Transitions by Mike Hormek - HTML preview

Chapter 2

My teenage years were interesting at best, years I have no desire to repeat. There is so much to tell, but I must figure out where to start. So let's start with cars. I love customizing vehicles. Because school bus service was lousy on our ranch, I could obtain a driver's permit to drive to school at 13. You must understand I was around four foot eleven and could hardly see over the windshield. I knew how to drive because my Dad let me steer the tractor on his lap when I was seven. By eight, I was driving the tractor alone. I passed the driver's test and got the permit. I got pillows to sit on to see what was hap -

pening. Six months earlier, he bought me a Schwinn bike for my birthday. It is like a slick bike with a light and ribbons on the handlebars, including all the bells and whistles. It cost 125.00 dollars. Dad had to sell two pigs to pay for it. I often tell the story that the first car he bought me cost 100.00. Go figure because that progression lasted until I was 19.

Shortly after Dad bought me the car, I got a part-time job in a body shop. I learned not only bodywork but became proficient in painting. I became interested in customizing. The Ford car was gray, with standard chrome and dull looks. I remember the day I finished the project and brought it home. My Dad hit the roof.

"What have you done to all that nice chrome?" he asked.

"I customized it, Dad, that's the trend now and it will increase the car's value."

He walked away unhappy but did not bring it up again for the following 18 vehicles.

The car was painted canary yellow. I lowered the back, put long Mercury fender skirts on it, removed all the chrome, and filled the holes. The interior seats were rolled and tucked-pleated. The interior color was lavender and white interior. Dual mufflers had a mellow sound.

I attended Catholic school during this period. The nuns should have spent time recruiting me to run errands. It helped my grades as I always got A's without doing much. Incidentally, while in Catholic school, I had long hair and wore a ducktail haircut. One nun always took me to the base-ment to re-comb my hair to a more "conforming" appearance. Boy, she was a beauty, too. I think she liked me.

That began my collection of cars until I was nineteen. I customized and traded up, so my car was almost new and paid for when I entered the Navy. A car of my own allowed me to get dates quickly. I once was at a class reunion when a girl I dated asked me.

"Why didn't you date me more than once?"

"Well, when I picked you up, your mother said. If you kill my daughter, I will kill you."

"That scared me."

I wished I could have kept some of the cars I owned. I remember some of the sweetest ones.

There was a 1950 Mercury convertible with a black exterior, white top, red leather seats, and all power. Our main street was a triangle with a hotel on one end and the high school on the other. I could start the drive on the hotel end with the top down, and several girls jumped in when I reached the high school. Somebody had to do it.

I had a 1949 Pontiac with a straight-eight engine that provided me with racing power. It would outrun any of the V8-engine cars on the drag strip.

For comfort, the 1957 Nash Ambassador was a neat cruiser, and I used to take my parents on Sunday trips. The front seats folded, and I remember a date at the drive-in-theater. The seat accidentally retracted, and my guest needed to change her attire. Honestly, it was an accident.

My best show car was a 1952 Cadillac that I restored to the original. I made enough money on the sale of that car to pay cash for subsequent cars.

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I remember owning a 1952 Ford four-door. I somehow blew the engine. I put a sign on it and placed it on the side of the road. Eventually, these two guys were hitchhiking from out west to Chicago, and they bought it. "Are you going to replace the engine?" I asked. "No, we will repair it,"

they answered.

"How can that be possible? The rods are out, and the crankshaft is damaged."

"We will use parts from other engines in the junkyard," they said.

"You have got to be kidding me. I will wait for that one," I said.

They proceeded to repair the engine. Eventually, when the engine was back together, they cranked it, and it ran. I never witnessed such an event. They knew what they were doing, using leather shims for the crankshaft, etc. I often wondered how far they drove it before it broke down.

Speaking of hitchhikers, these two guys approached me with this old Plymouth. It looked fair and ran well. I told them I was not interested in buying it, so they offered another deal.

"If you give us a sum of money, we will drive the car until we run out of gas and money. Then, we will pull the car over in a safe place and leave a signed title in the glove box. We will remove the distributor cap and place it in the trunk. We will call you about the location, and then you can come and get the car."

I accepted the deal. I am trying to remember how much money I gave them, but it was a good deal. My cousin and I retrieved the car, replaced the engine with a big V8, and made a hot rod out of it.

I could buy for cash a one-year-old Chevrolet before I entered the Navy.

