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| A Cleverly family visit in the 80s |
My name is Gary Cleverly. My mother, Connie Cleverly, and Pat are sisters, the last 2 children born to Blanche and Walter. Of course, Don grew up in Kaysville and Pat, Connie, and Jim grew up in Woods Cross, so I don’t think Don ever met the other three until they all entered high school at Davis. I asked Mom if Dad (Jim) and Don were friends in high school. She said "No, not much." I have to take her word for it on account of I wasn’t born yet, so my memory during that time isn’t so good. But that sure changed after Pat and Don were married. Not the memory part, the friendship part. Anyway, I figure Dad must have considered Don his best friend. At least growing up that was my observation. Every summer when school got out, Dad and Mom, mostly Dad I think, would pack up the family and head to Three Forks for a week to ten day stay. If you’re asking me, Dad would have rather been up there on that ranch with Don than anywhere else on earth, bar none. I know that was the case with me. Pat and Don and Three Forks were bigger than life to us.
During our stay at the ranch us kids were bound to do something real dumb sooner or later. When that happened, Don would say something like, "Now just what do they teach you ‘cake eatin’ city kids anyway?’" Or if he saw something that he liked, he would express his pleasure with "goodie, goodie, gum drop!" And in my young mind Don was the best yodeler on the planet, mainly ‘cause I never heard anybody yodel before. Well, those are some memories during the time frame of 1950 through about 1960.
It was about the end of May or first part of June in 1963 and Pat and Don were visiting Utah. I had just finished my 9th grade year in school. I have no idea what the purpose of their trip to Utah was. As everyone knows, especially in those days, when a cow had to be milked and farming had to be done, a visit from the Scoffields was rare and always abbreviated. Well, on their way back to the ranch, they stopped off at our house in Woods Cross. Pat and Mom are talking. Dad and Don are talking. Of course Don is itching to get on the road and back north where he needs to be. I’m not privy to the particulars of the adult conversations. And I can’t remember how it was put to me but Dad came in and either said "Gary, do you want to go to Three Forks for the summer?" or "Gary, you are going to Three Forks for the summer". I figure it was probably the 2nd phraseology. In those days kids weren’t asked what they ‘wanted to do’, they were told what they ‘were going to do’. Anyway, it didn’t matter to me whether I was asked or told. I just remember thinking, "I get to go to that ‘bigger than life’ place………for the whole summer! " Well, as you can imagine, spending the summer on the Scoffield ranch was quite an experience for, as Don reminded me often enough, a "cake eatin’ city kid".
Ralph was 11 and I was 14 my first summer in Three Forks. Don used to say something like, "Well, you two confirm what I’ve always been told, ‘You put 1 boy to work, you got a worker. You put 2 boys to work, you got half a worker. You try to put 3 boys to work and you got nothing but trouble.’" Well, I guess I didn’t ruin Ralph too much, because I was allowed to come back the summer of ’64 and also ’65.
Ralph and I shared the same bedroom and every morning Don would wake us up with "Come on girls. Time to get going", or "Let’s go girls, can’t sleep all day". It was always "girls this" and "girls that". Got to where I was checking every time I pulled on my levis in the morning to make sure Don was just joking around. One of those summers, ’64 I think, Don bought me a Hohner harmonica and taught me how to play it. The first song I learned from him was The Strawberry Roan. Those summers long past were probably the best 9 months of my life. Pat’s homemade bread every day along with everything else she cooked and bottled. Don’s life lessons about working and relaxing combined with his sense of humor. Ralph, Sandra, Bonnie, and George to enjoy it with. Yeah, I owe the Scoffield family more than I could ever repay.
One last story and this one is more about a "cake eatin’ city kid" than anything else. I have to preface the following story with this. In those days Utah had 4 television stations. Three Forks had only one. Remember that fact when you get to the end of this story.
There was a piece of land across the river and toward town that was considered a picnic area. As I remember, there was a picnic table and a couple of trees and the ground was semi covered with a bit of wild grass. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone actually have a picnic there, but it was still known as the city "picnic grounds". I think the land was donated to the city by Mrs. Otto, the original owner of the Scoffield ranch, but I could easily be wrong about that. Anyway, about once a summer it was up to Don to knock down any weeds and overgrown grass in case anyone really decided to use it. So one morning Don told Ralph and I to take the tractor down and get it done. I don’t know why he thought he had to send us both. Seemed like a one man….er, uh, one kid job to me. And if he would have only sent Ralph without me, it would have worked out much, much better.
Let me tell you what happened. As we were mowing the weeds down on one of the two Ford tractors that Don owned, both of us riding, all the sudden we hit a bump and the battery, which wasn’t all that securely fastened anyway, jarred loose. Now the battery compartment is up toward the front and not all that far from the gas tank. Far enough to be safe, I guess, but close enough that when filling the tanks with gas, a bit of spillage might cause a problem. Well that must have been the case that day, because when we hit that bump and the battery moved a bit, a spark must have been enough to light some spilled gas. I can’t remember whether Ralph was driving or me. All I know is I was scrambling off that tractor and high tailing it to the nearest ditch for protection. Meanwhile, Ralph is looking for some dirt or something to throw on, what was at that point, a small flame. When I looked back at Ralph I yelled, "Ralph, get away from there. It might explode!"
Ralph, glancing over his shoulder at me hunkered in this ditch, replies, "Don’t you think we should put it out?"
"No! Get away from there! She’s ready to blow!"
Now I already mentioned that I had 4 years on Ralph. Maybe that was what overpowered his common sense, I don’t know. Anyway, he throws the fist full of dirt he had in the general direction of the still small flames and sprints toward me and the safety of the ditch. And we proceeded to watch, this small fire get bigger and bigger, and bigger, working its way back from the middle portion of the tractor, until everything was aflame. Burnt that tractor, tires and everything, to the ground! And to my utter amazement, it didn’t even explode!
Well, now we have to walk back across a couple of bridges to the farm house and report to Don, which we did with as deliberate a pace as was humanly possible. After relating the event to Don and sugar coating it as much as we could, (using terms like "Don, we had a little accident" or "Don, there was a little fire"),it was obvious that he didn’t think it was that big a deal. He just said, "Well, let’s get in the truck and go see what happened." As we approached the scene, and even from way down the road, it became obvious that this was no "little fire". The closer we got the more obvious it became. We finally got there, the tires still smoldering and the rest of the tractor burnt to a crisp. Don looked at the tractor, then looked at me, then back at the tractor, then at Ralph, then tractor, then me, tractor, Ralph. After a few seconds he comments, "I thought you said it was a ‘little fire’. You want to tell me what happened again? And start from the beginning." So we did. When we got to the part about "small flames", because at first, that’s what it truly was, he stopped us and said, "So why didn’t you put it out?"
"Well Gary said to get away from there, it’s going to explode!"
"He said what!"
"He said it was ready to blow up!"
"And you believed him?"
"Well no, but…."
Don then looked at me, looked at Ralph, tractor, me, Ralph, tractor. Then Don, in that unique ability he had to express himself, said, "Ralph, I never want to hear you whine about Three Forks only having one television station again. You see what happens when you watch too much television!"
Don we will all miss ya, ‘till we meet again.
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