WIDOW MAKER: A LOGGER’S NIGHTMARE

My Grandpa on my mom’s side was her step-dad, though as kids we never knew it.

Why? Because it didn’t matter. He was married to Grandma and she was a boss.

Besides, he was the best choice between the three.

One was a yeller, the other was far away, and Grandpa was just right.

He sang in the church choir, played brass instruments, and built sound systems for the house he and Grandma designed and built together.

Call him a Renaissance Man. “Renaissance Man Logger.”

My Grandpa started falling timber with the misery whip.

I asked him the difference between the two man saw and the chain saw.

Grandpa was a strong man, a sensitive man, and said, “The main difference was the noice level. I missed the quiet of the woods with the misery whip. It was hard work, but there was always a pause when the other man pulled.”

He was so good at cutting down big trees that he taught the subject at Central Oregon Community College.

It was funny to hear him say the only time he felt safe on a job, and he was in the woods for fifty years, was when he enlisted for WWII.

 

The Fool Killer

For all of his safety awareness and training, Grandpa dropped a tree with an extra surprise.

I saw his logging helmet after a widow maker hit him in the head.

He was knocked stupid for a week, which was long enough for him to consider his remaining years.

From the sound of the phone calls between my Mom and Grandma, he didn’t want to live anymore.

He wasn’t dying, just tired of living with a headache and feeling broken.

This was his early sixties.

 

George Warren Marshall, a 55-year resident of Bend, Oregon, and one-time Bend city commissioner, died in 1994. He was 83. George Marshall was born in a boxcar in Weeksville, Mont., to Lloyd Porter and Doyne (Cox) Marshall. At the time his parents were telegraphers for Great Northern Railroad.

John Steinbeck was his favorite author. I can see why a man born in a boxcar might like Steinbeck. A natural fit. Grandpa Marshall was a Steinbeck character, but I didn’t know it until I read the books in college. Talk about art reflecting life.

 

My Dad knew about the widow maker. His father left the woods with a broken back.

The next time we visited Grandma and Grandpa he took Grandpa down to the basement shop for a talk.

My Old Man knew about people losing their will to live. 

From Korea:

 

His squad was subjected to sudden and intense hostile small arms, automatic weapons and mortar fire, inflicting several casualties, including the squad leader who had to be evacuated at once, Corporal Gillaspie bravely moved from man to man through the fire-swept area to assume command of the unit.

Reorganizing the squad, he skillfully led an assault to overrun the first objective and, after evacuating several wounded men, directed a final devastating attack to completely rout the enemy.

 

The old Marine knew both sides of the same coin, life and the living, and a devastating attack to completely rout the enemy who had just shot his friends and brothers in arms.

He gave Grandpa the sort of talk he’d given his friends:

“Don’t die on me, don’t think about dying on me.”

 

The Widow Maker Talk

When I was down with the cancer and struggling to find a reason to continue I got an intervention from my wife and kids.

They cut loose with everything they had stored up, and did it in tag-team fashion.

One would say their part and step back for the next. It went around a few times.

It was joyous music to my ears to get called out for pretending to give a shit about the outcome of cancer treatment.

For the record, I was at the Nadir, the worst of the worst.

I was done with chemo and radiation, but like letting a ham rest when you take it out of the oven, my body was still cooking with the effects.

Since my neck had been the target I could barely swallow, breathing hurt, and I was dangerously dehydrated and didn’t know it.

My little stink-bombs gave me the Coach talk, the Drill Sergeant talk, the ‘YOUR FAMILY NEEDS YOU SO GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS’ talk.

That was the turning point for my eventual complete recovery when failure looked imminent.

It was similar to the talk my Dad gave Grandpa while I listened at the top of the basement stairs.

 

“It was a widow maker and your wife isn’t a widow. Does that make any sense? So don’t sit here and act like she’s a widow. She needs you, your kids need you, and you know your grandkids so you know how much they need you. We don’t do these things on our own.

If you need bracing up, I’m going to do it, but not until you get better. And when you do get better, and I hear you’re still moping around, I will take you by the shoulders and stand you up. Do you hear me? I will stand you up.”

 

Grandpa regained his will to live after hearing that.

If you’ve never been ‘Stood Up’ by a resting Marine, it means getting lifted against a wall until your toes barely touch ground while they spit words in your face.

He stood me up once. It was junior high, I was a lying sneak, and he asked me to stop while lifting me against a wall until my toes barely touched ground.

I stopped.

Grandpa had been Army in the 40’s WWII, my Dad had run the ridges in Korea in the 50’s before training Marines. My Army Drill Sergeants in the mid-70s were Vietnam guys.

We all know what ‘I will stand you up’ means.

Nothing says pay attention better than a reminder from combat veterans.

I’m not a combat medic but I’ve ‘stood up’ a couple of guys who needed it, and they got better.

It worked for them, it worked for me.

I’m rested and ready to go.