Great Grandpa's Dream

Zeb Engstrom,Chester High School

"It's six o'clock! Time to get up!" my dad yells from the living room. We need to fix a few miles of fence today and we need to get started as soon as possible. I crawl out of bed and throw on work clothes. I can barely walk to the kitchen were Cap'n Crunch is waiting for me. "As soon as you're done eating get your butt out to the shop so we can leave," my dad says. Finally I put my boots on and eventually make it out to the shop. We load the supplies and take off.

Along the way to the fence, my dad tells stories of him and my great grandpa and how they used to fix fence together all day long. We get to the job at 6:45 and I think to myself that I would rather be in bed, but I'm not.

We start to fix fence and my dad's stories get me thinking about my grandpa moving up here in 1902. There wasn't any fence post sticking in the ground All the land was naked. My grandpa and his hired hands put in this long stretch of fence. They drove every post and each staple by hand, and he had to haul all the wire and posts to the area on horse back.

As I set a new corner post, I pull out the one that was probably put in place by my great grandpa. He had to dig this huge hole in the hard prairie, and I picture him stretching the wire with a fencing jack, wrapping it tight around the corner.

The farther we move down the stretch of old, worn-out fence, the more real the memories and thoughts of my great grandpa seem. I imagine him riding up into the Hills on horseback, cutting posts by hand to use in the fence. As I work the hot sun blazes down on my arms and neck, and blisters start to form on my hands. I feel old calluses rubbing off as new ones form.

A bead of sweat runs off my head. For a moment I wonder why I'm doing this, but I've been taught that it takes a special kind of a man to do this work. As I swing my hammer, I feel my great grandpa next to me. I feel that God put me on this world to work with my hands and to follow in my great grandpa's footsteps.

When we finally stop for lunch, we walk by the old calving shed and the cabin where the hired hands stayed through the winters. I notice for the first time that the tin siding on the shed is made partly with heavy-duty tin but that a bit of it is sided with a lighter material. I ask my dad why this was, and he said that grandpa ran out of money, so he had to buy the cheaper materials to get it ready before winter.

I studied the building more closely, the barrier of time between me and the man who built it thinning and shimmering in the summer heat. I walked over to the cabin where the hired hands stayed. As I walk in the front door, I can almost feel the old hired hands sitting around the stove telling jokes and stories, and the air smells faintly of the soup that boiled on the stove. I see the table where they used to eat their meals and the beds they slept in.

As I turn to leave, I stumble over an old leather cowboy boot. The wind, the water, and the sun have faded it to a pale, grayish color and the heel is worn down to the nails. I come out of my trance. Everything seemed to shift. Now I see the stove had been knocked over and the table had been broken into many pieces. All that remained of the beds where the old box springs. It would have been hard, living here all winter.

After lunch we went back to fixing fence. Dad told more stories about grandpa and how and why he came here. I thought about my grandpa's life and how much easier we have it compared to back then.

It was on that day that I stopped complaining about fixing fence or building buildings. I know how much easier it is for us to do things with our new technology and machinery than it was for those who lived in my grandpa's time, and I don't take things like that for granted.

Without my grandpa's work and my dad's work, my life would be a lot harder.

Paper, Plastic, or Box?

Andrea Novak, Chester Public Schools

Traveling along Highway Two near Montana's northern border on a cold winter night, it is hard not to feel lonely. But finally the winding road rounds a corner and the lights of a small town come into view. One set of white lights is brighter than all the others. The huge, glaring white lights might make one think of a UFO landing strip but they mark a second home to me. They belong to my family's grocery store.

I don't stop there tonight, though, because my father is at home. When I come in the door, I see his Rockport shoes tossed on the white carpet. A sock trail leads to the old, over-stuffed, yellow chair where he lounges

"How was the store today?" I've asked this question since before I really understood what I was asking, but was merely repeating a question I'd heard thousands of times before.

My father, Mike, and mother, Margaret, moved to Chester, Montana on June 18, 1979, exactly three years before my birth. On July 1, 1979, my dad and mom took over ownership of County Fair IGA, one of the local grocery stores. He then changed the name to Mike's IGA.

