Written by Kenneth Kinder
It was in the summer of 1949 that I first moved to Grass Valley. My first impression of this small town in the foothills of northern California was not very impressive. I was used to the bright lights, busy cities, custom cars, and rides to the Pacific ocean on warm summer nights. My brother Neal and sister-in-law Dolly had moved there a few months earlier, and Neal had purchased an old G.I. 270 GMC surplus army truck and converted it into a logging truck with a dolly for hauling sixteen foot logs.
I had a good job in L.A. working at U.S. Rubber Co. inspecting newly built tires and pretty content with life as I was experiencing it at that time. I received a phone call from Neal telling me about all this money there was to be made hauling logs, and that he was lonely for family and needed help carrying all this money to the bank. Well let me tell you Charles P. Keating of the savings and loan scandals must have taken lessons from my big brother Neal on telling an outright fictitious story. We were living in a cabin that was about twenty foot square, where the bed came out of the living room wall. It did have inside plumbing and a small kitchen, with breakfast area and a screened porch big enough for a cot where I slept. Dolly, Neal, and I worked pretty hard all summer and fall, but it seemed like every dime that we made went to feed the insatiable appetite of that greedy truck and all its lien holders. We had the truck licensed, but no insurance. The dolly wasn’t registered, licensed, or insured.
Public Utilities Permits, and Board of Equalization Permits were also missing. We were lucky that officer Crane of the California Highway Patrol didn’t take us straight to jail and impound the truck and dolly when he stopped us for excessive noise, due to the fact we didn’t have a muffler on the exhaust. He just looked at us shook his head and told us, to take the truck home and not get back on the road until we were legal. We hauled all summer and fall up in the Sierra’s and saw him almost daily and he just looked the other way when we came into view. Even with the savings of being completely illegal and ignoring all our legal obligations we were still broke. I remember on labor day at the close of summer our vacation consisted of a picnic lunch, a trip to Sacramento to Sutters Fort, and a store bought blueberry pie. Man oh man Neal, what a line you sold me, but looking back those were some of my happiest memories, and it did give me an opportunity to hone some truck driving skills. We both went on from there to bigger and better jobs and trucks, and fulfilled a life long dream of long line truck driving for a living.
It was during this time that I met Wes Cox, a local high school all star athlete who turned out to be my best friend and eventually my brother-in-law. There were other people who taught me to use firearms and go hunting, but Wes was the one person that I spent most of my hunting seasons with in the woods. I can remember most of our hunting trips, but some loom larger than others. On one of our trips we were watching a group of hunters with a bunch of hounds, and we were trying to figure out what direction they were going to run their dogs, so we could position ourselves to poach off their drive. Wes and I were walking around this mountain when we ran straight into this coyote and I guess it was just a nervous reaction; but Wes pulled up and dropped that coyote in it’s tracks. Now Wes doesn’t see all that well and I convinced him that he had just shot one of those hunters hounds.
Another time we were up in the Sierra Nevada, and we were going out on our afternoon hunt. There were three of us on this particular trip and we were making our way up the mountain. Wes up top, me in the middle, and the other fellow at the bottom. This way we had all directions covered. Well Wes was breaking towards the top when he ran into a mama bear and her cub, he pulled up and got one round in her and she took off with her cub to hide her from us. About fifteen minutes later Wes ran into her again this time she was alone and he got a couple more in and finished her. By the time we got her gutted and bled it was pitch black. We tied two ropes on her, one to each side and our buddy went ahead with a flashlight, while Wes and I pulled her down the mountain. We didn’t know anything about preparing a bear, in fact it was pure luck that we had a bear tag because we normally did not.
At the ranger station in Truckee where we had the bear tag validated, the ranger said this bear was good as it didn’t have a bad smell like most, he said it probably had a good diet of nuts and berries instead of garbage. He also told us to wash out the inside and keep the bear in a cool place, so when we got to Nevada City about 2:00 am, we went to Thurman Smarts house, got a block and tackle, strung the bear up, hosed it out, and took off back up to the woods to continue hunting.
We came back later to find a bear that had to be destroyed. We found out that the ranger meant to take a damp cloth and wipe out the inside, also even though it was pretty cold at the time we left, it got up to about 110 degrees inside the garage where we had the bear hanging. The meat was ruined, the hide was ruined too badly to make into a rug, and the only good that came from the bear was the claws. It seems the Boy Scouts use them as merit badges.
The more miserable the hunting conditions were for us the better we did at hunting. When we first started hunting all we had was a rifle, deer tag, ammo, and a sleeping bag. Needless to say we spent most of our time hunting as it was pretty uncomfortable sleeping on the ground. As time passed and we saved a few dollars, we graduated to a pickup where we put a mattress in the bed and covered ourselves with a tarp. Our next improvement we bent some conduit and formed it to fit over the pick up bed, we then stretched a tarp over the conduit to acquire more room and a comfortable camping condition.
Each time our quality of life got better our pursuit of hunting relaxed. It got so relaxed that after we got a small trailer house, we found it difficult to get out of bed before the sun was high in the morning sky. I think Wes and I finally resigned ourselves to the fact, that we were on a social outing, and the only way we would get a deer was if we accidentally ran in to one while we were riding our motorcycles. That was alright as we enjoyed the woods, camping, and each others company. We got into some beautiful campsites during the many years we hunted together; but at the cost of repairs on our vehicles caused by damage done by going places not meant for us to be.
Speaking of motorcycles my introduction to them came after my release from the army. I came home in the spring of 1954 and Neal and Dolly lived in Grass Valley. When I stopped by to visit them Neal took me out to the garage to show me a surprise, and much to my shock it was a motorcycle. A beautiful Norton 500 cc twin cylinder English built work of the Devil.
Our parents would never allow us in close proximity to one of these mechanical suicide machines. I asked Neal what the folks said about the fact that he had bought one of these monsters. He said I am married, 25, and the father of a child, and I said I am 23, a veteran, and single so what did the folks say? He then replied I haven’t told them.
The next day Neal took me to the top of sugar loaf mt. A flat topped mountain the Civil Air Patrol uses as a landing strip for their airplanes and there he taught me to ride a motorcycle. The next day I went to Sacramento and bought me a Matchless 500 CC single cylinder thumper and I have owned one of these works of the devil since that time.
Neal kept his bike for a short time after this; but after I wrecked it once and had it repaired a mutual friend Kent Pascoe rode about 40 feet from the garage into a tree and destroyed the front of the bike so he decided to sell it. This did not happen until sometime later after Neal had some electrical problems with his bike. We couldn’t figure out the problem, so I suggested towing it behind my car to the top of five mile hill, and it surely would start against compression coming down that steep grade. Well me and big brother had a few harsh words over what a stupid idea he thought it was, but my superior intellect convinced him to try my theory.
Our first problem was the fact he couldn’t hang onto the rope, so my next idea was for him to tie the rope around his waist. That way both hands are free for the handlebars, so the dummy did as I asked and as I pulled him up that hill the rope tightened around his waist and almost cut him in half. I looked back in my rear view mirror and could see him shaking his fist and screaming at me; but I knew if I stopped he would kill me. The theory didn’t work, the bike didn’t start, and Neal didn’t kill me; but it wasn’t too long after that Neal got out of the motorcycle business.