living in their home.  But I know it made a difference to Crae who I thought looked down from heaven and smiled at us.

Memoir: Chapter 42: Writing about the students covered with sores and being ignored

I was beginning to have such reservations about writing anything for Ghiselin that could possibly impress him I wondered if I should not major in theater after all, with English as my minor so I could teach both.  I had learned that Ghiselin was married and with children, but he just seemed too unacceptably remote to female writers.  I felt that Sharon was never going to get through to him, and probably neither was I, as brilliant a poet as he unquestionably was.  He was as hard to decipher as his poetry, he seemed beyond my reach. I hated to give up on Ghiselin but something soon happened with Laurence that did convince me to declare my major in theater rather than English. 
I was having to take some education classes, too, required to teach high school, which were very uninspiring.  Laurence sympathized with me as he had taken them, too, even though he was going to get his masters and said he was planning to teach at the college level if he was able to secure the opportunity.  I wondered if that was why he was interested in talking to a bookish student like me.  Was he thinking that a connection to a wife might make finding opportunity easier? And he might be able to tolerate one who read books better?  There still had not been one spark between us!
I found out all too soon that he did indeed have this in mind, as after several meetings, he told me he wanted to tell me a secret that he did not want me to tell anyone. Since Sharon was the one who had introduced him to me and was the only person at the University we both talked to I assumed he meant especially not to tell her.  Then he said that he was in love with me!  I was dumbfounded.  He had never touched me and showed no signs of ever wanting to.
I immediately recalled what I thought was rather a bad dream I had had about him about a month before.  I dreamed that he held his hand out to me and when I looked at him again I saw the face of Lucifer. The dream ended with me now hesitant about taking his proffered hand. 
I didn't care what he had tried to make me promise I told Sharon what he said as soon as I saw her.  I could see that she was also very disturbed by his declaration of love for me.  Especially when I said that he was not attracted to me.  She was afraid for me too, but I assured her that I had to have a man that was wildly attracted to me, so there was no danger of me becoming dangerously confused by what he had said to me, not like that other girl must have been.
I made up my mind for sure then that I could not make English my major.  Ghiselin would be my most important mentor as a would be writer. And he was sure to upset and disappoint me just as Laurence was doing. 
That spring I also read a short story Laurence had written, published in the student literary magazine Ghiselin mentored.  It was about feeling guilt over a sacrificial lamb.  I thought at once that I had been the sacrificial lamb he had in mind! 

I thought if Lees, head of the theater department, proved to be a disappointment, too, at least I would have fun doing plays and performing.  I had not been able to get another role in big productions after the plum one in "The Great Aunt Sits on the Floor" which I hoped the actors did not remember, as I did not want to be identified with an old lady.
I did, however, try out for the leading role in "The Mad Woman of Chaillot" during my sophomore year.  I thought she would be an ideal part of me to play.  Lees however cast his wife in this role, but asked me to work on the production to fulfill one of my requirements in theater.  I played a bit part and did some tech, walking home at night after rehearsal to my convenient room at the Phi Mu house.  I also got to observe very closely Lees' relationship with his wife whom he all but ignored.  She reflected his lack of interest in her acting I thought by giving a very uninspired performance.  The only person he worked with was a young comic who was so good that he seemed to be a lot of fun for Lees.

I had by then found out that nearly every teacher in the theater department had benefited from roles Lees had given them in his productions.  He appeared to be keeping everyone happy by throwing them a bone now and then in the form of a part. They talked about these parts in their classes. It was no wonder there were few left over for the students, who would be here today and gone tomorrow.
One of my speech teachers did the big Shakespeare parts whenever Lees could not secure a Broadway or Hollywood actor.  I was very conscious of this teacher's voice, which he seemed very proud of, but I always found it annoying when an actor relied too heavily on velvet voice tones and not enough on thinking through the role.
I did not even like Orson Welles in MacBeth who Lees had been able to persuade to come to the university my freshman year.  He was just too Orson Welles in the part, I thought.
On the other hand I got extremely excited about the intense acting of a war veteran named H.E.D. Redford, who I thought out acted them all.  Everyone was mesmerized with H.E.D whenever he appeared on stage.  You could not only understand what words he was saying, but you could also take in the meaning which I thought happened all too seldom in Shakespeare plays.  I had been to plays where it was almost impossible to decipher what anyone was saying through all the bombast.  However, if every Shakespeare play had been performed by actors of H.E.D.'s caliber it would have been a different story.

I was unfortunate enough to be cast in a one act play by Saroyan chosen by Miss Utah that year for her student production. She went on to become Miss America by virtue of her performance of a speech out of Shakespeare.  I heard it on television and thought she was of the hammy actress school, but it appeared that the judges were so impressed with a beautiful contestant who would attempt such a difficult feat that they awarded her the grand prize.  She was a tall striking beauty who reminded me of my beautiful cousin Cheryl more than anybody.
But I knew Miss America's limitations because she had previously directed me to perform in her production in that hammy style she favored.  I tried my best to please her in rehearsal but in the performance I reverted to my more naturalistic style.  She watched me very closely and hissed at me when I came off stage, "You didn't act the part as I directed you! I would never use you again!"