My next classic was a 1947 Chrysler Town and Country "Woody," which my Dad bought at auction and gave me when I was in the Navy. I rented a U-Haul and took it to Pensacola, Florida. The exterior wood made of oak needed replacement; they needed to be steamed and bowed. I could not find anyone to do it, so I put it up for sale. I told the buyer, who came up from Miami. "I will sell you this car on one condition. You agree to restore it to its original condition, put it in a show, and send me some photos." Approximately two years later, I received a letter and photos. It received first place in its class. The end of my collection resulted in ownership of a small import called a Metropolitan while I was in the Navy. It was around a 1956 model. It was a neat little car. One day, I got stuck in the mud, and three of us picked up the rear end and moved it. Cars were my passion. But life got in the way.

Life on the reservation always seemed enjoyable and sometimes "out of the norm" occurrences.

Remember the triangle main street in my home town? At the tip of the triangle was a city Christmas tree during the holidays. In front of the tree was a police car. I am curious to know who did it.

Someone tied the bumper to the police car, and someone else screeched their tires and sped off.

The police car heading west on the main street pulling the tree was quite a site. I understand some parents had to cough up money for a new tree. And, of course, some teenagers were in trouble. Teenagers are similar anywhere and anytime. Some never get in trouble, some are always in trouble, and there are the rest.

Beer busts were popular with high school kids, especially during prom and special functions like ball games. There was always a party somewhere, mostly in parks or barns on farmhouses when parents were not around. I remember one party at prom where the county police and state troopers raided a large gathering at the local Lewis and Clark Park. Who knows what else?

The kids had a huge bonfire going and untold amounts of beer. There was only one way in and one way out. They were toast. After arrests, I understood that the law invited over 100 to the local jail and parents to pick them up. My Dad could have been a happier camper. Thank God I was not driving, although the law suspended my driving privileges for a month, a typical example of teenagers hanging with the wrong crowds and succumbing to peer pressure.

In addition to my Native American friends, I befriended a father of two brothers named Harry. I have always been interested in electrical stuff; it became my life's work. Harry taught me how to repair

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electric motors, and we have become good friends. He had an old Harley bike and would take me to surrounding towns. Remember the old Plymouth that I made into a hot rod? Harry was the one who helped me put in the engine.

I will never forget Harry. He was a dog whisperer. It was uncanny. He had non-verbal communication with his dog. He could look at his dog, and it would respond with non-verbal commands. One day, Harry said, "Let's visit the sheriff's department and pet the dogs."

"What? Those are German Shepherds. They will tear you apart," I said. I have petted them in the past. Don't worry."

So we proceeded to the Sheriff's Department. It turned out the Deputies liked Harry, as he volunteered for their department from time to time. We came to the dog kennel.

“I’m not going in,” I said.

He talked to the dogs and entered the pen. The volume of his voice decreased while addressing the dogs until it became a whisper. Amazingly, after he stared at them silently for a few minutes, both dogs lay down and whimpered. It was a sight to behold. Harry had striking grey eyes that, at times, were so piercing you had to turn away. He had no fear of the dogs. The motors he rewound had wires that had to be varnished and baked in an oven. There was not much ventilation in the garage. Harry generally drank a fifth of Vodka while working. When they found him, his body was gray. They said it was a combination of the Vodka and fumes from the oven.

Dad had a pet coyote when he was younger. He ran over a den with his tractor and saved a pup.

He took it to town in the truck's front seat and parked on Main Street while shopping. A crowd of spec-tators gathered.

The same happened with a chicken hawk I tried to save, but it died in captivity after some time.

My pet was a pig named "Oink," which only had half a face and no eye on one side. I saved pictures of me feeding it with a milk bottle. I also had a pet sheep named Baa. How Baa came to be is another story.

Some friends and I were deer hunting, and a sheep was accidentally in the way, so a head wound took it. I put it in the trunk and brought it home, thinking it was dead. To my amazement, it moved when I opened the trunk. I doctored it, and it has been an excellent pet for years. I was angry that my parents had Baa for dinner without my knowledge.They could not feed it.

Speaking of hunting, my Dad, my friends, and I have been hunting deer on the Missouri River basin for one year. The adults covered the perimeter of an island, and we kids got sticks and walked through the woods, making noise to chase out the deer. I saw a bobcat heading directly for my Dad on his rear. "Dad, there's a bobcat on your tail," I yelled. He jumped and dropped his rifle. My Dad did not appreciate my laughter. We often hunted together.

I hunted alone in 1960 and took out an unofficial largest mule deer that year. For those who understand trophies, it had non-typical antlers with 23 points. It was so old some teeth were missing. I did not enter it into Boone and Crockett for official recognition. In 1970, I took out unofficially the second largest. It must have been the son of the 1960 deer because it was in the same general area.

