Post nineteen: An Angel, and a high school kid SchoolbusDriver

     My brother Harold was somewhat like me in his hunting, fishing, and trapping. Before he left home, he was the family wild meat provider, a job I soon took over. He was always very mature at a very young age. When Harold was a senior in high school, they needed a school bus driver from Wing very badly. The Bluffton bus was doing a double route, and the people up there were getting tired of getting up so early. There was no house on this end to move someone into. Finally, Harold's name was brought up. It was said that he was as solid as a 40-year-old man. So Harold was hired as a school bus driver a week before school started. There was just one problem. He couldn't drive. Some of the local men gave him a week's crash course, and he did fine. When Fair time arrived, he drove a bus load over Danville Mountain. The road was narrow, steep, and dirt. The other driver chose to go around by Ola, farther but safer. Not Harold. Mr. Tommy Sullivan was on that bus. When they started down the mountain, he moved up and sat on the steps right by the door. At the bottom of the mountain, he told Harold he was a good driver. Harold spent 20 years in the Air Force. When Dad and Mom were not doing well in their old age, he once told me, “If you will watch after them until I retire, I will take over after that.” He did, and he got a triple dose. All the older Gillums started dying off quickly after he returned to Wing. The Clan was raised together, Mostly lived side by side all their lives, and died together. Harold finished raising his brood of boys here at Wing, and is the only Gillum family still on the farm.
     He worked for the Forest Service several years. When Yellowstone burned over, he took a firefighting crew there. After 30 hours on the fire line, he had a ruptured aneurysm in his brain. He was taken to Idaho for surgery and had a long recovery process. His balance and ability to get around were affected, but his brain is as sharp as always. He continued to run his cattle farm for years, always figuring out a way to do what had to be done. He went on steel determination for years. Once, he was raking hay. He was standing beside the tractor and pushed a rake lever the wrong way. It tightened in on him, and he quickly pushed the lever again–still the wrong way. Bones started popping. He finally extracted himself with numerous broken ribs and a punctured lung, and in typical Gillum fashion, finished raking his hay before going to the hospital. “The Gillums were not like other people.” That's never been demonstrated more clearly. First and foremost, the farm is taken care of.
     The last time Harold and I went fishing down at the Little Lake, Harold got on a high center with his 4 wheel drive “mule” just before we got there. I knew I could not carry Harold out, Harold could not walk out, and we had no tools. I finally found a small screwdriver, laid down under the rig, and chipped away at the high center until we could get loose from it. I was so worn out, Harold caught several bream before I could rest up enough to bait my hook. Come to think of it, that was a mighty fishy deal, hanging it up right by the lake. Harold would always do anything to get a fishing advantage!
     When Harold was a young man, he married Louise Parker. I discovered when Harold was in the hospital in Idaho that Lou was the person you wanted on your side when you were very sick. If Harold had a need, she moved out to the middle of the hall and quickly did whatever necessary to get a nurse there pronto. She is a great cook and has made many beautiful quilts over the years.
     If there ever was an angel that came out of Fourche Valley, it would be sister Jonnie. When I was in high school, I had cavities in my two front teeth. Spending money on a dentist was just something we did not do. But when Sis started teaching, she hauled me to a dentist pronto. When I thanked her again years later, she didn't remember it, but I sure do.
     A few years ago at the family reunion, she called me over and told me to write down the names of everyone there while she listed them. We were 60 or so strong by then, but she never hesitated. She reeled them off as fast as I could write. I asked her, “How do you remember all of those so easily?” She looked at me and said, “Why, I pray for them all, by name, every day.” I hushed and slunk off.
      Sis was loved by everyone around her, all her life. She got her last good laugh—at Harold—the day she died. While people were visiting her at the nursing home, Harold went to sleep in a chair out in the hall. An orderly came around, woke him up, and insisted Harold go with him to his room, “where he could sleep properly.” Someone had to go rescue Harold. The muscle tissue that regenerated while Sis was in the iron lung so many decades ago, enabling her to breathe, finally gave out later that day.