She and I both tried out for the part of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's play.  I thought it was a foregone conclusion that she would win the role.  She strode about the stage in glorious fashion but I doubt if anyone understood a word she was saying, as she acted the part clear to death, and nobody was able to stop her.
So I could see that Lees was old and tired and even sick and the actors pretty much acted the way they wanted to in his plays now days.  He had given another choice Shakespeare role in King Lear to his wife and she had not been very inspiring in that role either, so I figured that she more or less demanded these roles which he for some reason kept giving to her.  I had so far not seen any sign that he was particularly attached to any male actors as Archie had not yet come along.
Another theater student did point out to me an older male actor she said had been around acting for Lees in Shakespeare plays a long time.  He looked as though he would have been perfect in a part like Iago. He had a wife and six kids, she said, but he was still to put it delicately 'decadent'.  I assumed this meant that he was suspected of being homosexual, but I did not blink at this information since I was used to men who married and had children without letting it interfere with their decadent ways.
Perhaps the most disturbing fellow who had been one of Lees' acting proteges was a professor everyone called Robert. He was simply a sadist.  There is no other way I can put it.  He proceeded to try to break down a male friend of mine in class who seemed helpless to defend himself.  His object seemed to be to make him cry.  I took it as long as I could and then got up and walked out.
I was forced to go back, however, as I was only a sophomore and could not complete a theater major without taking more of his classes.  He was supposed to teach the first play writing class the University was going to offer in my junior year, and I couldn't miss that.  But I doubted very much if he and I would ever get along again.  Such men are apt never to forgive a slight no matter how they might treat others, and he proved to be one of them. 
He had also been hired to do the experimental theater-in-the round and it was said was going to produce some original plays including some of his own. Lees gave him plum roles, but Marilyn, my most knowledgeable informant about the university theater world, said that the woman Robert married had suffered a nervous breakdown and was still in a psych ward as far as she knew.  That was rather stunning news, as I had thought that Robert was clearly the most outwardly gay of all the professors who might be in hiding.  He seemed the most bitter about the need for subterfuge, I had thought.
I was prepared to sympathize but I could not take his meanness.  I thought hiring him had been a mistake no matter how brilliant he was. He was too embittered and disturbed to be teaching the young without damaging them someway. 
I knew he would never cast me in a part just because of that one protest.  I could not take sadism.  No, I couldn't, but the worst upset I experienced in my sophomore year was in Lee's Introduction to Theater class, required for theater majors, during my last quarter that year.  He asked us along toward the middle of the quarter to write something personal about ourselves.  As I started to write I thought that I would take a chance on Lees.  Indeed I could not keep from writing what I did.
I wrote that the students at this somewhat fictional university I made it sound like were all covered with sores, but nobody paid any attention and acted as though they were all perfectly normal.  My point was that no matter how abnormal anyone acted in school, this was not going to be acknowledged by anybody.  I was thinking that the professors might exhibit sores, too, which Robert had certainly done in his theater class, trying to make a male student cry.  But nobody tended to respond to signs of mental disturbance in the professors either, let alone the students.  I could just imagine Robert going through college covered with sores which nobody addressed, and then being hired to teach, still covered with sores that nobody addressed.  It was the way students had always been treated.  So how could they not help but end up as professors who were shockingly disfigured with running sores, too?
Lees did not return my paper when he returned the others and asked me to come to his office.  When I got there he pushed my paper across the desk to me and said, "I can't grade this paper.  This is not what I asked for."  I thought he sounded quite plaintive.  Why was I creating problems for him?
I took the paper and said, "That's all right."  I meant that he could fail me but I was not going to offer to rewrite it.  If he was going to be that careful not to ask me what this was all about!
He gave me a B at the end of the class, so I guess he decided he would not fail me because I refused to rewrite the paper.  Well, poor man, there were still rumors going around that his ulcers were killing him and he might have to retire.  Perhaps it was understandable why he just ignored the gauntlet that I must have appeared to have thrown down.  I wondered what he would have done if I had revealed a deep stab wound on my body somewhere.  Looked the other way as I bled my way out the door? 
I could still go on a while I thought.  But I was going to have to get out the fact that I had been molested in childhood and concealed it, not once but twice, while I was still going to college.  I needed to have as many people as possible who might help with my cause.  I desperately needed to have more people aware, for I feared my father too much not to try to get a whole army of supporters.  I just did not know how I was going to go about surfacing the facts in these events in which my father was involved, as part of the reason the men targeted me.
I felt I was seeing intrigue of a similar sort here at the university, and in this theater department. I suspected Lees of leading a somewhat double life just as my father had always done, but he was no longer active, so I could not point to any current behavior that seemed to damn him.  But that paper was meant to break through his defenses if possible.
I meant to call him on his behavior and any college professor's who favored young males unduly over females while married and presenting respectability and family to the world.  I did not have a chance at this university for a fair assessment of my talent or intellect when being taught by such professors.  Heterosexual professors favored males enough without married homosexual ones who felt forced to marry because universities would not hire openly gay professors. If a male heterosexual professor had been a womanizer, ogling and favoring certain female students, his behavior would have been unacceptable, so what was different about a married bisexual professor favoring appealing young males?
No wonder Robert was bitter.  And no wonder his wife had suffered a nervous breakdown not long after marrying him.  He seemed to be saying with every angry word he resented what he had to do to be hired to teach at a university no matter how brilliant or creative he was.
Well, I did not expect Dr. Lees to talk to me about all this, but I was serving him notice that I had something on my mind that went a lot deeper than what he wanted to read in a paper.  The truth.  Why not the truth.  Oh, no, more lies and coverup was what he was really asking for.  Well, I had had enough of writing to please the professors.  And society.
I had a plan in mind I was going to carry out in my junior year after I thought about Lees' reaction to my paper.  Why didn't I just write the truth as I saw it in every class.  Treat all my professors with the same dose of truth I had written for him.  I needed to write from the state of mind I had reached after years, an eternity, of covering up to protect men like my father, who Utah society could not bear to acknowledge were practicing bisexuals.  The religion was too dominating in Utah for one thing.  Acceptance of gays and bisexuals too abhorrent to the Mormon faction.  No, they needed to be either cured or persecuted into leaving or they needed to go on covering up.  That was their solution.
Yes, a university greatly needed to debate this question, so I thought that in my junior year I would make my contribution to the cause and see what happened!