Looking through family pictures, I come across snapshots of my brother and me at the store wearing some sort of costume for one of the "Spectaculars" that the store puts on for promotions. One of the earliest photos was taken when I was six months old, wearing a checkered bonnet and dress for a western theme. When I was four I walked around in a German costume passing out apples during our community Harvest Festival. I remember the smiling faces and my little girl delight at being special enough to walk in a parade.

After a long day at work my father would sometimes bring home large, cardboard packing boxes. My brother and I would take them to the freshly-cut grass in our backyard and imagine away the evening and the many afternoons that followed. Sometimes we would play store-a place we already knew much about-but we did not yet quite grasp how closely intertwined with our lives that game was.

Now that I am sixteen, I spend more time with my father than I ever have. Every day during the summer he teaches me something new: how to deal with a difficult customer or how to put the correct amount of lettuce on a Subway sandwich. I look up at his bald head, his droopy, twinkling eyes, and feel happy. He has given all his time to this store to make a better life for our family, and now I can help with my own contributions.

Through the years my parents have remodeled and improved the business many times, adding new tills or more floor space. In 1995, they build on to the building.

In a town with only a thousand people, it can be hard to make a living, especially when the population is decreasing. My dad realized that something had to be done to draw more business, so he did market research. Because the store is on U.S. Highway Two, he hoped that tourists taking the scenic route to Glacier Park would find a store with clean bathrooms and a Subway sandwich franchise appealing.

This new, improved store is now the stop for all traveling sports teams on the Hi-Line. Basketball, volleyball, track, and tennis teams--even music groups--stop at the store. On Friday and Saturday nights after home basketball or volleyball games, my eighteen-year-

old brother and I go to the store and help out at Subway. It's not a question of if we should go help, but of how quickly we can get there.

As a young child I remember crawling onto the yellow counter helping the checker check out the groceries, hearing the beep and then the rattle of the till and the gossip between the red, IGA-smocked lady and the customer who always seemed to be her best friend. Sometimes, I would help the meat cutter cut the meat. The large cooler stood in the wall, strange and a little scary. I often thought about going into its meat-lined depths, but then thought better of it, too afraid of somehow getting stuck in there.

When I tired of exploring the rest of the store I'd always retreat to the "tree house," my mother's office, so named because it has steps up to it and is held up by large four-by-fours to save floor space. By the age of four I would sit at the extra computer desk and clutching a chubby crayon dutifully "work" alongside my mother.

These memories will forever be with me. The store has always been friendly place to go, a place where I would meet smiling faces before I knew their names. Now, when I work at the Subway or help box groceries, I know do know their names. I not only know their name, I like them.

After school my friends and I jump into my brother's two-toned 1979 Chevy Impala and chug up the long hill on Highway Two to what the town now refers to as "the Landing Strip," the store parking lot with its huge sign and gas pump islands. I walk into the store--the smell of baking bread fills my nostrils, the hum of the flourescent lights fills my ears, and I greet my favorite co-worker, Rhonda.

Rhonda has worked at the store since before I was born, along with my uncle and countless others. She was one of many people who played with me, scolded me when I got into something I wasn't supposed to, and taught me how to do things, such as make pizzas, ring up groceries, smile at customers and ask politely, "Would you like paper, plastic, or box?" In a way they were part of my family, along with every person that walked through the door.

Now I work alongside these same people. It feels odd at times, but I realize that I am growing too, just like the store has grown to meet the town's needs. The store is a center of life for the town. It is where kids go to hang out after games, where friends catch up after church on Sundays.

Some might think it odd to love a place that is built out of bricks, that holds annoying fluorescent lights, and which on occasion ruins fun activities planned with friends, but I love being at the store. On a bad day, one where teachers pile on the homework, coaches run the team extra hard, and friends don't see eye-to-eye, all I have to do is walk into the double-door entryway, see the first person in red and say, "Hey, how's it going?"

I am fortunate to meet and work with the individuals that make up our town. My family is there: the employees, my parents, the customers, and my friends. I'm home.

Where I Learned What It Meant

by Megan Mattson

As I grind the truck's gears into first with the sun glaring into my eyes, I slowly drive the truck up our family's elevator ramp. Looking both ways, I make sure the mirrors aren't about to hit the walls and be torn off.

