"Get Grandpa Off The Thunder Mug": Chapter IV

A Nodding Acquaintance

They were moving a clutter of boards and ends of timbers. Seth E. "Tank" Tankersley, a veteran miner, and John Wardell, his young partner, were preparing to double-jack a few short holes in a timber station of (9) level, Amethyst Mine, where the last round in squaring the station a few years previous to this day had exposed some white quartz. This had caught the eye of I. D. Crawford, the superintendent, so he assigned Tank and John to open it up a little more to see if it was a blossom or a parallel vein to the ore they were presently working.

Quarters were tight and Tank was squirming around to get in position to hold the drill steel with John wielding the double-jack. Tank gripped the steel with both hands and steadied the cutting edge where the first hole would go as John measured the length of his swing and asked Tank if he was ready.

Tank warned him, "Wait 'til I get my shoulder out of the way and when I nod my head, hit it." Tank nodded his head and John hit it. Right between his eyes on the back swing. As Tank was laying on his back in sawdust he groaned, "Gawdammit, I meant for you to hit the steel." With a knot fast growing on his forehead they tried for better communication.

Seth E. "Tank" Tankersley is documented elsewhere on this site under the key "seth-e-tankersley"; "Echoes from the Thundermug" gives conflicting first names for him in different places, a discrepancy already noted on that entry.

Pug Loses Directions

Our transportation was a 1952 Ford pickup with benches in the rear and a plywood topper, to protect us from the elements, driven by Art Davis, Foreman. Art was first out when we reached the mine and waited to see that he had all his crew. Red Johnson was the last one off the tailgate and struggled around to where he faced Art.

"God a'mighty, Red, you look like you got hit by a truck then drug through a knothole backwards. What in hell happened to you? he asked.

Red grinned as he tipped his head backwards to look at Art from swollen eyes and answered, "I'll never believe Pug Sutherland again, he told me he was going to whip my ass then he hit me square in the face."

This is the same exchange between Melvin "Red" Johnson, Art Davis and Pug Sutherland told in "Echoes from the Thundermug," in "Of Hell Cats and She Ghosts," which calls Art Davis "Superintendent" where this book calls him "Foreman" and adds the detail of a "1952 Ford pickup." This Art Davis is, per family knowledge, documented on this site under the key "art-davis-superintendent" and is not related to Arthur M. Davis, John's uncle, named elsewhere in this book.

Donald Pioneers a Freeway

I had a friend who left us many years ago leaving a void still unfilled. The little fellow loved people of all ages and all sizes, spoke kindly of all and had a wonderful outlook on life. His classroom education was cut short, but his knowledge of just plain living was equal to any person's and he harbored a humor that put him neck and shoulders above the rest of us.

We chummed around as kids, had a chance meeting in Germany when we were soldiers and we worked together in hard rock mines after the war. Donald wasn't as strong or as fast as other miners, but he had a high regard for life and he was careful.

We were retimbering a raise, on contract, between two levels in a silver mine. I chose to work from the top down for reasons of safety. We had progressed to near a mid-point and I was on a narrow platform under a wooden slide, guiding wide plank, that Donald was lowering with a tugger, (small air host). The plank was secured with chain from cable utilizing a grab hook followed by a half hitch. This method had worked well with dry boards but the load we had just received had been in snow for weeks outside the portal. It was wet and it was heavy.

I could hear the exhaust of the hoist and knew a load was on the way. I sensed a different sound with vibration of the slide indicating all was not well above. There was only a split second to get out of the way and the only safe spot was a narrow gap between the slide and the footwall. I squeezed into it with one foot still exposed when the plank thundered by, blasted my platform into small pieces and slammed the exposed foot against a timber.

Donald saw slack in the cable and knew he had lost the plank. He well knew the consequences and started down the ladder immediately to check on me. I was trying to work my way from the crevice to a sturdy timber away from the gaping hole with little to steady hands or feet when I heard him yelling, "Johnny, Johnny, are you okay?" I turned off my light.

My partner reached a landing just above me where he could shine his light downward and saw nothing but empty space where the platform had been.

"Oh, my God!" he moaned, "Oh my God, what have I done?"

I turned my light on and lifted myself to the landing. The relief in his eyes turned to tears as be grabbed me in a bear hug. He let loose and shook me.

"You beautiful son-of-a-bitch, don't you ever scare me that way again!"

I wanted to tell him that I was a little scared too.