Memoirs: Chapter 41: Meeting the genius students and teachers at the University

Somewhere along the way I met Sharon, a hardy poet from Ogden with a genius I.Q. who was so world weary even though only a year older than I was, she seemed considerably older than her years. She suggested she had been sexually active since childhood, although I did not know if I should believe her.
She also turned out to be practically a professional roller skater. I could hardly believe this either until I saw her expensive roller skates on a visit to her apartment to see some of her art work.  She said that she and another genius student, Dick Layman, had been going together for two years or more.  She said that Dick smoked heavily and got no exercise, but he and still another genius student named Laurence had taken over the University student newspaper and were practically putting it out themselves.  Plus, Lawrence, a very good poet, was the favorite student of Ghiselin, a modern poet and professor, who she said they all regarded as the most brilliant teacher in the English department. He was also adviser to the student literary magazine staff.
I resolved to take a class from Ghiselin right away although the fact that he was a modern poet with a couple of published books of poetry was somewhat daunting, since I regarded writing as well as reading modern poetry as my weakness.  My forte was really dialogue. But at first I loved Ghiselin.  He seemed extremely intelligent.
Sharon said that she would introduce me to Laurence as soon as possible who had simply read everything because she thought he and I would get along famously because I was such a book reader.
But she said Laurence was still trying to recover from a traumatic divorce from a freshman girl who had gotten pregnant almost at once, which she indicated might have been entrapment.  When she mentioned her name and the fact that she had lived at the freshman dorm I recalled the girl who had been simply crazy about this guy, a tall veteran.  I heard she left college to live with her folks when their quick marriage in order to legitimize the coming child did not work out.  Sympathetic freshman girlfriends said this savage older guy had simply ripped her heart out with no qualms at all.
So I did not know if I was too eager to meet this ruthless individual, even though Sharon seemed to think that the whole problem was the girl not reading enough books.

I had not known Sharon very long when she called me up and told me that she had fallen in love with someone else, and was now in the process of halfway killing her boyfriend, Dick, who was taking it very hard.  She said that he was positively suicidal and she had given him my number at the Phi Mu house, so if he got desperate enough to do away with himself, could he call and talk to me first? 
Wouldn't you know it, Dick did call me and asked me if I please would not come out and talk to him.  When I told the Phi Mu housemother I needed to respond to this call she told me I would have to call up the Dean of Women to get permission to leave after hours.
So I called the Dean of Women who tried to talk me out of this mission of mercy.  I told her if she did not give me permission I was going to go anyway, even if I had to move, so she reluctantly agreed that I could go.  I was not sure that I was any comfort to Dick who said that he was dropping out of college and going to the northwest where he hoped to get a job working on a newspaper, that he had layout expertise and just as well be making money instead of doing it for free. He felt he had to get away from Sharon before he could stop wanting to commit suicide.  I hastily agreed that leaving might be better. 

Dick looked so unhealthy I just knew that Sharon had probably been enticed away by a more vigorous genius who would probably go roller skating with her.  After Dick left I met her new boyfriend, who was Jewish and even more wild acting and bold talking than I envisioned.  I was immediately envious because I had always wanted to meet some young Jewish intellectuals who happened to be very scarce in Utah.  She admitted he was so different from Dick, that she had to try to keep up with him, rather than the other way around.
I was very impressed because later on her Jewish boyfriend even started bringing her down to visit me in southern Utah. He would leave her and return to Salt Lake while we went camping.
In the meantime, she said she had another former genius student pal for me to meet who she revealed had been part of a quartet of geniuses in their circle their freshman year.  His name was Phil and reluctantly she told me that he had been so upset at Laurence's sudden marriage, he had left the University, even though he was only a freshman.  I gathered from what Sharon did not say that he might have been in love with Laurence.
If Laurence was a bisexual and had broken the heart of the beautiful freshman girl as well as that of a brilliant freshman male student, wasn't he rather dangerous? After she told me that, I had doubts about Sharon's match making proclivities. Was she setting me up with Laurence just because I might make a more knowledgeable wife for a veteran ten years older?  It was hard to tell, but Sharon, more than any other girl I met at college, put me in touch with interesting intellectual geniuses, and for that I would be forever grateful.  These were the kind of guys I hoped to meet in college. 

