Stories about living and growing up in the Pacific Northwest

(by Northwest writers and photographers)

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•  GRANDPA DICK’S BROTHER BILL AND GEORGE

  By Jeri Farrell-Shaw

  

  The year of the snow, Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill was working with the Bunyan outfit in the Washington Cascades.  Cold? That year it was so cold that when trying to speak outside, words would freeze in midair, and fall to the ground without a sound.  Come the thaw in the spring, all began to melt and the air was full of sounds of people and animals yakking.

  It sounded like an enormous gaggle of geese all-trying to be heard at once, and no one could understand a thing.  Though some people would try to pick up the frozen words that they had said that winter that they really hadn’t met to, but alas it was too hard to pick through them.

  Anyway, everyone stayed in the bunkhouse, you almost had to because the snow was higher than the doors and the only way to get to the cookhouse was by tunnels in the snow.

  

  You can imagine how the men got on each other’s nerves.  When you have 20 or more men in one tiny room tempers flare and fight break out constantly, reason enough that so many would try to rush out and take the misspoken words back before they melted.

  Well, this day, Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill could stand it no more; he had to get away for a while.  Since he was only 2’12” high he was able to climb out the chimney and get on top of the snow.  The only drawback was holding his breath while climbing so as not to suffocate from the smoke and he did get soot all over his scraggly black beard.

  When he reached the top, he found it was a beautified day with a white landscape as far as the eye could see, broken by a smoking chimney here and there and the tree tops that poked through the snow.

  Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill decided to go for a walk and since he wanted to view as much as he could, he headed for the tallest hill around.  There wasn’t a sound anywhere because of the cold, and he could see no sigh of life except the smoking chimneys.  As he climbed higher, it got colder and a wind began to blow.  He kept right on, he knew he wouldn’t blow away this time because of the heavy winter coat and his long woolen under-britches.

  

  On reaching the top of the hill he stopped beside the top of a tree sticking out of the snow and stood admiring the white winter wasteland around him.  He started to walk on and when he went around the tree there in the trail was the sorriest sight.  It was the tiniest, scrawniest, bald, (not only bald-headed) totally bald, eagle he had ever seen.   It had apparently hatched late and its parents had gone to warmer climes leaving him to fend alone.  So here it was, starving, and looking like a plucked chicken.

  

  Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill immediately picked up and stuffed it inside his coats next to his skin to warm him up and headed back to camp.

  They named him George after that man who cut down the cherry tree, fed him on bear meat, and the occasional skunk that froze to death behind the cookhouse.  Now you know how strong bear meat and skunk meat are.  Well, George thrived on this food and gained weight and got his plumage.  When spring finally came around, that bald eagle weighed plenty and had an eight-foot wingspan.

  That grateful little scraggly bald eagle has been a faithful companion of Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill ever since, and when Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill has to travel he rides on the back of George.

  

  I know, I’ve seen them late one night when I was staying over with Grandpa Dick.  I woke up to the sound of rushing and whistling air.  It was so loud I thought a train had left the track and was heading for me.  I got up, ran to the window just in time to see this enormous bird (dark brown with a white head) taking off with a little man with a wild black beard on his back, wearing those square glasses that Ben Franklin wore.  Next morning, Grandpa Dick said that his Brother Bill had dropped by for a visit.

  Photos are of Jeri Farrell Shaw when she heard Grandpa Dick spin his tall tales of his fictitious Brother Bill