We finished the job with no more mishaps and he became my motorman as I was driving a drift on rich ore. Donald had to miss a shift to have a tooth pulled in Del Norte, 3 miles from Creede. We hadn't had a dentist in Creede since the '30s and, even then, nearly everyone drove to Del Norte or Monte Vista for dental work as it was hard to find our resident dentist sober.

On this trip Donald's respect for the lives of other people earned him a three day visit in the Rio Grande County Jail complete with bed and board. After the tooth was extracted he visited around with relatives and friends, had a drink here and there and then bought a bottle as the pain was becoming pretty severe. As he started for home he realized his condition had deteriorated to a point he was not safe on the road. He also knew his wife would be mad as hell if he wasn't home in short order.

Just out of town limits he turned into the barrow ditch and began driving along the right side of the highway. A slow journey to be sure, but he wasn't placing anyone at risk as he dodged rocks and debris well off the pavement. Donald thought he would make it in spite of a few obstacles ahead such as a bridge until he came to a washout from a culvert and the car high-centered. With that he turned off the ignition, curled up on the seat and went to sleep.

A Courtesy Patrolman, on his return from a swing upriver, spotted Donald's car and stopped to give assistance. He opened the door on the passenger side and gently aroused my friend.

"Are you the driver of this vehicle?" he asked.

Donald tried to focus his eyes and exclaimed, "Of course I'm the driver, do you think I'd be riding with someone as drunk as me?"

The case was closed. As I remember, John Vess was the patrolman and I would wager he has laughed as many times, in remembrance, as I.

"Barrow ditch" and "aroused" (for "roused") are printed as shown. Donald is given no surname here. The same circumstance -- driving home from Del Norte too drunk to be safe and pulled over by a patrolman -- is told of a "Donald" in "Echoes from the Thundermug," "Sweet Beetles," already identified there, per family knowledge, as this site's Donald Powell; the identification is offered here as likely, not confirmed.

Titus Takes the Hippocratic Oath (or curse)

My underground mining career was nearing an end in 1974 when I fell on snow covered ice and injured my left knee. The temperature was 30° below zero, a powerful opiate, so the harsher effects of the fall didn't hit me until I thawed out at home. Inez was in California visiting relatives, a sink full of dishes awaited my attention, and the bed hadn't been made for a week.

First thing I had to do was get my boots and trousers off to expose the knee that was now throbbing like a steam engine at full power. There was a visible bruise and before I had my shower the bursa had swelled to goose egg size. After the next day's labors the swelling was even worse, well matched by the pain. Fortified with a couple of drinks I honed a blade of my pocket knife to a razor sharp edge, cut off a portion of a plastic tube used to put water or acid in lamp batteries, and went to work on the bursa.

My Grandfather had taught me the basics of medicine early in life. Iodine or turpentine for any ailment on the outside, and mixture of coal oil and sugar or Bill Tingley's distilled spirits for any discomfort on the inside.

I dipped both blade and plastic tube in iodine, punched through the skin to the bursa, and followed with the plastic tube to drain the sac. Relief was instantaneous. For three evenings, after work, I performed surgery on the lame knee. I left work early on the fourth day, bathed and placed the leg straight out on a kitchen chair contemplating another round with the knife and tube when in walked a specialist to take care of everything.

Titus floated around the room a couple of times before banking left to settle in an easy chair with his burden, a grocery sack containing his medical equipment. His eyes looked like hen droppings in bloody milk as he surveyed my outstretched leg with a grapefruit for a knee-cap. During my limited acquaintance with Titus I learned you don't speak until you are sure he is really with you. He sometimes has out of body experiences where the flesh is where you can touch it, but his other self could be floating overhead or miles away.

I was relieved when he spoke though I wasn't sure where, or if, his eyes were focused. When the pupils dilate to the size you can look down them like the barrels of a 10 gauge shot gun it fosters a little doubt. But, what the hell, obviously he was here to help me and, from the looks of the knee with red streaks running all directions, I needed more help than I was getting from turpentine and iodine.

"Tim told me you were having some problems with your knee" he began, "so I thought I'd better drop by and see if I can make you feel better."

By God, I already felt better, just knowing he had his physical self and traveling soul connected bolstered my spirits. The trouble with doctors is you have to go through a ritual of giving information, examinations and probing before getting to the nub of the situation. Not so with Titus. His bloody eyeballs orbited the ailing knee without the faintest movement of his head, relayed the information to his central computer, which rolled the diagnosis and treatment across his tongue like a high speed printing press.