As for Phil, he was just in town for a short visit, but he wanted to write to me, so I agreed to correspond with him, since Sharon had declared he had read almost as much as Laurence, even though he was considerably younger.  I know he used so many big words and such turgid language I had a very hard time making out the meaning of what he was saying.  I thought he was probably just talking around and around the subject of being attracted to males.  He did wonder if I might be the lost chord which I thought might mean I could be the one girl who could possibly restore him to normalcy.  Did Sharon think I was Laurence's lost chord, too? 
I hadn't really told anyone anything about my past experiences with bisexuals, but apparently I conveyed a greater understanding and tolerance of this breed than most girls my age.
But words could be used to obscure as well as to reveal, and reading Phil's letters caused me to start developing a theory that these genius poets I met in college wrote modern poetry to hide the true meaning of what they were saying from almost everyone except those who had the experience to know what they were talking about.  I had looked through some of Ghiselin's books of poetry and found that each poem required such a depth of study I did not have time to figure out hardly any of them.  Either that, or I was singularly untalented at interpretation.
I was not sure my new theory was going to help me write modern poems that would impress Ghiselin either.  I would probably be considered suspicious and even intolerant. He would not like that at all.  
But I was really enjoying getting acquainted with Ghiselin, as he was clearly the genius mentor of the genius student writers. He had very penetrating powers of analysis.  At first he made a great deal of sense to me.  Sharon said Ghiselin seemed far less impressed with her poetry than with Laurence's, and so far had not accepted any of her submissions to the student literary magazine. She was, in fact, getting so annoyed with not getting her poetry published, she started talking about starting an underground publication of her own so she could get read on campus some way.
Toward the middle of my sophomore year, she said that Laurence, she called him Larry, was finally ready to meet a new girl. When we met, Sharon introduced him to me and left for a class while Laurence and I proceeded to talk fast and furious about books for close to two hours.
It was true, Laurence had read simply everything. And he talked about literature extremely well I thought, making his meanings perfectly clear which I appreciated.  He found out I had not read Proust's "Swann's Way" which he said I simply must read.  I was able to tell him I had already found the journals of Andre Gide in the university library in which I said Gide was far more explicit than most American writers about his taste for young males, as was Genet, some of whose novels and plays I had also found and read. I told him I could not get over what Genet had the nerve to write.  It was hard to believe in suppressed Utah, that a writer could be so frank and disturbing as this French novelist and playwright. 
We did not talk a lot about the subject in these books, but Laurence must have observed that I had a marked interest in reading writers who wrote very frankly about homosexuality. As a matter of fact.  I learned from these writers, so I was always trying to find the ones who dared to write about it.
He must have wondered what that indicated, but I figured that since I was still so young, 18 at the time, he decided not to scare me off by interrogating me too deeply.  I told him I knew the girl he had married, which he said was still a painful subject, but I decided there was no point in hiding the fact that I had talked to her when she was still so in love with him, she could think of nothing else.
Sharon indicated that he found her to be too intellectually shallow for him to tolerate!  So why had he pursued the girl so ruthlessly that an unwanted pregnancy resulted? Oh well, I was still a virgin, and I knew I better stay that way if I expected Father to keep paying for my expenses.  Besides I would not have wanted to be in Laurence's poor young wife's shoes.  I had even talked to the girl about the divorce, and she could hardly keep from crying.  I didn't tell him that, though.
He was ten years older than both of us were.  It was obvious these returning veterans going to college needed to be regarded with some sense of caution.  This guy had been to war.  What did he care about the broken hearts of silly college girls who unwisely got pregnant prematurely, after all he had been through.
One of Laurence's eyes had been pierced.  I pictured some horrible war wound, but Laurence, said no, when I dared to ask him about being shot, that he had been hit in the eye with an arrow when he was a kid.  He said he had managed to get through his years in the military without a scratch.
But gosh, how was I going to compete as a writer with this guy?  Oh well, this could be my sacrifice to the war effort, having to take a back seat when a seasoned veteran returned to compete with me for publication in the student literary magazine.  What a great opportunity for editors to publish such guys! 
No wonder he was Ghiselin's favorite student writer.  He would have been mine, too, I was sure, had I been a faculty adviser.  In fact, I began to wonder if anything I wrote for Ghiselin could ever attract his attention, it might seem so callow to him.
I didn't tell Laurence about my dismay at having to compete with him as a student writer.  I thought that would have been very unpatriotic, and could have contributed even more to his air of disillusionment with life.  He did not seem to have much hope for mankind.  Nor did I feel a single spark emanating from him to me.  I could not imagine how he had gotten the other freshman girl pregnant if he had shown no more interest in her physical charms than he did in mine.  
I compared Dean's healthy interest in any opportunity to neck with me.  I thought that Laurence's experience with the other freshman girl had probably dampened his ardor, but his sexual feelings seemed strangely dead.  Maybe this was the real Laurence damaged by war and possibly by the restricted life he indicated he had been forced to lead in rural Utah where he was from.  I figured we were destined just to be friends, and agreed to meet him now and then just 'to talk.'

Memoir: Chapter 41: My new boyfriend is a troubled soul

When I came home from college after my first year, Pole, a young guy from Escalante, heard Margie was going to school in Escalante so thought to to be the first one to date her.  He brought his cousin Dean with him for me.  Dean was my age, a couple of years older than Pole, and had just graduated from high school that year and was trying to decide what he was going to do next.
I recalled being very impressed by him the year we were nine.  He came from Escalante with a group of men related to Alf Black who was living on the ranch at the time.  Alf was about Grandpa's age and he had told him he had a home for the rest of his life on that ranch. Alf would help with the chores but was generally company for Grandpa.
Among the men in the group of visitors to see Alf was his rich son-in-law from Salt Lake.  He had taken it upon himself to hire Dean to sing for them as they drove around the country seeing the sights.  I just could not get over a boy my age being hired to sing for this group of partying male tourists all day.  I could hardly bear it because they drove off after picking up Alf and did not give me any chance to hear this boy sing.
Now here he was, a blind date for me, to help his cousin Pole look good.  The two of them were very entertaining without yet singing for us.  Pole was a great story teller and Dean was the appreciator who would remind him of more stories to tell about their relatives and other characters in Escalante these boys seemed to have studied for years.
Best of all I was physically attracted to this boy as I had been to no other.  I had begun to wonder if I was even normal I had not gotten with a normal heterosexual boy until I was so old.  Eighteen years old that summer, having had only one or two dates with Alvin from Escalante who had been physically appealing to me, too, but not like this boy.  I feared however from hearing them talk that they were both quite bad drinkers.  I knew from what had happened to some of the Boulder boys that you could become an alcoholic at a very young age.
I don't recall either one of them drinking on our first date.  Possibly they were trying to make a good impression, but when we met them in Escalante a couple of weeks later to go to the annual mutton fry at Posey Lake, Dean was so drunk he was not even making sense.  He was sitting in the back of the car saying some very hostile crazy things.
I sent Pole a sharp questioning look.  He said, "Oh, he's all right.  He gets like this sometimes when he's been drinking."
I got into the car very warily.  This kind of alcoholic behavior I had not wanted to see from this guy so soon.  I thought it was a very bad sign.
I saw my friend Connie from Escalante later at the dance and she sort of hinted at why Dean might be upset enough to get drunk out of his mind.  He was beginning to sober up some by dancing, but he still was not his appealing self.  Connie said that Elaine, the girl who had more or less been his girlfriend in high school, was very upset with him because he was taking me to the Mutton Fry.  Connie was very hesitant to say much as she said that Dean had quite a temper and she did not want him mad at her.
Sure enough I saw Dean dancing with Elaine and after a couple of dances had gone by and he was still dancing with her I went by them and said something to him.  I had no intentions of ever dating him again. I did not like being humiliated on a date.
He immediately dropped Elaine on the sidelines and came over to me.  When I started to raise hell as we were dancing, I saw a look of such icy fury in his eyes I immediately shut up.  Well, so maybe the guy was suffering over what he was doing.  He obviously wanted to see more of me, but knew he was breaking his high school girlfriend's heart.  I knew how hard girls take those things. I didn't say any more to him about Elaine, but I was wary the rest of the evening.

