Jessie and Rose

A number of years ago, I traveled with my good friends Dave and Gary to Wyoming for the opening of Mule Deer season. Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are distinct from their White Tail Deer cousins in a few ways. Their ears are significantly larger – extending well out past the sides of their heads; the bucks’ antlers typically grow in a more forked manner – unlike a typical White Tail’s that tend to be prongs off central beams; their tails have a black tip. Their range is typically in the western plains including mountainous areas of Colorado and, of course, Wyoming.

Our destination was Baggs, Wyoming.  According to the 2000 census, Baggs is a spit of a town in Carbon County with 348 residents. I’m not 100% certain, but we were there in 1989 or 1990 – when the census showed 272 – in other words, before the boom.

Among the residents were two remarkable women who allowed us to encamp on their property just west of town: Jessie and Rose – sisters whose personal styles were night and day. Jessie was a well-leathered woman who didn’t mince nor waste words. Typically, Jessie would respond with “ayep” or “nope” to most inquiries. Rose never missed an opportunity to answer a ten-word question with a three or four hundred-word answer. Rose was as full of life as she was full of cancer – her entire diet was pharmaceuticals, milk, and the beer she would sneak when not in the presence of older sister Jessie. Jessie was gaunt, Rose had eyes that bulged and twinkled. My guess is that Jessie was in her late seventies and Rose a decade younger.

Our rent was exorbitant – we’d pick up groceries, do chores, and share any harvest we collected. In return, we set up tents, ran an extension cord to our space heater, and got a shower every other day. Twice, they cooked dinner for us.  I think this adventure was about a week long – excluding the two 24 hour drives from and to Ann Arbor.

I’m convinced that week could, with little addition, inspire a screen play of personal challenge, male bonding, absurdity, and too many laughs.

Some highlights: around day three, I decided to start wearing a bandana loosely around my neck during and through the end of the day’s hunt. While swapping stories with some locals at a watering hole, a friendly young man of mixed Italian and American Indian stock advised, “it’s fine if you want to wear a scarf, but that’s a snot rag.” I thought Dave and Gary would wet their pants laughing.

One other iconic moment was when we were venturing up the mountain in Dave’s wife’s Suburban, we neared a narrow and irregular portion of the trail – hesitating, Dave mused aloud if we should attempt it. Gary, fearlessly, offered, “I wouldn’t hesitate to drive my vehicle there.” Shortly thereafter, we had to stop and pick up the detached running board.

I think the crowning part of the trip (other than my feat of bagging the largest buck – winning the $20 bet) was an evening with Rose and Jessie after about 10 hours afield. We were wedged in their small mobile home, having just finished a rib-sticking dinner of wild game, potatoes, and beans. The five of us couldn’t fit around their small table, so I ate standing at the counter. The trailer was fast filling with cigarette smoke and the beer was flowing – even Jessie looked the other way as Rose enjoyed a brew or two.

The two women started telling stories of their youth. Apparently, as the oldest, Jessie was charged with keeping tabs on her younger siblings. According to Rose, without contradiction from Jessie, at one point Jessie could only keep Rose from fighting with a sibling by hanging them both on the clothes’ line. Rose punctuated her narration with wild gesticulation and her eyes seemed to grow proportionately with her yarns.

I made the mistake of asking what they did for fun living in Southern Wyoming as children. Well, it really wasn’t a mistake (well, then again):

“Oh we had the best times,” began Rose. “You see, we had this crick runnin’ behind our house – ‘member that crick Jessie?” (Ayep)

“Sometimes we go down to the crick and catch them bullfrogs. They was big – ‘member Jessie?” (Ayep)

“We’d take the macaronis and blow dem frogs up and float them down the crick!”

Dave, Gary and I collectively said, "huh?"

“Oh,” Rose answered, “we’d put them macaronis up dem frogs’ asses and blowed them up. Now, we would only use the long macaronis, you know, cause the short ones woulda been gross.”

Our recognition of what we were hearing was, I’m sure, well obvious on our faces.

“We blow and blow and they would get all puffed up!” continued Rose – whose eyes seemed to widen with each “blow.”

Rose, wouldn’t that hurt the frogs?

“Oh, we’d stop when they’s eyes bugged out.”

Of course.

“We’d have five or six of ‘em all blowed up and would race 'em down the crick - bubbles just pushin' them along like little motors. Then they'd just swim off.”

I’m almost certain that I’m doing that evening a disservice trying to relate it here. Rose’s animation and Jessie’s casual assent seemed to make this a perfectly normal recollection of a hard, hard childhood. We laughed and laughed – and the surreal vision of “blowed up” frog races, perhaps embarrassedly, seemed to make sense. Ayep.


Frog image reported to be in the public domain and available at:  http://www.clker.com/clipart-27018.html