In later years, while in college in Pensacola, Florida, I met a barber, Bill, whom I befriended. He was an avid hunter. Bill was a good friend but scatterbrained, the kind who always lost keys, got lost, etc. Bill and I decided to go hunting. We parked on a road deep into the woods. I hunted close to the truck in the event I lost my bearings. Bill went deep into the woods. At a specific time, we decided that whichever of us got back to the truck at 6 p.m., the other would blow the horn to alert the other of the truck's position. At precisely 6 p.m. I blew the horn. As the night progressed and after several attempts to blow the horn, I gave up and got some sleep. Bill was lost. It was ten o'clock the following day when some hunters brought him back. He was walking up a highway several miles from the truck. He had be-

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come disoriented and lost his sense of direction. It was a challenge for the folk's who helped piece to -

gether truck's location. I am glad I did not move.

So Bill went to Montana with me one year to hunt. We had a successful hunt. Bill was a gambler and won ten thousand dollars in the Big Q Greyhound race in Pensacola, Florida. Bill decided to leave his barber business in Pensacola and move to Montana so he could regularly hunt. He moved and bought a horse, two pack horses, and ample supplies for a long hunt. Now, you have to understand I was born and raised in Montana, and there were areas I would not venture into without a guide. Bill en -

tered one of those areas called The Bob Marshall Wilderness.

The story he told was funny but sad. He went deep into the wilderness. The only signs of life were a couple of Rangers stations. Bill created a ridge where the ground was wet from recent rain, and the pack horses tied together slipped and fell into a ravine. He could not retrieve them, as all his sup -

plies and a gun were gone. Bill did have another weapon aboard his horse. To make matters worse, it began to snow. Somehow, by the grace of God, he made it to a ranger station to wait out the blizzard.

He had a free helicopter ride. I do not know what happened to his horse, so I did not ask.

Bill bought a barber shop in my hometown on the reservation. He purchased horses and boarded them at a stable. Bill struggled financially, slept in the back of this shop, and spent most of his money gambling on punch-outs in the bar next door. How could he afford to feed his horses? He often had a sign on his door that said, "Gone hunting."

A friend on the reservation told me a story about Bill. He was hunting at a woman's house with a bow and arrow on the river bottom. He was in a tree stand not far from her house, with flower beds under the tree. It was early when a loud noise awakened the woman. He fell asleep in the tree and crushed her flowers in the bed. It is my understanding she ran him off.

Bill was a good friend to my parents and watched over them in my absence.

He was a good barber, but you had better refrain from talking to him while cutting your hair.

Once in Pensacola, Florida, I went into his shop for a trim. As he spoke, he lost track of balance on each side of the head and continually cut corrections on each side until it had whitewalls, as if he had put a bowl around my head. I was upset.

As a teenager, I loved to fish for the rest of my life. At 13, I entered a fishing contest on the Missouri River. I knew about a spot I had frequently fished for sturgeon, the ones with caviar. I had caught many sturgeon there, so I fished in the contest. I caught a catfish over twelve pounds and entered it.

I won the contest in many categories. I won the top prize for a boat and many other prizes in other categories. Many old-timers could not believe I caught it on a rod and reel and accused me of catching it on a set line. I would never have done that.

While living during my teenage years on the reservation, there were adventures, such as the groups that conducted B.B. gun fights, and I joined one. A friend invited me in. I remember the day we went to the "round track," which trains used to turn around before twin-engine diesel. Looking back, I realize how dangerous this could be. Projectiles can put an eye out.

The parents learned of this, and they called the cops, who came and broke us up. Fun fights or if there were problems between the groups?

Winters could be fun or depressing. We did not have official skating rinks; we only had farm ponds that would freeze over, and we would have skate parties. Using old car hoods instead of sleds was fun in the hills. Rabbit hunting at night with spotlights was popular. We could see the pink eyes in the snow with light on them. They are Snowshoe rabbits that turn white in the winter. We froze them and waited until a hide and fur buyer came from North Dakota. We got as much as a dollar each, which was a lot. Gas at twenty-five cents a gallon meant we could drive for a while on one rabbit. The Hide

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and Fur dealer parked his truck full of rabbits on Main Street at night. Some of the guys I knew would sell him the same rabbits over and over.

A popular winter activity was car hitching. We put on slick-bottom shoes, waited until a car drove by, grabbed the back bumper, and let the car pull us. It was not so much fun when we hit a dry spot on the ground and fell on our faces.

It was depressing when a blizzard prevented us from outside activities. Our house in town was around a mile from the high school. I frequently walked when my Dad was on the ranch and could not take me. I was proud of my Elvis-like hair; I would comb it wet and then go to school. By the time I got there, my hair froze.