Dean was soon acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  He said that as soon as I went back to school he was going to Montana to work on a dam.  An older guy he knew was taking him who could get him a job even though he had had no experience.
I was surprised as I thought going to Montana and working on a dam with winter coming on might be a job from hell.  He said he had to have a job and he could make more money there than any where else.
Well, September came as always, and I went back to school, with some relief.  Although I was attracted to this young guy as I had been to no other physically, I thought we were wildly incompatible every other way.  It was almost like he had street smarts but admitted to having loafed his way through school, hardly doing any work at all.  He bragged about being passed no matter what he did because of his popularity.

I told him I was very different.  I looked on every school I went to as an opportunity and always earned top grades.  I thought it was a waste of time to loaf your way through any school.  After all, you were only hurting yourself.
He looked at me as though I were the nerdiest girl he could imagine, but I did not care.  I wasn't going to dumb myself down for anybody.  Let him marry that other girl.  She seemed crazy about him.
I found out that Elaine's aunt on her mother's side as well as an uncle had married Dean's older brother and sister. Dawn and General, Petersen girls I had known quite well, had married Pole's older brother and Dean's older brother.  The two cousins had dated the Petersen sisters just as Pole and Dean were now dating two King sisters.  I was sure that Pole had set his cap for Margie the way he acted.  And he wanted company so he did everything possible to promote a match between his first cousin Dean and me.
The whole thing seemed increasingly absurd. Margie soon became impatient with Pole's manipulating too.  At first she welcomed a place to stay in Escalante with a friendly soul, which Pole provided with his sister Melba's help.  They all loved Margie and treated her like a million dollars.

Dean started writing to me, too, as soon as I got back to school.  I agreed to this mostly out of curiosity, but was shocked when a letter from him came in the most perfect handwriting.  I could see that Dean was very proud of his penmanship which was probably one reason he wanted to correspond with me, but he had very little to say.  And I came to think his handwriting was so rigid he would have a nervous breakdown if he had to scribble.

A far cry from my own handwriting which he complained he had trouble reading, so I began to send him typed letters instead.  It was not in me to turn down a willing penpal.  I was too fascinated by then with the letter form which is what I had come to rely on so heavily for connecting to the family.
I had taken to writing long analytical letters to all my sisters, whenever they responded to mine.  If we were going to talk and be good friends, we had to do it this way.  We certainly could not use the telephone.  Daddy was far too frugal a provider for our needs to allow that.
I was soon including Dean as a regular correspondent.  He did not tell me, but I found out years later that he was exchanging letters with Elaine all the time he was away from home, too.  There is nothing like making doubly sure you have devoted girl friends who will comfort a poor fellow far from home for the first time.
I took it that Dean found working on the dam at Hungry Horse extremely trying and difficult.  Along toward spring he said that he was going to join the Air Force as he thought that would be better than working on dams as a laborer.  And of course he would need lots of letters when he found out where he was going to be sent to do his basic training.

I was so excited when I found out he was being sent to a base camp not far from Los Angeles.  I had such a longing to get to California somehow I decided going to see him would be the perfect excuse.  This was of course probably something that the less aggressive Elaine would not even have thought of.  I was afraid Utah was going to become increasingly inhospitable for a rebellious girl like me.  I needed to find a place outside of Utah to land just in case there was trouble down the road.
I called up my cousin Winolia living in Woods Cross who I knew had a cousin in Whittier, California.  I proposed we go down there for the summer to find work, confessing that my new boyfriend Dean was motivating me to go to California to visit him.  She thought we could stay with her cousin, agreeing that this might be a great adventure.
I informed my parents that I would not even be coming home where they were sure to take me prisoner and hold me captive to hard labor, but wanted to go to California to seek employment for the first time.  I pointed out how I had sacrificed every summer to come home and help, and had never had the chance like other young people go out and get job experience.
It is possible that they thought I might be getting too outspoken for Utah, too, so they agreed to pay for my bus ride and gave me $100.  When that was gone and I still didn't have a job I would have to come home.
Dean must have been surprised at my devotion to him when I announced I was coming to California so I would be able to see him when he could get time off once in a while.  But he was quite agreeable.
He did not realize I was also scouting a new location just in case Utah did not continue to work out for me.  I was still worried about staying employed as a teacher even if I should become one.  I thought I needed other options.
Winolia and I were given the spare bedroom at her cousin's in Whittier who was very nice to Winolia, an unexpected but welcome visitor. Winolia soon found a job candling eggs.  I was hesitant to go after this kind of job. It sounded too much like ranch work to me.  In fact, after I had visited with Dean a couple of times, who made his way over by bus to the cousin's house, I was ready to bide my time until I had run out of money and had to go home.

Winolia had proved to be a very good chaperone.  She made it plain she was agreeable to Dean coming to visit me, but neither one of us were to get carried away if we were to keep in her good graces.  She did all this as my Uncle Joel would have done, quite diplomatically.
She seemed somewhat relieved when I said that I had better go home and visit with the family and do some work to earn my university expenses before I went back to school.  She said she was going to stay with her job another month and then would probably return to her family home in Woods Cross, either going to school or finding a higher paying job.
I held on to just enough money to take the bus home, or as close as I could get by bus. A family member met me as they had missed another hand doing the summer work.   They were glad to see me as bottling season was on.  It wasn't as though there wasn't a lot to do.  We never ran out of work now that Daddy's operation had gotten so big.  Nobody hardly even saw Mother, she was so busy.
All in all I was very satisfied with the adventure of going to California I had managed with the help of a connection to Dean.  I could see how he might continue to come in handy when I wanted to travel.  I fell so in love with the jacaranda and the bougainvillea and the palm trees around Los Angeles.  I kept thinking I must come back there. I wanted to go to New York but Daddy would think I was going to the ends of the earth and would not be safe, but California was within reach!

