Coop's Corner: 35 years of RFD in Wisc.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

35 years of RFD in Wisc.

With all of the traveling for work and wandering for adventure that my grandfather accomplished in his early years, after his trip to Montana on his HD sidecar rig, he married and settled down in St. Paul, MN. He worked at the (now closed) Ford Plant building Model T's, then and just about his favorite job ever, at the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. His job was Motorman, the driver and he piloted the Streetcars in the city, but his normal route was the Interurban Route between St. Paul and Stillwater. Best of all was the weekend duty hauling young couples and families to the Wildwood Amusement Park in Mahtomedi, on the shores of White Bear Lake, where the Company had their own amusement park.

Before long, Gramp and Gram moved back to his homeland in Barron County, WI where Gramp carried mail for the USPS until his retirement in the early 60's. Getting the mail delivered no matter the conditions, on those roads, in those years, proved to often be a challenge, one easily forgotten today now that we've got paved roads and better, more suited vehicles. Even modern day gravel is a huge improvement on the road surfaces that carriers faced in the 40's and 50's.

After trying various Model A based snowmobile modded machines and achieving less than perfect results, he and a machine shop friend built their own rough road machine. Based on a '32 Model A, the front axle was turned upside down, a truck transmission and rearend were installed, held high with tractor wheels and chevron treaded tires. The cab compartment was boxed in to provide shelter and protection for the mail sacks. It was the first machine larger than a riding lawnmower that I ever drove requiring a clutch (and it pushed really hard at 12 years old).

Gramp stopped to help the Milk Truck......

Not a problem, you just drive through......

Easy from here........

I smile when I see this photo; the road now paved, tourists from the Twin Cities use it to enjoy a B&B. I'd have turned around and gone back home.....

I'm going to assume that he crested the hill and made the next box.....

One of his "seemed like a good idea at the time" attempts with the Snowmobiles that didn't work as hoped....

As I remember him telling it, soft snow and steering were major issues......

With chains, differential dragging.......

Plowing.....

2 comments:

AnonymousJanuary 22, 2012 at 6:54 PM
.. ? .. tourist heaed to a B and B..:) .. turn around ! and head home... ? .. humm, tough call...
ReplyDelete
Replies
UnknownJanuary 12, 2019 at 3:12 PM
my dad worked construction in N WIS so snow tires & mud were familiar to us plus every sat we made a milk run into the country to buy farm milk for 3 families.
Paul
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)