With the professional scan out of the way he pulled a bamboo tube from the sack equipped with a mouthpiece on one end, a half inch copper tubing nut bonded in a hole in the side and the bottom plugged off. I developed a mental picture of Haitian natives clustered around a body on a reed mat. In the dim light I could see Titus dancing around making weird noises with his flute as he sprinkled magic potions from little leather bags on the patient. His rustling of the grocery sack brought me back the present. He had the magic potion, but it was in a sandwich bag. Next he meted out a half teaspoon of a greenish substance and tamped it in the copper fitting with his left forefinger.

I had never seen anyone so exacting about dosage, not a dribble fell to the floor and I had no doubt it was measured to the very milligram. My personal assessment of Titus's talents grew with each movement of preparation. I relaxed fully, certain I was in competent hands. No more psyching up for the knife and tube work, Titus had landed and the situation was well in hand.

"Okay, are you ready?" He needed no answer and continued, "Take the Bong in both hands and when I light the Mary Jane draw in all the smoke you can with one breath and hold it as long as you can."

As Titus breast stroked through the breakers to another world I hobbled around gathering up the debris left in his hasty departure and placed a call to Dr. S. Tisdal Jones. Sometimes you have to settle for a General Practitioner.

The contents page omits the parenthetical "(or curse)" carried in the body heading, given here. The story's description of "Haitian natives" and "magic potions" trades in a broad, dated stereotype of Haitian Vodou; it is kept as printed because it is John's own writing, not because this site endorses the comparison. This is a variant of "Jackson's Stab at Home Surgery Goes Up in Smoke" in "Echoes from the Thundermug," told there with "Granddad Lane" where this book has "My Grandfather," the fall placed at the "Commodore 5 tunnel" rather than dated to 1974, and "fortified with juniper-berry extract and quinine tonic" where this book has "fortified with a couple of drinks"; both name Dr. S. Tisdal Jones and both name Tim.

Banjo Eyed Crazy and Company Unincorporated

While working with an exploration company I was prospecting a mineralized area in Colorado and ran into an old codger living in a two room cabin of 1890s vintage which rested, unconformably, on the east bank of a narrow draw.

Grover enjoyed the luxury of electricity, but his spring had dried up years before forcing him to travel two miles for water which he stored in various containers on the porch. His bathing depended on rain storms when he would stand outside in a miner's hat and scrub everything down from the brim. I like the old bugger the instant we met. He was a large man with a neatly trimmed beard and callused hands that gripped a hard back book or shovel handle equally well. He exuded an air of confidence and well being that made me comfortable in his presence. For the first five minutes or so.

We settled into conversation, me listening and Grover talking over a cup of coffee he finally remembered to pour after carrying the pot from the stove to his chair several times. He went from topic to topic in an unending stream of words that stopped a paragraph or two short of finishing an account before pausing to tell of a miner who lived in the same cabin.

"He went crazy, you know, living alone too long in these mountains will drive you crazy." I was beginning to think Grover had lived alone, too long, in that cabin. A mouse scurried from a clutter of boxes and papers at the foot of his bed, vaulted a baited trap, and squatted under the stove where only it's nose, twitching and smelling, was visible as it waited for crumbs to drop. Grover failed to notice the mouse as he had reached one of his favorite topics.

"The only trouble with politicians," he mused, "is they like to get in public office...if we could keep them from getting elected I believe they could be rehabilitated...those liberals like to help the down trodden and poor, you know, makes for a solid voting bloc, trouble was they didn't have enough poor people to go around...so...what do you do when you don't have enough poor people to go around...right...you create poor people...and how do you create poor people...right again...you give them just enough money to make them stop working but not enough to rise above...the mythical poverty level."

I changed my mind. Maybe Grover hadn't lived alone, too long, in that cabin.

The mouse had heard enough of politics and ventured into a box of odds and ends where it began noisily shredding paper as Grover continued. "They made themselves a problem...they dried up the money supply and now people have to get poor all by themselves." We both laughed and scared the mouse from the box to the stove again. I started out but he grabbed my arm. "Got a couple of samples I want to show you." he advised, but he was into another story before he remembered why he had asked me to stay.