Memoir: Chapter 40: I meet dorm mates who will be my good friends my freshman year

I met only my roommate whose name was Darlene from Tooele while I was busy rehearsing and going on the road with the play, "Great Aunt Sits on the Floor".  I was having great fun touring with the play.  The cast was terrific with a number of the most accomplished performers in the theater department. I was very surprised that the head of the theater department, Lowell Lees, directed and traveled with us and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.  Being of a suspicious mind, I immediately began to wonder if part of his motivation for touring was just to get away from home.  I heard almost immediately he was married and had three children, grown now with one attending college and majoring in theater, too. I also learned that he was famous for his direction of Shakespeare as well as Broadway hits, drawing actors from both places to the University to be in his plays. Well, he could do what he wanted to do.  Perhaps going on the road was therapy for him as I also heard he was plagued with ulcers and was considering retirement he was suffering so much from his ailment. 
I decided not to declare my intentions to major in drama as I knew English teachers would be more in demand than drama teachers, simply because more were needed to teach English every year.  I decided to make drama my minor since I intended to write plays, so I wanted to be in as many as possible so I would know how to write them.

 My first experience with director Lees was a happy one, so I just hoped for the best.  When the play was over I was able to get acquainted with the two girls next door, one of whom happened to be from Panguitch in my county.  She was surprised to find out I was the niece of her brother's Frank's good friend Kent.  He and Kent were in the same year of medical school and Zelda said they were talking about establishing a practice together when the time came.
Zelda, a warm affectionate girl, was trying to recover from what she regarded as a humiliating experience taking her placement tests.  She scored so low in nearly all categories that she was forced to take remedial classes in all of them to stay in school, but she said bravely that she had always intended to be a home economics teacher so she would do whatever she had to do to stay to the university. She bemoaned the fact that Panguitch Hi had not prepared her well for the University as she had never gotten anything but "A's" in her life!
I had scored high enough in all my English tests that I got into the class for top English students, but I pointed out to her that I had scored a very low 14% in math, and had not done so well in geography and history either, which reflected the inferior teaching I had experienced in those classes at West Hi.  I could have had a better history teacher in Miss Woodside had I stayed to Bear River High school.  I had no doubt that she was one of the outstanding American history teachers in the state.  I loved history so that was my loss.
Norma, her roommate, was an attractive blond from the fishing town of Seldovia in Alaska, so she was able to tell us some fascinating stories about working in a fish canning factory in Cordova. In fact, she missed Alaska so much that she decided to return and finish college there after her freshman year.  

Zelda, Norma, Darlene, and I became fast friends that year.  Norma and I even went to visit Zelda in Panguitch a weekend or so.  Zelda was in love with Panguitch, the county seat.  She especially adored Zion's National Park.
I tried to persuade her that Boulder, in the eastern part of the county, was just as beautiful, but she was not at all interested in spending any time visiting me. I came to believe that the citizens of Panguitch really did view themselves as superior to the rest of the people in this relatively poor county.  But still spectacularly beautiful.
Zelda was one of the most affectionate girls I have ever met.  All the girlfriends I had had previously had been quite reserved.  She was very popular with girls, and in fact, told me years later that after she became a teacher girls got crushes on her and it troubled her.  She wondered if she invited such feelings.  I told her I thought she was just an unusually warm person, but I didn't think that meant that was anything to worry about.
That spring however she ran into my marked aversion to pledging a sorority.  I stated quite strongly I did not believe in them, that this was a way that more popular girls discriminated against others.
At Bear River High School, the clique had girls in it who would go around claiming to be one of the 'popular thirty'.  I knew without even having to look on the list I had not made it into the popular thirty.
Aunt Neta had talked too often about how popular her boys had been.  She seemed to think striving to be popular was important to become a success in life.
Book worms like myself who had been called 'two eyes' because of my thick glasses just might never qualify I wanted to point out to her.  If I had told her that, she would probably have advised me to quit reading, it was not doing me any good!
Anyway Zelda did not join probably only because we were all still good friends, but after we parted ways at the end of the year I heard that she pledged a sorority late, and after that she just sort of forgot about me. I always felt that trying to go along with some of my ideas stressed and strained her, and that was the main reason our friendship never made it beyond the first year. She came from a family of 12 kids, and what with her sorority sisters and students, she would not have been able to keep up our friendship very well either.
I did not pledge any sorority but found a room in the most unpopular sorority house which I rented only if I did not have to join.  I decided I would study the sorority girls that year and see if I was missing anything.  I rented a room there because my roommate, Darlene, joined, and she told me that they had a good cook and had not been able to recruit enough pledges to fill the Phi Mu house.  I needed to be very close to the campus so I would not be in danger if I walked home at night from rehearsal, if I was lucky enough to get more parts in plays.

My roommate at the Phi Mu house called herself Torchy.  She informed me she was the daughter of the head of the psychology department, and she admitted that she lived to torture this man for the presumption that he really understood daughters like her.
She had the most beautiful strawberry blond hair and did not hesitate to borrow my most attractive clothes even though she had more. In fact, she wore my new black velvet strapless sheath I bought for Christmas before I did.  She looked so spectacular in it, I could not turn her down.  I was just glad to get it back without a fight.
She said she had had any number of nervous breakdowns, so she was the first to introduce to me up close what a girl diagnosed with mental illness looked and acted like.  I was very glad I had known her as her experiences helped me to get through what happened to me later.  By then she was long gone from the university.  I thought she had father issues just as I did but I was not able to be frank with her as she was with me. That was my problem.  I felt I had been completely silenced and it seemed to become more risky rather than less to break my silence.  Nobody, it seemed, wanted to know what secrets I was concealing.
Every attempt I made to speak about them some way or another was thwarted.  Starting with Lowell Lees, the head of the theater department, who disappointed me very much when I took a chance and wrote a paper in the first class I took from him that I thought would provide an opening to talking about my hidden experiences. We were invited to discuss our pasts in a personal way, but he was not the least bit encouraging in response to what I wrote. The way he reacted to that critical paper was the beginning of my disillusionment with university life.

