Jist Keep Stompin'

During the great depression of 1929-1941 my father had to work very hard to support his family.  He operated a small meat market, raised grain and alfalfa on two separate pieces of land he owned and operated a fairly large sheep herd.  He was a  very, very busy man.

I always enjoyed accompaning him when he was taking supplies to his sheepherders. That was because his sheep herd was out in the dessert during the winter and in a national park during the summer. It was always an adventure to accompany him. One Spring he mentioned that today was shearing day for his herd of sheep.

I coaxed my father to let me miss school and accompany him to the shearing ground. I was excited to observe the shearing. This event occurred during the late spring.  Each sheep had a heavy coat of wool that helped them survive the cold winter.  A shearing crew would be contracted to remove these heavy wool coats.  This shearing was a very hard physical job. A shearer would grab the sheep and throw it on its back.  He then had to hold the sheep down, and using manual clippers, he removed the wool. After each sheep had been sheared the shearer would grab the fleece of wool and bind it with a single piece of twine. This bundle of wool was then thrown into a burlap bag.

Earlier in the day a scaffold had been built to hold this burlap bag upright.. This bag was about six feet long with a diameter of about four feet. As the fleece of wool was thrown into the bag another man was assigned to tromp the wool as tight as possible.  This would reduce shipping costs as well as reduce the number of bags needed.  A problem arose when the man to do the tromping did not arrive.  Out of desperation, my father asked me to be the tromper. I thought that would be fun.  So after two of three fleeces had been thrown into the bag I dropped down into the bag.  I was only about 4 1/2 feet tall at the time and when I dropped into the bag I felt like I was dropping into the depths of hell.  I was stuck there.  I couldn't start to reach the top of the bag.  Dad reminded me from outside the bag that I was supposed to be stomping.  And stomp I did.  I realized that the only way I could get out of the bag was to stomp my way out.

I soon found out that the wool was dirty and greasy.  It was also the home of families of sheep ticks.  These ticks delighted in burrowing into human flesh. I also soon found that additional wool fleeces were not handed to the tromper in a polite manner.  They were just thrown and landed with a jar on the head of the tromper.
Before long, I was dirty and greasy myself.  After one bag was completly filled and I could climb out the top, I pleaded with my father to relieve me from this terrible job.

His advice was: "Glen there will be many times in your life when you will face difficult problems.  When that happens, you will have to made a decision.  You can just quit, but.this would be a terrible tradition for you to adopt.  Or, you can just keep stompin' until you have stomped yourself out of the bag.

I don't think I fully understood at that time what my father was teaching me.  But I did remember what he said and  many times during my life I said to myself, "just keep on Stompin".

After two or three bags had been completed, the official tromper arrived.  He was late because of car problems.  I was relieved from the dirtiest, greasy job I ever held.  But I had received good advice from my father.