Gordon Leadfoot

    His name was Gordon right enough.  But not Leadfoot.  That was a moniker I bestowed upon him.  It had nothing to do with his musical abilities.

     He had one good eye, and one not so good, as in legally blind in that eye.  He wore pop bottle lenses for glasses, for both eyes, the good one included.

     He was from Oklahoma.  He eschewed being called an “Okie”.  I never saw him get angry.  But if you called him an Okie, he would hasten to correct you.  He was an Oklahoman.    

     He stood about 5’6”. He probably weighed 200 pounds.  On roller skates, he was anything but lead-footed.  Backwards, forwards, tight circles, he could do nearly anything on roller skates.

      At the local swimming pool, he could put on an exhibition on the diving board.  He had played college football.  He was that good of an athlete.

     He once ran a foot race against one of his eighth grade students, for maybe forty or fifty yards.  He won handily.  There had been a bet.  The student had to stop wearing colored glasses in the school building as a result of losing the race to a ”short, fat, old man.”

     I got to know him the summer of 1972.  I signed on to help him move alfalfa bales one June day.  We were on a county road in his pickup.  He was taking me somewhere to get a tractor with a loader.  He was driving.

     We were doing sixty miles an hour on the gravel.  Gordon decided his glasses needed cleaning.  He took them of and started in on them with his handkerchief.  We were headed north, still doing 60 mph.   In an instant, we were in the west ditch, still going 60 mph.

      “What’s goin’ on here?” Gordon asked.  He put his glasses back on.  “Oh.”  He pulled the pickup out of the ditch and back on the road.  He never let up on the gas pedal.  I had made an instantaneous grab for whatever I could get a hold of to survive the inevitable rollover.

      He looked at me and I looked at him.  He went on with our conversation, as though nothing had happened.  I made a mental note:  don’t ever get into a vehicle this guy is driving.

     The lead-foot moniker didn’t come about then.  It would be many years later when Tisha and I rode to an out-of-town football game with Uncle Bill in his hot Red Dodge.  On the way home, somewhere east of Colby, Bill managed to overtake Gordon driving his big old Ford.

      The race was on.  Bill knew a shortcut through Colby.  When we pulled up to the stop sign at the highway that would be the final 30-mile stretch home, Gordon’s Ford blew past us.  We tailed him for several miles, both cars doing 80 to 90 miles per hour.

     Finally, we reached a flat stretch with no traffic coming our way.  Bill floor boarded the Dodge, the turbo kicked in, and we soared past the 100 mile per hour mark.  As we went past Gordon, I could hear the Ford’s exhaust pipe shrieking and I knew Gordon had his foot “in the carburetor” as thy used to say in those olden days.  The big old Ford just didn’t have any more to give. 

     (Someday there will be a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Automobiles and Bill and Gordon will both be enshrined in the Hall of Infamy.)

     The Dodge won the race, but we all won in that nobody got killed that night on the way home from a football game.  Then it was I named Gordon, Gordon Leadfoot.

      Gordon was always a farmer at heart.  He quit teaching to try farming full time.   But the 1980’s were a huge disaster for farmers, many who had mortgaged heavily to buy land after the explosion of grain prices following Nixon’s grain deal with the Russians in the 1970’s.  Gordon had to return to teaching.

      He returned to, or took up, school bus driving when he went back to teaching.  I advised my girls, “Don’t get on any bus Mr. C. is driving, if you can help it.”   Of course, they couldn’t help it.  They were on a bus or two that lost a little paint as a result of Gordon’s driving.  Gordon’s driving was a bit of a joke among the students riding his bus. 

     But I am happy to report that nobody ever suffered an injury as a result of Gordon’s driving.  I am sorry to report that Gordon is gone now.  Oklahoma’s loss was Kansas’s gain.  I am glad I got to know Gordon, leadfoot and all.  Adieu, friend.

          

       

The Siding Project

     About a year ago now, it hailed.  