Memoir: Chapter 39: First date before I leave for the University life

My date was a cute guy, just a year older, tall, dark, and handsome.  Just right for the first real date I had ever been on in my life.  I recall that he came to pick me up in Salt Gulch in his truck where I was working that day tromping hay and cooking for the hay crew.  He drove over from Escalante where he was from.  I don't know what we did, but I was in love for a little while.  I went off to school and he started dating someone else.  Alvin was always a big flirt.
I was very interested in him because he was the son of Varney's brother, my Aunt Nethella's beloved first husband, who had been killed in an accident sliding off the haystack in the barn.  She had been unable to see anyone else for years, and all who knew him said he was an outstanding man.
My summer in Boulder had been very satisfying that year. The sisters at home were getting old enough to do a lot of work.  I turned seventeen in July, Margie, sixteen, and LaRae was twelve, Ann ten, and Linda nine.  We had been able to get through our summer bottling season in fine fashion with so many hands and an electric stove.  It looked as though Mother would soon be able to make good on her intention never to do a speck of housework again with so many daughters.
I was impressed with how neat the house always looked now with the younger sisters taking turns cleaning it up.  I noticed that Ann especially was a good worker around the house.  She was always willing to volunteer to go help Dad, too, so more than likely after I was gone, she would become his right hand daughter help.
Margie was going to Bear River High school one more year and then she was coming back home to take the bus to Escalante high.  LaRae was already eager to take the bus to Escalante.
The younger sisters were all sewing up a storm, too.  Daddy had told them he would buy them any material they desired if they would just sew their own clothes.  You would have thought he was related to a professional sewing teacher. I had been impervious to such bribes, but I could see LaRae was going to have a very cute wardrobe, thanks to her speed when she sat down to a sewing machine.
LaRae was showing signs of being a talented artist, too.  She even declared that is what she intended to be.  She had always been the funny one in the family, and her cartoons showed it. There is always somebody in a family other members look to to make witty comments, and in our family that sister was LaRae.  Uncle Reed had been the witty one in Daddy's family, despite his insanity or maybe because of it. Uncle Kent was the scintillating wit in the Wilson family.  The family wit is usually so funny nobody else bothers to joke until it becomes necessary after the family has grown up and split apart, if anything funny is ever going to be said again. 
My sister Ann was the appreciator as well as the family work horse.  She laughed at all of LaRae's witticisms, and she loved the stories I made up to tell her. She just appreciated and appreciated and I think she had already decided she would probably become a teacher like Aunt Neta and Aunt Nethella, as she would be a natural to bring out other people's talents.
Linda was so busy walking on her hands and turning somersaults I am sure she entertained ideas of running away to join the circus. I thought she could definitely be a performer of some sort since she had never been able to talk without sitting high up in the door jamb like a monkey.  She had started jumping off increasingly higher edifices, first the car, then the porch, and somebody kept her from jumping off the barn where she had lost some brand new shoes and made Mother very mad.
She was already having to be rescued from ledges, trying to keep up with LaRae, three years older, who was also the family daredevil.  LaRae never got ledged.  It was just those who were too young to follow in her footsteps that did.

I had gotten disturbed because Mother informed me during the summer that Daddy had agreed to pay for my room and board at the University only if I studied to become a teacher or a secretary.  "A secretary?" I moaned.  Nobody could even read my handwriting, so that was out.  Even if I learned shorthand, I would not be able to read it.  That left becoming a teacher.
I reminded Mother that I had lost my job as a Sunday School teacher because the parents decided I was criticizing Mormon teachings.  Teachers were not strictly expected to be good active Mormons, but it was greatly to be desired. I had a way of calling attention to whatever I said.  I suppose it was the actress in me.  I tried to make what ever I said interesting if not fascinating. And people were already implying I was too opinionated and outspoken for my own good.
Wouldn't that be cute if I lost my job the first year just the way I lost my Sunday school job? Nobody in Utah would ever hire me again.  Mother thought I was just borrowing trouble worrying about such possibilities.  But I was mad because Daddy was laying down the law about what I was even to become!
"I told Daddy I wanted to be a writer!" I snapped. I thought the very qualities that might put me in jeopardy as a teacher of the young were just what a good writer needed.
"Oh, he doesn't think that's practical at all," said Mother. "Nobody makes a living as a writer."
"Oh, yes," I said.  "He had to quit studying law and become a rancher because they can drink.  He couldn't be anything else, but I can't come home and run a ranch.  Look at what Aunt Nethella is doing.  She is trying to run Grandpa's ranch, and she has to depend entirely on the hired men now that he is old."
"I know," said Mother.  She agreed that life was rough for a woman.  Men were always bossing them around and telling them what they could and couldn't do. But she advised me that I had better take education classes so I'd be qualified to teach, just in case.  Nobody could stop me from writing if I wanted to, but I should be able to do something to earn a living after I had graduated from the University if I expected Daddy to pay for my expenses.
Well, at least I wouldn't have to go out and find a part time job and could maybe try out for some parts in in some plays. In fact, that is the first thing I did after I secured a room in the freshman dorm back in Salt Lake.  I noticed on campus tryouts were being held for a play that was going on the road to outlying towns and cities. The notice said it was part of a children's play program, the famous Shakespearean director, Lowell Lees, was initiating. When I got to the tryouts, Lowell Lees, a slim spritely man with an intelligent look in his eyes asked me to read for the Great Aunt.  I groaned.
There it was again, my fat nose earning me a chance to try out for a character part instead of the young romantic lead I longed for.  I was just as stunned as anybody else when it was announced that I had won the largest part in the play, which was called, "The Great Aunt Sits on the Floor".  My picture was taken for the Salt Lake Tribune.  It looked as though I was off to a great start at the University of Utah in theater when I had just barely gotten there.

Memoir: Chapter 38: My horse Blackie falls down three times on one of my cattle drives, once with me on him!

