Two Shorts and a Long

TWO SHORTS AND A LONG

 As a young growing boy, I had no idea how telephones worked.  I did know that when our phone rang two short rings and a long ring, someone needed to pick up the phone.  Also, I knew that anytime during the day, you could pick the phone up and hear the neighbor ladies talking about all kinds of stuff.  They talked about stuff I was not really interested in.  You see, I was the designated fence boy on our place.

Being the designated fence boy for a person of eight or nine years old is kind of a big deal.  We had a place of size, and you had to divide your time to cover all the perimeter fences, the cross fences, and we had a couple of water gaps.  Those water gaps were a mystery to me because our place was in what seemed like the desert.  I recall only a few days when it rained such that we stayed in on the screened in porch to watch it pour.  Anyway, I checked the water gaps for any type of irregularity that would allow an animal in or out. The fences were net wire with two strands of barbed wire on top.

Of course, I had to ride my horse to check all these fences. There is no way to walk them, and even though my brother was secretly teaching me how to drive our pickup, I was not allowed to drive at that age.

So, early every morning during the summer, I would saddle my horse, gather all my gear and head out to the pasture.  As part of my summer education, I had to write a note about which pasture I was checking just in case someone could find me should an emergency arise elsewhere.

The gear I packed was rather simple. I needed a round or two of barbed wire, a round or two of regular straight wire, two pair of pliers, a hammer, some fence staples, a pair of wire cutters, and a good pair of gloves.    I had the best wire cutters on the place.  I found an old rusted pair that would not open and I worked those over during a weekend, and they turned out to be the best.  I found out later in life that it was against the law in Texas to carry a pair of wire cutters out in certain situations.  I am pretty sure I had good cause to carry them since I was the designed fence boy.

I also carried a .22 caliber rifle.  I had a really neat saddle holster for that gun.  I also kept the gun oiled and in good working order.  It could shoot long or short bullets, however, we preferred the .22 long.  There were plenty of occasions to use the gun.  It seemed that rattlers really liked to hang around the grass in the fences, and being the designated fence boy, I felt it was my responsibility to eradicate those creatures.

There was one particular section of perimeter fence that was really hard to check.  The terrain was very rough and there were several small hills that dotted the western edge of our place, so I really did not check that fence very often.

Looking back through the notes I had left on our map, it became obvious I was ignoring that long stretch of fence for some reason, so, nothing to do but cure that problem and ride the fence. That was one strange fence. In addition to the net wire and two barbed wires. It had another barbed wire running on top of the post. Now, by riding the fence, I don’t mean that one would straddle the fence. No sir, that would be a problem in more ways than you can imagine.  Riding the fence meant saddling up, and strolling along the fence looking for anything that needed fixing.  These fences needed a lot of fixing it seemed from the eyes of an eight or nine year old designated fence boy.  I have no idea how these fences got along during the winter when I went to school, but during the summer they got the best checkups ever.

Starting at the northwest corner of our place, I commenced a very thorough check of the west perimeter fence.  A couple of hours into this check, I found the top strand of barbed wire broken.  I am thinking maybe a deer jumped the fence here, and clipped the top wire with a foot.  The wire was a little suspect, and there was some hair on some of the barbs.  I clipped out a short section that was part of the break, and put in a much better strand.  As I was making the very last tie together, I had one strand in my left hand, and one strand in my right hand. All of a sudden, I felt a jolt that knocked me off my feet.

I landed on my rear end right next to where my horse was grazing in the grass.  Thankfully, he did not run, but he was just as alarmed as I was at what had happened.  We both looked at that fence in wonder.  It should not be said that I couldn’t finish a job, so I gathered myself, grabbed the ends of the wire again and hooked them up to make the repair without another problem.

Not feeling all that great, I took a break with the fence riding and went back to the house for a little rest.  It was approaching lunch and the heat of the day, and everyone else had come in to eat and wait out the heat.  Usually by about five o’clock the heat let up a little, and we could go back at it again, however, I stayed in that day.  Dad noticed and asked if I had a problem.  When I relayed the story about what had happened on the west fence, he looked really concerned.  He picked up the telephone and called the feed store in town and placed an order, and asked the feed store to call him right back.  Two shorts and a long later, Dad answered the phone.

Dad told me that our phones had been out for several weeks.  The neighbors had been checking unsuccessfully to see if they could find a problem.  Apparently, the phones were fixed. He asked me if I saw little white ceramic doodads on top of the fence post holding the top strand of the barbed wire fence.

I told him I did see them and wondered what purpose they served.  He told me those little white doodads were insulators for our phone line, and the top strand of our barbed wire fence carried the phone line for us and all our neighbors.  Apparently, I had stumbled on the phone line problem everyone had been trying to find for the past several weeks.

Well, pops, thanks for letting me know about that phone line, because it packs a wallop!  I told him it knocked me to the ground when I grabbed both ends.  Best guess is that someone just happened to be cranking on their phone when I grabbed both ends of wire and made the connection.

I finished riding that perimeter fence the next day without a single problem, and when I made it back to the house there was a chocolate cake waiting for me.  The neighbor ladies’ gossip line was back up thanks to me.  I got a shock that knocked me to my rump, an education on how crank telephones worked, and a chocolate cake out of the deal.

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