I left Montana for good, with the winters as a primary reason. I liked the summers. I loved the farm life, driving the tractors, putting up hay, and the smell of the crops in the fall. We had cows, hogs, chickens, turkeys and horses. I had a favorite Pinto horse and rode in the parade at an annual rodeo called The Wolf Point Stampede. One day, I opened her to a full gallop on the back forty. I don't know what happened because she was generally gentle. One time, she bucked and threw me off. Knocked out, I lay there. My mother must have been watching because she came running and threw a bucket of water at me. I survived.

We sometimes contract ranchers to pick up baled hay for a nickel each to make money.

One summer during the Rodeo, a trick rider and roper named Monty Montana, who was born on the reservation and made it big in Hollywood, celebrated his fiftieth anniversary in showbiz. He invited several of his celebrity friends. I may not remember all of them, but there was Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson, Rex Allen Jr., and Iron Eyes Cody, an American actor who portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood. He was best known for shedding a tear for litter on T.V. He claimed to have been born on the reservation but denied being Italian, which was my understanding. There were many other celebrities whose names escaped me. I met and shook hands with most of them in the only hotel lobby in town.

There also was the San Francisco Mounted Posse. When they came in, they started with a wagon train in Canada and slept in covered wagons for several days, making their way into Montana. Then the celebration began. I have never seen so much beer consumed. There were big coolers set up on sidewalks with a donation bucket. The celebration lasted five days. Montana may run out of beer and have to bring in beer from out of state.

My high school days were dull. Academics were different from my thing. I liked working with my hands and learning "high-tech" stuff, which ultimately was my life's work. I wish we had a trade school. I would have liked it. The principal frequently called me into his office and said, "Mike, your aptitude test scores are some of the highest we have seen. Why are you making C's?"

"A couple of reasons, Sir. I don't take books home. I don't do homework, and I frequently miss class." I replied.

"Then why shouldn't we expel you?"

"Because I ace the tests and ultimately pass."

"Well, if you apply yourself, we can accelerate you, and you could graduate quite early."

"I will think about it."

I quit my junior year and went to work.

In my brief high school career, I helped Dad bring in the harvest, so it might be as long as six weeks before I started school in the fall. It took me only a short time to catch up, though. I did not fin -

ish high school on the reservation. In the Navy, I took GED and college courses at night. My high school sent me a diploma. The class I would have graduated with invited me to their reunions.

I often ask folks to relay their most embarrassing moment. Mine was in high school. There was a girl, as every high school has. I won't mention her name to protect the innocent. Let's call her Mary.

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One day, a message was on the study hall's loudspeaker.

"Will Mike and Sherry please report to the office?"

The study hall broke out in whistles and laughter. They thought they caught us. When we arrived at the office, she looked at me and grinned, and I returned likewise. Turns out it was an unrelated issue. The class razzed me for a long time.

Aside from the Native American population, the mode of dress in my high school was generally farm and ranch style: Blue jeans, belt buckle, cowboy boots, and hat. City boys were more conserva-tive. Incidentally, most Caucasian farmers and ranchers lived off the reservation. We had ranches both on and off the reservation. Indian land was rugged to purchase because of multiple owners on the deed.

My Dad had trouble tracking down several owners when he bought some Indian land. I'm not so sure a white man's ownership was a secure investment, as I know of a case where a white man married an Indian woman who farmed the land all his life, thinking he owned it. When the wife died, the land went back to the tribe.

Regarding the mode of dress, being a son of a rancher, the way I dressed was considered outside the mold and maybe even unusual for the surroundings, Bohemian by today's standards. I wore Wellington boots with a side zipper, pegged pants, and a shirt with a turned-up collar. I tucked my sleeves under. My hair was long, combed into a "duck tail." I wore a motorcycle jacket with bling despite not owning a bike. Most ranch boys drove a truck with a rifle in the back window. I went for a custom car, the only one in the area.

Later on the reservation, I worked outside my Dad's ranch. We needed to see eye-to-eye on how to manage the effort. Dad believed in the old school of thought. "If it's not broken, don't fix it," I told him; your neighbors profit while you struggle to get by. He said. "Yes, but look at it from a different point of view. They must mortgage their land and house to afford the sixty thousand dollar tractors and combines. I understand the need for state-of-the-art equipment, fertilizers, irrigation, and the like, but I am not willing to invest at my age, and you have not committed to taking over." He had a point. I needed to make some serious money and could not do it in our place, so I went to work elsewhere.

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