When I came home from school after I graduated I was as mad at Daddy as I had ever been.  He had not attended my graduation from high school when I was just sixteen years old.  I was not surprised he tried to wiggle out of that but it was the smart eleck remark he made that bothered me which Mother told me, who had attended. She ordered him to come but he wouldn't do it.  He said, "I always knew she would graduate!"
I felt he had not come close to comprehending the sacrifice I had made that year to work for my room and board for a couple who left quite a bit to be desired as wholesome guardians.  Besides that, West High school had 2,000 students and only a junior and senior class, so I had made it nearly to the top student of my class as salutatorian.  I thought if only Miss Nelson had let me write my own speech and Daddy had attended, I would have said something that made him sit up and take notice.  He thought I had been thoroughly subdued, but he did not know how the many indignities I had suffered throughout my life as his daughter rankled.  I was like a little volcano building steam.  Sooner or later I was going to blow. 
Daddy I could see as soon as I got home to Boulder was mighty harassed with all the work he was having to do with the additional ranch property.  He asked me if I wouldn't go over to Salt Gulch and help out a couple of days  He was still gathering cattle from the winter range in Sand Creek and there were other tasks that needed doing around that ranch.

He had saddled his horse and went out west on the Sand Creek trail to bring a fairly small bunch of cattle home.  Pretty soon he came racing back and said he needed me to go do a cowpunching job for him.  Blackie, the horse his hired man favored, was over there for some reason, so he saddled him for me to ride.  He said that he had to take me out to where he had left three old cows.  As we rode out there to he told me that when he went back to get the last of the cattle he had been gathering yesterday, instead of trailing into the ranch, the three old cows got tired and laid down, and before he could get back out there this morning the other nine head split and went off toward Sand Creek.  He said another cow was probably leading them on a short cut to the mountain.
Cattle don't know they have to come home to get tagged so they will not be trespassed on the mountain range.  They just think get to the mountain anyway they can.  Daddy wanted me to track the runaway cattle up Sand Creek and turn them around and bring them back down the creek.  I was to take the trail back over to where the three old cows were poking along, pick them up, and bring them all home.  He said the old cows would probably still be there when I came back with the runaway cattle. I asked him why he didn't take those cows home with him, and he snapped that he had too much to do on the ranch and didn't have time to trail some old slow cows.
I noticed after he left that Blackie was beginning to act logy.  The hired man preferred to ride him for some reason, and probably had not traded horses enough to give him some good days of rest.  Usually a good cowhand's best horse was never that logy.  I was surprised.
Daddy's horses were usually spirited and fun to ride.  Well, Blackie was so rode out probably from the spring round up on the other ranches in Boulder that a dangerous thing happened.  We came out of Sand Creek up a sandy wallow, and I will be darned if Blackie did not fall down with me.  I felt him falling just in time to pull my feet out of the stirrups.  When he hit the ground I stepped off him.  I thanked God I'd had on my good cowboy boots that kept my foot from going through the stirrup. I always wore them if I had to do any riding. 
This fall was exactly why it was always wise to drive cattle in pairs so if one rider gets hurt, the other one can ride for help.
I shuddered to think what would have happened if I had not been able to jump off in time.  I could have laid out there all day if the horse fell on me before Daddy came to find me.  Somewhat shaken, I mounted Blackie again and kept tracking the runaway cattle.  It seemed like I had to ride quite a ways north to the mountain before I ran into them.  I did not dare push Blackie too hard trying to catch up with them.
Finally I sighted them. I managed to head them off, as they were tired, turned them around and headed them back down the creek.  I was moseying along down Sand Creek thinking how far I was going to have to drive these cattle to get back to the Sand Creek trail. 
I don't know what madness overcame me, but I suddenly decided I would just take this herd of nine animals, including quite a few heifers, up over the top of the long bench next to our ranch.  I figured we were coming onto where it was located, and within a very short time I could have these cattle back to the Salt Gulch ranch.  And I would not have to make that long drive.  Which later I thought showed I was too impatient to be a cowpuncher for life.  I had better find another profession.
Well, the nine head of cattle got rejuvenated with the chance to take off in still another direction, and pretty soon they had run up to the top of the hill which proved to be steeper than I expected.  That's when I noticed that one heifer was lingering behind, completely exhausted.  I had killed a heifer down on King's Bench by pushing her too hard on the trail to Sinking Water when I was twelve.  She fell into a deep canyon.  I sure didn't want to kill another one.  Daddy cussed about that one all the way home.
I jumped off Blackie and leading him, I started pushing that heifer up over the last little incline. She still had enough strength in her and enough fear of me to make it to the top. I mounted Blackie and we crossed the top of the bench quickly, me in a panic wondering where the rest of the cattle had gone.  I finally caught sight of them clear on the other side already tumbling down some steep shale hills that were not meant to be traversed by cattle or horses either.  The trembling heifer went tumbling after the rest of the herd, but I got off and started leading Blackie down the steep shale incline.
Just in time as pretty soon he fell down, too.  Oh my God, if something happened to this trained cow horse as a result of me taking this short cut, I just as well leave home, Daddy would be so mad.
Valuable trained horses regularly got lamed by falling in this rough country.  I held my breath as Blackie got up.  He seemed okay but pretty soon he fell down another steep shale slope!
I was praying by then, "Lord, please don't let anything happen to Blackie, and I will never take a short cut again." 
The sun was just starting to sink behind the western hills when the cattle ended up safe in my father's fields, coming in way to the north.  Well, at least I had saved myself a long cattle drive, and both Blackie and I were okay.
I finally found Daddy and rode up, meaning to tell him about Blackie's first fall, but not about his second or third one.  Once he heard I had found the runaway herd and they were back in his field, he interrupted me and asked if I had picked up the three old cows.
I swear I had forgotten them completely!  "Didn't they come home?" I stammered.
"Course they didn't!" yelled Daddy.  "In fact, as soon as they get rested up, they will head over to Sand Creek to the mountain.  You are going to have to go after them, now!"
Yes, he sent me back out on the Sand Creek Trail after those old cows.  It was almost pitch dark before I found them.  I was just lucky they were still on the trail and not headed for Sand Creek.  I rode along thinking about what an incredibly hard driving dad I had, when a silent dark shadow on horseback joined me.
He never said a word.  We just rode along driving the cows together, like two tired cowpunchers after a long day on the trail. Too tired to talk, but satisfied that another hard day of ranching and punching cows was done.