In the Memory of Grandpa Gill

As I close my eyes in this modern time of terrorism and suicide bombers, I go back in time to a place that wasn’t as complicated or as stressful. I open my eyes to a lush green pasture filled with tan and white Hereford cows. I can smell the sweat Ponderosa pines that I am sitting amongst. Suddenly breaking the silence I hear Grandpa Gill hollering, “ Jimmy it’s time to eat.” So I get up and start running down the hill though the pasture to the road that leads to the farmhouse. I meet up with Grandpa, looking up at him I can see a tall, strong, muscular man wearing a ratty old cowboy hat and cat eyeglasses.

My Grand father, Gill, wasn’t a perfect man he drank, smoked, and had a huge temper. He always had a soft spot for me because he knew that I had a terrible start in life. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. Farm work is a full-time job, and as he got old he relied on me more and more. I spent most of my summer vacations up in the Bull Mountains working on the ranch.

We have shared many experiences with each other. The experience that I remember the most vividly is during the summer of 1982. Montana had the worst drought in history. Grandpa and I were picking up bails of hay with my Uncle John, who was the sheriff of Mussleshell County.

We were in a hurry because the hot crackling flames from the forest fire were just in back of the ridge that bordered the field we were in. My Grandpa was driving the old Ford Pickup and my Uncle was tossing the bails up to me. The truck was almost full when my Uncle threw me the last bail of hay. When I grabbed the bail strings, I looked down and noticed that I had also grabbed part of a rattlesnakes head. The rattlesnake’s fangs were stuck in my leather glove. This scared the hell out of me! I jumped back shaking my hand violently inadvertently falling in between the cracks of the top bails of hay. This split the load in half and bails of hay bails flew everywhere.

During this time the wind picked up and blew the fire to the tops of the trees about hundred yards from us. This didn’t give us much time to salvage the rest of the load, so we got out of that inferno just time. I looked back in the side mirror to see our hard work go up in flames. My grandpa cussed at me all the way home, but I didn’t care because we made it out of there alive.

Rigorously time marches on with no mercy to the human soul. My Grandpa’s countless hours of rolling his sweat smelling Bull Drum Tobacco in the smoke filled C. B. radio room was lost in vain. He was diagnosed with Emphysema in the late winter of 1991, the doctors gave him less than a year to live.
On my visits to see him in those last days, I would sneak him cigarettes out in the shop, for this was the only place Grandma was not allowed. As we walk from the house to the shop I had suddenly notice how old and decrypted he looked. He was using his O.2 stroller as a walker making every gasp of air count. To make me not feel guilty about giving him cigarettes, he told me smoking was one of the last pleasures he enjoyed. He had already accepted his own death.

On leaving that day, I gave my grandma a kiss and said good-bye to grandpa as they stood in the middle of the dusty driveway between the house and the shop. Driving away I took my last glance at them in the rear view mirror as they faded in to the dust cloud, not knowing it would be my last time.