It seems a few years back he had finished his assessment work and took the unused portion of a box of dynamite across the hillside to the north where he intended to detonate it with a shot from his deer rifle. He had done this before and scared a rancher near his mine but otherwise had done no damage. He shot into it once, then again and saw chips fly so he knew he had hit it. This puzzled him. He levered another shell in the chamber just as he remembered he had a roast in the oven and hurried to the cabin. One thing led to another and he forgot about the dynamite. It was left to the elements.

The next year he was accompanied by his wife and two teenage nephews. They had settled in for several weeks stay. Grover was preparing to enter the mine, his wife was warming the left side of the two holer and the boys were plinking away with a rifle at cans they had set on an old dynamite box on the hillside. With no warning the boys were bowled over by a tremendous concussion. A plume of smoke and dust rose skyward from which one large boulder pirouetted southward and fell through the roof of the privy.

Grover was beside himself. The boys were apparently unhurt, but there were no sounds from the direction of the biffy. He raced to the door that hung askew on loose hinges and inquired within.

"Honey, are you alright?"

A calm voice answered, "Please bring me a roll of tissue, Grover."

He dutifully retrieved a roll of toilet paper, handed it to her through an opening by a broken board, then started up the hill to check on the boys. He was barely past the cabin when an unearthly scream echoed up the canyon and the remains of the biffy door slammed to the ground. Well...first things first.

I liked the story and I knew he had many more just as interesting, but I had a job to do. The next day I tried to slip by old Grover's cabin to check outcrops to the East. I wasn't successful. He heard my truck and was cocked and primed for me. "Come on in." he beckoned, "Coffee's perking and I found an old ledger with some names on it you will recognize."

We checked the ledger and, sure enough, I had known a few who ran up accounts including our resident assayer of the '30s. I was fanning pages as he went into other things which I knew he wouldn't finish. He gets near the end of a tale then remembers how it ends, starts laughing and I have to imagine the outcome as he drifts into another yarn. This day was no different. He left me dangling twice before getting into an arm waving story of a steam engine with a faulty safety valve at the mine and a swede who was firing the boiler. As the story progressed I thought of a hilarious ending and began laughing. Old Grover looked at me with one eyebrow cocked upward and a curious look on his face as he exclaimed, "But, dammit all, it killed the poor fellow, you know!"

Apparently he felt we were well enough acquainted to ask some personal questions. "Tell me John," he began, "can you remember uh, uh, well, when you went past the point of no return? I mean, did you realize you were going off your rocker?"

The old bugger had recognized me as a kindred soul and rather than being offended I was proud as hell. Going banjo eyed crazy was the first truly successful thing I had done by myself and I wanted the world to know it.

For years I felt like I was rowing against a swift current to keep from being swept over a waterfall with my relatives upriver praying for a cloudburst and my wife running along the bank yelling at me to throw her my wallet and other valuables before plunging into the maelstrom. It was the most glorious moment of my life when I finally dropped the oars and drifted into oblivion, reaching that abyss of incompetency where I would no longer be responsible for my actions or inactions.

I once watched a real pro in a small town. The fellow had lost all his marbles and a few he had borrowed. He was standing with his hands on his hips talking to a power pole. It was a hot day and he paused to push his hat back and wipe the sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve. He started to walk away then aimed another outburst at the pole, punched it a couple of times with a forefinger and stood looking at it eyeball to eyeball before the call of nature bade him to cross the street to a hedge. You can't urinate against a tight woven hedge without expecting backlash. As he tripped off zipping up his fly, he was wet from his crotch to his knees. I quietly applauded the performance. Our minds get cluttered with all sorts of interlocking inhibitions and here was a fellow who had blown them through the top of his hat.

I'm not a good conversationalist with people, but when I'm prospecting I talk to everything, squirrels, birds or anything out of the ordinary that catches my eye. On one trip I had covered very rough terrain and stopped by a family of spruce trees to make notes and check a map. I noticed that one tree had been hit by lightning. The bolt had peeled a spiraling strip from top to bottom and partially uprooted the old monarch when it made contact with the ground. As I put my notebook away I asked the tree if it had hurt when it got zapped? A gruff voice answered, "What a stupid question, beat it you jerk."

I was so startled I grabbed my pack and retreated several yards before I got to thinking, if trees could talk they surely wouldn't be so insulting. Still smarting from the words I slipped around to the other side and, sure enough, a bow-hunter in camouflage suit was warily eyeballing me from a covering of low hanging limbs. Grover and I may be banjo eyed crazies, but we're passive types. I went on my way without another word to the tree or bowhunter.

Grover is given no surname and is not otherwise identified on this site.