Where did your father grow up? My dad,
Joseph "Joe" Ray Carlson, Sr. was born in Declo, Idaho (Cassia County)
but soon they moved back to Pleasant Grove, Utah where his dad's folks
were. He grew up there and started high school there. He was a good
basketball player and made their varsity basketball team. They then
moved to Albion in either his junior or senior year shortly after school
had started. He wanted to be on their basketball team but they had
already given out all of their new varsity jerseys, so he got a
different “older one”. After the first game, he played so
well that the coach got him a new jersey to wear. His coach also
offered to help him get a scholarship to Univ. of Idaho to play
basketball. Mom was the cheerleader for Albion high school at this time
so maybe that is why he played so well and hard.
Do you know any stories about him as a boy?
In high school he was one of the only boys to have a Model T. (or Model
A) with a rumble seat in the rear. Mom thought his car really looked
nice. During the year of the Depression, that she had to stay home in
Almo, dad would periodically drive over to see her (remember they did
not have phones that he could call her easily on). She said it was
always a surprise and that she usually had been eating onions and
worried about her breath, but he kept coming back.
What did your father do to earn a living?
My father was both a farmer and a rancher. His heart was in that of
being a rancher and cowboy, but he needed to farm in order to have an
income that was solid. They started with the home ranch/farm, then
added the Mooseo place down north east of the home place where Marsh
Creek runs through it, then the Engle King place about 140 acres, then
he bought the farm area that Charlie Clay had. In the end he had about
1,000 acres of land, 150 cattle, and 15 horses. He also had a horse
barn, cow barn, a couple of sheds and all of the farm equipment such as
tractors, bull dozer, combine, plows, hay mowers, balers, grain truck
(also served as his horse and cattle truck).
Did you ever visit him at work? Did he like his job?
I was always around somewhere and saw him doing most things. When I
was quite young, I would accompany him riding for cattle on the East
Mountains where they grazed on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management)
during the summers. I started off on my white with brown spots -
Shetland Pony "Sugar", which my folks bought for me when I was first
born along with my saddle, and graduated up to my Quarter horse,
Rocketta and then Blaze. The sad thing was that I never knew how good I
had it. I was always wishing I had an Army Jeep or Flying carpet to
ride in/on while riding for cattle. I was born with a severe case of
"hay fever" that could turn into asthmatic breathing if I was around
grain dust or alfalfa hay. Thus, I was not much help to dad in these
areas. When I was around grain dust, within 1 min. I was starting to
wheeeze and my eyes itching and turning red, and swelling shut. My
folks had tried everything to help me and took me to a doctor in Salt
Lake. No luck. Finally, I started taking weekly shots for about 2-3
years and it subsided, as long as I stayed away from the above mentioned
items. My folks had hoped that I would take over the ranch/farm but
with all of the allergies and my intense desire to join the army, it was
not what I wanted to do.
My dad "Loved" ranching and being a cowboy
and he was an excellent roper and cow cutter, I think he enjoyed being
a farmer also but not as well as being a rancher. He was quite
allergic to "wild for grass hay" but not the rest. I spent a lot of
time with him irrigating our crops, cleaning barns, watering horses,
feeding calves, digging post holes and fixing fences, driving trucks or
tractors, doing most of the weeding of the grain fields with the big
John Deere 4010 tractor (had power steering, but no canopy or cover).
He never did teach me to drive the caterpillar with dozer on it. Note:
Pam and I made a special photo book of my life with my dad, I hope you
enjoy it.
Did he like to fish or hunt? Dad loved
to hunt deer and elk. He had tried different rifles, but finally
decided he like the Savage 308 cal. lever action carbine the best. He
has killed many a deer with that rifle, many at Joe Brim in Albion just
west of the “I” on the mountain. He also killed an elk and had its
head mounted and placed in our basement near the pool/billiard table.
It was a very big elk. He fished occasionally with me in our lower
field, Marsh Creek, but was not an avid fisherman, he said he did not
have the patience for it.
Did he make things with his hands or fix things around the house?
Dad did most of the repair work on our machinery, barns and fences,
however, he never did like to do the fixing up of things like his dad
did. He also never liked working on cars. Thus neither do I work on
cars.
What is something you remember him teaching you?
He taught me many things most of which I cannot even remember, but the
ones I do remember are: how to work hard, how to drive, how to shoot,
how to clean guns, how to sharpen knives, how to make whistles out of
willows, how to whistle, how to ride, take care of horses, saddles, and
farm equipment. He also spent a lot of time playing pool/billiards with
me, playing basketball (he even made me a large cement basketball
court), he taught me when I begged to stay up later at nights, "if I was
old enough to stay up late, then I was old enough to get up early and
work through the day without complaint." this saying has really
influenced my life. He also taught me and liked to play checkers with
me (he was not interested in chess).
