The lives of descendants of the Californias Cow Counties.

Letters to my Sons.

By Michael Shannon.

My aunt Mickey, God what a woman. She was my grandparents oldest, born in a little yellow house in Arroyo Grande’s Bee Canyon. In 1917 babies were still born at home and for many years that bed was passed around by family members who produced even more babies. But, that’s another story. This story is about my aunt Mariel, bless her heart. She was absolutely one of a kind.

Mariel Hall, Santa Barbara HS class of 1934.

On mom’s side of the family there were several places we would go to visit. She had many uncles and aunts and cousins but our favorite by far was my Uncle Ray and Aunt Mickey’s. They lived in the Fresno county foothills in a little valley called Watt’s.They were mountain people, not necessarily by birth but certainly by inclination. According to my dad my uncle Ray knew the name of every stream in the Sierra and how to get there. He owned a small cattle ranch in the valley on which he and aunt Mickey and their two boys lived. To get there from our house we had to cross the San Joaquin valley on which we as kids measured our progress by the sight of the endless cotton fields of Westlake farms, waiting to see the Pacific Southwest Building in Fresno, the tallest building we had ever seen. We passed by the tomato processing plant where my mom said everything that came out of the fields was mixed to make catsup, even mice. She told that story every time we passed that factory for years. I haven’t cared for catsup since.

Once out of Fresno we continued up into the foothills on winding roads, each more crooked than the last, finally turning off onto a dirt road where we had to open and close three different cattle gates, drive through The creek, splashing water all the way and finally arriving at the gate below the old house. The house was pretty old , built at the turn of the century, but it was big, surrounded by a covered porch as was the custom in the days before air conditioning. If you wanted it cool, Uncle Ray had to drive to Sanger and buy a 50 lb. block of ice, haul it home, put in a washtub covered by a burlap sack and hook up the big electric fan behind it to cool the air. Stacks of kids would lay sprawled before the blessed cool breeze of a July afternoon.

Uncle Ray with his oldest Jughead.

The heat didn’t bother us kids too much, we spent much of the time in the creek anyway. The moms would whip up baloney sandwiches slathered with Mayonnaise and mustard, no lettuce need apply, jammed between two slices of pure white Wonder bread and wrapped in waxed paper. A banana or Orange if they had any though it was more likely Thompson seedless grapes kept cool in the refrigerator. No drinks, there was the creek to drink from. We’d head for the little creek that ran through the ranch and spend the afternoon getting pruned in the water. We had little bathing suits though mom and mariel, for some reason always made do with their underwear. I guess, as oilfield brats and from a far different generation they didn’t put on any airs. They just didn’t fuss with stuff like that.

Gobbling those limp sandwiches, the gentle assault of the scent of mustard and the snap of the cool grape skin as it explode when cracked in your teeth. A ginger snap or vanilla wafer for a treat. A perfect day.

My uncle Ray was a short man, skinny when he was young and had curly black hair. He was 13 years older than my aunt, about 4 inches shorter and 60 pounds lighter. He went to riding horseback when he was four, rode until the day he died, literally. He was so thin and bowlegged that he looked for all the world like a wishbone. He was a horseman, something all us kids knew by instinct, much different than the TV type we regularly saw. He was known amongst his peers as “Powerhouse” for a feat of riding without parallel in the history of the mountain folk. In the morning, after he made breakfast he would walk down the little draw in front of the house to the barn on the other side, saddle his a horse, ride back to the house and tie it to the gatepost, ready if he needed it.

He rolled his own from the bull Durham sack in his pocket filling the paper and rolling his fingers a perfect smoke, using his teeth the pull the little bag closed. He’d wet one end with his lips and fire up a kitchen match with his thumbnail. The smoke smeeled different and pleasing in a way that was nicer than my parent’s tailor mades.

His boots were hand made from a custom last hand stiched and he had the perfect small foot the way he should. Dogging heels gave him a couple inches. The “Black” Levis he wore in the bathtub when they were new, shrink to fit with the cuffs rolled the way they were before there was any choice of inseam. Topped off with a real Stetson custom fitted for town or a formal occasion. He had a straw for summers heat and he wore it all in such a natural way that the care of it all was just about invisible. Vanity didn’t figure into it. He was a man who just was, natural.

Uncle Ray was a cowboy when young, and a rancher till he died. He knew no other life, wanted no other life and as far as I know he was perfectly content. He loved to tease. He had a nickname for everyone. He called my mom “Sis” even though she wasn’t. He called me “Shebang,” my brother Jerry “Jeb,” and my little brother Cayce, “Festus.” His own boys “jughead and “knot head.”  You can figure out which was which.

