This afternoon the phone rang and when I answered hello, Wayne was on the other end.   He was getting away from home for the weekend and was headed to Deadwood to play a little black jack.  Says he likes black jack a little more than sticking money in machines and pulling the handle.

He told me that he had gotten my letter and that maybe one of these days he would send me a bio and then asked if I would send him some sort of form letter for him to fill in the blanks.

I got him to talking and I started typing.  I don’t believe he has ever turned on a computer so he doesn’t know what I am writing, but I will read it to him.  I have to say though, that he had me laughing the whole time we talked.  He is pretty happy with life.

The following is what I typed while he talked:

After high school I went off to college in Brookings.  I stayed for awhile and then took off to work on a ranch.  Then I went back to school and quit again to work on a ranch.  I did this for quite awhile, going to school and then quitting to work and pay for the money that the school required in order for me to come and stay with them.  From those years about all I can say is that it takes a whole lot of pushing cows around in order to go into a nice clean classroom and let some teacher push your head around!  I don’t know how much I can learn, but I did find out that I can be taught!  I finally graduated with a bachelor degree in animal science.

After graduation I ended up in Wyoming on a ranch and stayed there for about12 years.  I wandered off one day and went to work on another ranch for about four years.  Got tired of that and wandered onto another place and stayed there about a year. Somehow I ended up back on the first place and stayed put for another four or five years until the place was sold and I had to revamp my life again..  During this ranching period  I had put together a pretty nice little herd of cows and when the place I was on sold I moved the cows to my uncles place up at Lemmon           I hadn’t been to Lemmon in a lot of years and was surprised by all the changes.  When we were in Lemmon it was such an active and thriving little town.  But just like so many small towns it is seeing some changes.

 Just before Easter I started working in the coal mines outside of Gillette, Wyoming.  People always told me that I was not a good driver, but here I am driving a 240 ton payload truck and hauling a half million pounds of coal around.  If I were to run over something I probably wouldn’t even feel the bump, but so far I am doing really good.  But driving down the highway still scares me!  I don’t know for sure if I like the job, am reserving judgment for awhile.  One thing that I have learned is that we have to be ready for changes in life and the best thing is to adjust to the changes.

 I have never been married and I do not have any children.  But I have had some long term relationships.  I really enjoyed the life out on ranches and far away from towns.  The ranch where I worked most of the time was about forty miles from the nearest black top road.  I enjoy the solitude and working with livestock and of course I will always have my horses, but this is a new stage in life and I am enjoying being around folks a bit more.