What quality of character do you think your father most wanted you to have?
I think the main thing my father wanted me to do was to finish high
school since he didn't. He told me that I would finish high school
even if he had to come up and sit on the steps every day until it was
over. I knew he would do it too. He said he wanted a better life
for me. He also didn't want me to smoke, even when I was little, he
said "you never have to go out with the other boys and hide and try
smoking.” “If you want to learn to smoke, he would go and buy a pack of
cigarettes and we would sit down together to learn how." I have never
tried smoking. Dad also wanted me to be an excellent basketball
player like he was. I tried quite hard and was pretty good at it from
grade school through my junior year of high school. During my freshman
and sophomore years on the Junior Varsity team I was usually one of the
high point scorers. I had played football my freshman through junior
years of high school, but decided that I did not want to play my Sr.
Year. That made the football/basketball coach VERY mad at me.
Previously he was mad at my dad, because the coach was also a used car
salesman who came up to our ranch and tried to sell my dad a car for
me. Dad didn't buy one, and after that I sat on the bench a lot. Thus
in my senior year in high school I was on the varsity basketball team,
and on our first game, I sat out the first 3 quarters of the game and
never got to play with others being rotated in that were far worse than
me. I saw the writing on the wall, and was very embarrassed about not
being allowed to play. During the 4th quarter, I got up and
walked out of the game and turned my uniform in. The coach's name was
Keith Wilson. As a result of this, I have always been careful to put
our children in sports where they can excel on their own merits rather
than the whims of a coach. On our first child, JR, we put him in
T-ball, he made every practice but when it came to the games, he sat on
the bench 90% of the time. That was the end of those types of sports
for most all of our children unless they could talk me into me letting
them do it, which was rare. However, also as a result: JR, Jared, and
Kathryn were top runners in high school and all made it to the State
meets and won many of them. Shandy and Kathryn excelled in music. And
ALL of them excelled in high grades in school!
What did you admire in him? He really
cared about other people. When one of our neighbors got sick, (one in
particular - Clyde Goodman), dad went over there to help harvest his
crops before he harvested our crops. He worked way into the nights, to
help get it done. I was young and mom would talk to me about it, as to
why dad was not home yet. She was very proud of him and so am I. He
may not have been as regular going to church, but when it came to
charity for his fellow man, he was always there. I have known of a
number of times, other people have come to him for monetary help and he
helped them.
What is a favorite memory of him? There
are too many to recount all here, but a couple are: I really liked
going deer hunting with him usually on the East Mountains, but sometimes
on Mt. Harrison. Once we went up Howell Canyon and stayed in the old
Boy Scout cabin at the foot of the old/original ski lift (not the new
one at Pomerelle). During the night he got a tooth ache, but he stayed
half of the next day, just so I could go "hunting" with him. I was too
young to carry a gun. He went to the Dentist that
afternoon.
The other memory that comes to mind, I was
11 years old and really wanted to have a motorcycle. Mom said I was too
young (I had to be 16 to have a driver’s license), but dad and I went to
town by ourselves for some other farm products. I talked him into
going over and "just look at the motorcycles". After looking and test
riding one of them, he bought me a 55cc Yamaguchi motorcycle. Mom was
not very happy when we got home, but I WAS VERY VERY HAPPY! I was
supposed to only ride it around on the ranch, but occasionally I rode it
into town and on all of the mountains around us.
What would you like your posterity to know about him?
My dad, was one of the last of the "real cowboys” of that last
generation. As a young boy, he had tried roping a wild horse upon the
East Mountains out of Albion. He missed, so he tried roping a fence
post and caught it, he wrapped the rope around the horn of his saddle
and started backing up and his old saddle started tearing apart. He
told me that if he had caught that wild horse, he probably wouldn't have
made it because of his saddle. He got a new saddle after that. At
branding time he was usually the cowboy roping off of his horse most of
his life, he was an excellent
roper.
When dad was a young man he wanted to buy a
rifle. He went down to Burley to buy one and found a good one. He
didn't have all the money it took to buy it, so he asked the owner if he
could pay some money down to hold it and he would come in monthly to
pay more on it before he took it. The owner asked him if "Ray Carlson"
was his dad, he said he was. The owner then said, “if you are
anything like your dad you are a man of your word. I will trust you to
pay me and you can take the rifle now.” Dad paid him all the money
back. I have always tried to live my life so that my dad would be
proud of me, and that my own children will have a father with a "good"
reputation. My dad always had a great reputation and I hope to also.
The bottom line was that he always loved and was proud of me!
No comments:
Post a Comment