My aunt Mickey was the funniest woman I ever knew. When I was a boy she was my dream of the perfect aunt. How she loved us. She always wore Ruby red lipstick and when we arrived for a visit she would say, “Come and give your aunt mickey a kiss” scoop us up for a hug and a kiss. She was a full figured woman so it was a little like being smothered in a big feather pillow. She gave us a big old smack which left red lipstick on your mouth and she would threaten you if you tried to wipe it of. We weren’t allowed to wipe off HER kisses. Didn’t want to either, a zero sumbif their ever was one.

L-R Jeb, Sis, Festus, Shebang, Jughead and Knothead. 1953

My folks, my dad’s family were quiet people. Sober, hard-working, Presbyterian. Handshaking was the preferred greeting, you could give my grandmother Annie a kiss on the cheek, but that was it. The were all farmers and were a sober lot, and of course they talked about farming; a lot. And I mean, A LOT. You have no idea how much there is to know about raising Potatoes, Broccoli or Lettuce.

The Long’s though, were yellers. They yelled when they were laughing, they yelled at each other, the dogs, the cows, the pickup, the car, and they yelled about the neighbors, anything really that needed yelling at. No lie either. My aunt’s friend’s Ruby and Frances could hear her clearly and they lived miles away

Their life was a continuous series of catastrophes. The damned pickup had a flat tire, the neighbors bull had jumped the fence, the roof still leaked, the electricity shut off just before company was expected. The pump lost prime, no water, oh God, that heifer was in the garden again; there was always something.

One year we arrived just in time to see my aunt racing across yard chased by the soon to be Christmas turkey. She barely made it to the back porch screen door. She made very good time for a hefty woman. She could really motor.

And that’s the way things were. Life at aunt Mickey’s and uncle Rays was simply chaotic. If dinner was to be at one, we ate at four. If the turkey, the late, great speedster, was ready the potatoes weren’t. Someone had forgotten to buy cranberries and Ray and my dad would head for Hunphrey’s Station, a 15 mile round trip on narrow winding roads, probably as much to escape the chaos as anything. They might even take the whiskey bottle in order to calm down. Kids in the back enjoying the cooling afternoon breeze, pinching and kicking each other just for fun. No fussing parents, “Leave them be, they cant’t hurt each other” mom would say.

After dinner, the dishes washed and put away, the dishes had cattle, lariats and brands on them of course,  the kids were put to bed in various places around the house, stacked on beds, laid in the hall, the lucky ones though,  wrapped in blankets and laid on the living room floor. Now came the exciting part, because we knew the adults would soon be through in the kitchen and would be coming to the front room to visit. This side of the family never wasted time on talk of farming, oh no, they talked about things we never learned in school and were certainly never discussed at our kitchen table. The whiskey bottle went around and though we struggled to stay awake we finally drifted off with tales of whose son had gotten drunk and put the car in a ditch, who was having an operation and why, the brutal details, heard from Frances McMurtrey, who heard it from Ruby Glass about so and so’s daughter.

Uncle Ray on Charm, my aunt Patsy’s horse.

What fun for boys, and we never wanted those visits to end. But they did end and those happy days are but a memory now. Most of the folks have long since gone to their reward and I miss them more than you can know.

When we were little, when we said a naughty word, my mother gave us “heart medicine.” One time when we were leaving “Watts Valley,” on the long road home my brother Jerry said, “Mom, I bet Uncle Ray sure has to take a lot of heart medicine,” she didn’t say anything for a long while, then she simply said, “Honey, your uncle Ray is the salt of the earth.”

I didn’t know what she meant then, but I do now. The Salt of the Earth, and they all were. They might have been a little rough, but they were honest, faithful, hard workers, honorable to a fault. They were the backbone of America. Their yes was yes, there no was no, they settled a deal with a handshake, they were loyal to their families beyond measure. They had a lot to teach us growing up and we had a lot to learn, some time I wish I had paid more attention.

Michael Shannon, “Shebang” along with the rest of his family loved Aunt Mickey and Uncle Ray beyond measure. He’s not likely to ever see their kind again. That is a sad thing.

Note: Scott Long is a grandson of Ray and Mariel an cowboys in the foothills of the Sierra just like his grandfather Ray.

Ray and Mariels grandson Scott who’s a real chip off the block.