24, October 2024 Roseau County Old Timer

 

There was nothing fantoosh about him, save for an unusual finkle, or maybe scar, that ran from below his left ear to the corner of his mouth in a jagged curve. No doubt about it, Ralph Larson was his own man. I met him in the fall of 1979. I was working at Farmers Union Oil Company/West Plant. He came to get some of his 100-pound cylinders of propane re-filled, because someone, he said, had been surfeit with his gas using it to heat the place instead of using firewood of which he had many cords cobbed and stacked right out the back door. He had no qualms about strangers needing to use his cabin if they needed to, for things happen like that in the northwoods sometimes; it was the reason he never locked its door, another's life could depend on it. This time, however, he thought he knew who acted so callously, and called them, “Lazy bastards!” as one by one, he lifted the heavy (65-120 lb) empty cylinders to me, standing patiently by the scale. He was not happy about it as their behavior made it necessary for him to come to town, a distance of 54 miles in an old 1950s-era truck with an open-topped high-sided grain box built into it and a tailgate on the back. It was 35-below zero that day. I had very warm clothes on covering me from head to toe; the warmest I could afford. Clad in unlaced felt-lined rubber-bottomed Sorel boots, brochity old wool pants that had seen better days, an open-at-the neck wool shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and just a toque upon his wavy white hair, it was obvious to anyone that Ralph was the epitome of a northwoods bachelor, leftover from the days of the pulp cutters of the early 20th century, when after grain harvest many of the local farmers left their families for a yob in 'the big woods’ for weeks at a time to cut pulp. Pulp wood was a stick 6-9 inches in diameter and 100-inches long.

It was said that Ralph spent his winters in a hibernaculum, built into a river bank, but he preferred his cozy log trapper cabin where he could coquinate, making his own bread, eating beavertail, and scrumptious venison roasts. River bank living was previenient to cabin dwelling, and he fared well there too, but in his old age his trapper cabin was truly home, for when he was alabandical, and had forgotten to fill his stove at 40-below and quietus may stole in; the auxiliary propane heater would kick on and not only save his life, but a searing cold walk to the privy.