"I'm finally in," I say under my breath with a sigh of relief. "Up," yells the tired elevator worker. Trying to remember the exact order my dad taught me, I push in the clutch, put the stick shift in neutral, and begin to pull out the PTO. As I carefully let out the clutch, I hear the sound of the box lifting and grain pouring onto the grates; I can finally breathe.

At a young age I learned jobs aren't always fun, and in order to make a job fun one needs to create her own excitement. Farming jobs are some of the worst and need the most imagination to be bearable. Driving truck and working in an elevator are just a couple of those terrible, frustrating jobs.

As a young girl I loved to ride grain trucks to and from the fields and into our elevator. Eagerly, I would jump out of the passenger seat and run to the back of the truck. I can still hear my dad yelling, "Get out of the way--be careful--what if that box were to fall down?" Once the tail gate to the truck was opened I couldn't wait to run my hands through the warm grain. The dust, the chaff, and the coughing never seemed to bother me. I even thought the one-legged grasshoppers were neat back then.

I always wanted to help the elevator workers, testing the moisture, weighing the grain, or writing the truck load down. But somehow I would always mess it up. They repeatedly told me to leave things alone, but I never listened.

My brother had to start driving trucks long before I did. He never knew exactly what he was doing back then; he could hardly even see over the steering wheel. When he heard the worker yell "Up", he lifted the hoist, when he heard, "Down", he lowered the box and drive out. One steamy, hot day, the sweaty and exhausted worker forgot to tell him, "Down," and he drove right on out the door tearing the elevator wall off with him. My dad was up until 2:00 in the morning repairing the elevator so we could use it the next day. My brother has never been able to live this one down. Every time he enters the elevator he is able to see the obvious contrast between the brand new wood and the older weathered wood.

In 1953, my grandpa purchased the lumber necessary to build the elevator. Unfortunately, grandpa's crop was hailed out that year and he couldn't afford to start the project. Finally, in 1954 the construction began. My grandpa and my uncles dug the floor and poured the concrete. They built the first 3 or 4 feet themselves then decided it was too difficult to finish by themselves. Grandpa hired a crew from Conrad to help. Each member of the crew was required to pound 1 keg of nails a day.

The elevator was finished in 1955 and stands 70 feet tall. One of very few elevators north of Chester, it is a regional landmark It stores 20,000 bushels. The leg transports grain to individual bins at 1,200 bushels a hour. The elevator has enabled my dad to blend wheats of different moistures and proteins to prevents wheat from spoiling or to bring more dollars per bushel at the marketplace.

My dad was only three or four years old when his father began building the elevator. He said he was a terrible nuisance and always got in the way. Soon, my grandparents told him he was to never enter the elevator unless they were with him. When my Dad was growing up, his parents would hide his birthday presents inside of the elevator's leg, thinking it was a safe spot. Eventually Dad found the hiding spot and would sneak a peek every year.

Late one summer night after the last truck was unloaded and the elevator worker had just swept the grain into a pile, a friend of mine wanted to take our old go-cart for a spin. Now this wasn't just any ordinary go-cart--it hadn't moved an inch since my dad was a kid. It had a wooden frame, a few chintzy pipes and four flat tires. My friend tied a rope from our 4-wheeler to the go-cart and told me to hop in. He pulled me around the farm, hitting all the bumps. Then, drove the 4-wheeler, pulling me and the go-cart, right through the elevator, up and over the piles.

As we drove through the piles, wheat sprayed all over the elevator and the elevator worker began cussing and screaming. We kept driving until the worker took after us with a broom, and chasing and swatting. We thought it was funny, at first.

But I'm older now, and now my driving isn't just a silly joke. It's something that matters.

I've found other ways to have fun. The elevator wasn't just a place for fun and games, nor just a place to store those hard, gold, stinky, football shaped pebbles that cause sneezing and allergies. I've become aware that those pebbles consume every ounce of my parents' time. Every day they stare at the crops, and many nights they are restless, worried and frustrated. When I was young I never knew why they did what they did, or even what those pebbles meant. After spending time doing real work in the elevator, I learned why my parents worried. Those golden pebbles weren't just pebbles. They were our family's source of income. They were what decided whether we would live comfortably for the next year.

The elevator is the place where I learned what farming was actually about, and why it was so important to my family. I still try to have fun in my mind while I'm working, but I never really forget the seriousness of what we are doing. That is a lesson that has shaped who I am today, and who I will be in the future.

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