    Then began the lengthy process of notifying the insurance company, scheduling with the adjuster, waiting to see how much the company would pay, if anything.

      The roof was okay.  The metal roof suffered a bit of “cosmetic damage” the adjuster said.  Before the company would pay anything, the roof had to suffer damage so severe that it would leak.  That was okay.  After all, hail--proofing the roof was one reason to put the metal roof up in the first place. 

     The poor old vinyl siding took in the shorts yet again.  It would be the fourth application for the north and west sides of the house since the vinyl first covered the old cedar in the 1980’s.

In July, a check for some $30K arrived. 

      I was somewhat taken aback at the size of the check.  Until I started looking for a siding contractor.  It was also time to hail—proof the siding.  Vinyl wasn’t going to do it.  I also decided that this project, though not as daunting as the roof project, was one I wouldn’t try to do myself.

      Then began the task of finding a contractor that would do the job.  The first one I contacted would not send a crew out so far in the boonies to do a siding job.  They would, however, send out a crew to replace the rain gutter system. 

      Finally, one company sent out a salesman from Colorado Springs.  He measured and took photos.  His estimate, arriving a couple of days later, was over $50K.  A bit much, I thought.  We dickered for a while. 

     They offered a vinyl product that was supposed to be more hail—tolerant, but the price was very little less than the James Hardie product.  I wasn’t willing to pay that amount, so I kept on looking.

     The rain gutter guy was local.  When he came to measure for that job, he recommended a local contractor.  By the time the local siding guy came out, looked, estimated, we were into Fall.  He said he could get started in December, and he did get started.

      I made a down payment in December to cover the cost of materials.  But the job wasn’t done until January.  Still, all right, except for income tax purposes.  I had the insurance check in July, but I didn’t spend it all in 2018, so I had an augmented income without the expenses.  Oh well, the accountant said.  You will show a loss next year.

      The project went over estimate, too.  That was because the contractor didn’t plan to remove the old cedar siding, just the vinyl.  When he got to the cedar, he decided it needed to come off, too.  I concurred. 

      Then there were the south windows upstairs that Paul replaced 30 years ago.  Why he put in the undersized windows I’ll never know, but the time to change them was now, if ever we were going to do it.

      More shopping, this time window—shopping.  I tried a Loveland outfit, but after our initial conversation via telephone, I could never get a hold of the guy again.  They didn’t answer the office phone, nor the cell phone number he gave me.

     On impulse, I stopped at Lowe’s.  They had Pella windows on sale.  I ordered.  They arrived while we were tripping to Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland.  I took on the old south porch window by myself.

      I enlisted help for the upstairs ones.  The big job happened on a couple of nice days in November.

      It would be several months later before the inside work would be done.

     The siding job got mostly done in January.  The crew dodged a couple of stormy patches.  They have a few details to complete.  Spring weather and their schedule haven’t coincided yet.

      We’re good, until it hails again.

Spring 2019

 March:

  

 Watering the asparagus patch

April:  

May:  

         Two steps forward, one step back.  March brought needed moisture.  It also brought mud—inside.   

      April saw the picket pile go down a little, the hedge get trimmed.

     May got off to a rough start.  The first step backward happened when a used oil filter in the back of the pickup fell over and leaked oil.  I cleaned that mess up on arrival at the farm.  Then I took a little tour of the premises.

    The plastic tabs holding the storm window broke and a wind gust took the storm window down.  One pane of glass survived.  The other two had to be picked up a piece at a time.

    Two trips to Hugo got the glass replaced in the frames, but not on the house.  Can’t put the storm window up until the windows get washed, for heaven’s sake. 

      Meanwhile the wheat got off to a good start with March and April moisture.

    And the summer fallow got a good going over, with a little help from the neighbors.

           The sea of purple that doubles as the farm yard awaits the mower and warmer weather. 

     Up next, the window and siding update.