Opinion

This is the time of year when cattle producers are busy marketing their cattle. Although technology has opened up many more options for marketing cattle such as internet live auctions, internet static auctions, drone film, etc., it is kind of tragic that the days of showing the cattle buyer around the ranch are pretty much bygone. I wrote this poem years back when the day the buyer came to see the calves was a big event on the ranch, but it was inspired by Roundup, Montana veterinarian, Dr. Loren Appell who always prescribed wit and wisdom along with veterinary medicine!

Since I am about to retire from my County Superintendent of Schools position at the end of December, I am constantly receiving job offers from people who are concerned that I am going to be bored at home eating bon bons and watching daytime television. I think I will indulge in those activities for the first two days, and then I will start on a lot of projects that have been waiting for me for forty plus years. My colleagues in education feel strongly that I will miss my job and should sign up to substitute teach. I am pretty sure I don’t want to do that, because I learned long ago from my daughter how difficult subbing can be--even in kindergarten.

When the bull elk start to bugle and there is a chill in the morning air, I get really homesick for the smell of wood smoke coming from the cook tent. I spent most of two decades cooking in hunting camp in the Scapegoat Wilderness for the Todd’s K Lazy 3, and I have hundreds of great memories of those years. I retired from 25 years of teaching junior high English in the spring of 2006, and I did not start my County Superintendent of Schools position until January of 2007. I worked as a long term substitute teacher for the first month of school that fall of 2006, and then it was time to head to the Meadow Creek camp to cook for hunters in the early season rifle hunt. That fall I wrote the following: I have been pondering a question: Do crazy people know they are crazy? This question arises because everyone I talk to lately questions my sanity. Since I retired from school teaching, I have been substitute teaching, and now I am heading in to the Scapegoat Wilderness to cook for five hunts. No one seems to agree on whether being a substitute teacher or a hunting camp cook is more insane as a career path in retirement. I myself cannot decide.