My Hero

My dear brother Harold Gillum was buried this week. Starting when I was only a baby, Harold has always been my hero, my role model.   One of my very first memories was of Harold, standing in front of the mirror, carefully shaping his beautiful locks of curly dark hair with Wild Root Cream Oil Charlie. Harold is fourteen years older than I, so my time with him before he left Wing was limited.   When we swam together in the creek, if the water got too deep for me, he swam with me on his back.

     With a baseball in his hand, Harold could produce miracles. His knuckle ball usually hit me just about anywhere, except in my glove.  His curve ball would look like it was way above my head, then curve neatly in for a strike at the last moment. Right or left. His fast ball, well, I think I have about blocked out my memories of catching that. He once stood in front of our house, threw the ball up in the air, and hit it to the old barn down in front of the house. “There. That will give you a goal to shoot for, as you grow older.” When I was grown, and still was not anywhere close, I measured his hit. 500 feet.

     When we squirrel hunted, I felt lucky to hit the squirrel anywhere with our old .22. Harold only shot his in the ear, to save the meat.

Fishing for red horses and suckers, I once caught one with a bare hook. While Harold caught half a washtub full.

     Harold was a mature, solid person at a 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 were no potential drivers on the Wing end of the line, and there was no house on our end of the line 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. And that was true. 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 learned quickly. When the Yell County Fair time arrived, he drove a bus load of students over Danville Mountain, then only a dirt mountain trail. All the other bus drivers chose to go around by Ola.  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, hand on the door opener.  At the bottom of the mountain, he pronounced Harold a good driver.

      Harold came in on a furlough from the Air Force. I had caught some pretty nice catfish down at the slough, and as is typical for Harold, he just had to give it a try even though it had been raining a lot and the river was coming up. The slough makes a big curve from the river, then back to it, and we would have to swim to get to the good hole. One night Harold, my cousin Jack Larry, and I set out. The water was over my head, but we got across okay. The fish were not in a biting mood, but the river just kept coming on up. Pretty soon, the road was about the only ground not covered on the whole island, and we decided to get out while we could. The water moccasins were all up on the high ground too, and Jack Larry and I were barefooted, with one small light. Every few steps we spotted another one. When we got to the spot where we had to swim, there was now a rushing current. Larry and I both had to hang onto Harold on the way across to keep from being washed away. He was larger and a strong swimmer, but I still don't know how he did it. Well, the snakes were just as thick on the other side, too, and I've never been so happy to get home.

    My wife and I once visited Harold while he was in the Air Force, in Montana. He drove down town to a store and found a parking place in front of the store, but it was going to cost him a dime. He drove another quarter of a mile down the road, and found free parking. We had to walk half a mile, but when we left for home, the dime was still in his pocket.

      Harold 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 flown to Idaho Falls for surgery. His wife Lou headed for Idaho Falls, and I followed a day or two later. When I got to the hospital,  Harold had a drainage tube in his head, but he had not lost any of his sense of humor. "Pat," he said, "Be sure to tell the surgeon, if she takes anything out when she operates, just put it in a little box. I'll want to go through it later."

     

     The operation took eight hours. They had to cool his body down to stone cold, to slow the blood flow. When the vessel was then empty of blood, a clamp could then be slipped over it, and the heart restarted.  He made it through all right, partially because, the doctor said, he was so big and strong to begin with. I shook his strong but stone cold hand, and I headed home. I was not needed there.  His wife Lou was awake, and on guard.

     The net result was, when it was all said and done, Harold's balance and ability to get around were affected. He could not swallow for some time, and took his nourishment through a feeding tube for a good while after he took the farm back over. His brain, fortunately, was as sharp as always. Once he got through rehab, he continued to run his cattle farm as always, but it was a lot slower and more complicated now. Given enough thinking time, one can figure out a way to do most anything, if the determination is there. And he always had a lot more than his share of that. 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, but in typical Harold fashion, finished raking his hay before going to the hospital. First and foremost, the farm is taken care of.

     ­­­­­­­When I thought Harold was pretty well over the hill, pushing forty, and I was still a young buck fresh from running college track, I challenged Harold to a race. He won. So, I challenged him to an arm wrestling contest. He slammed my arm down so fast and so hard, I thought it must be broken. To try to save a little face, I pronounced, “I’m going to start lifting weights. Someday, I’ll challenge you again.” For years I stalked him. As he got older, time and again I visited Harold, and evaluated my chances. Each time, when he rose to greet me and wrapped his aged, strong fingers around my hand, I realized, I was rushing it.  Finally, he could no longer stand to shake my hand, and I started looking for a table we could use. But his strong handshake again told me it was no use. I just never felt the time was right.

     I love you, Harold, and I will keep you in my heart forever. But I will continue lifting weights, because I will see you again.