Mailboxes along the roads and old barns set back in fields overgrown with weeds often served as landmarks in rural Montana. These landmarks told us where we were, and how far we had to go. Sometimes they signaled “home”  and the end of the road.  At other times, barely visible through swirling snow, they told us we had miles to go.  Memories from those years — Mailboxes and Old Barns.

On a cold November night with a moon that’s new, it worried my thoughts if I heard a pack of coyotes howling across the pasture hills.  There’s something about their lonely cries that sort of grates at the heart under the best of circumstances, but hearing it in the cold of fall reminded of the possibility that they had some of our cattle on the run.  Even coyotes couldn’t be said to flourish on the hard prairie turf, so we never had multiple packs to deal with but one was enough.

After the crops were in, or in the summer between planting and harvesting, Dad would spent days repairing the fence lines that surrounded a field here, five hundred acres of pasture there or two hundred acres there.

We had two distinct kinds of barbed wire fence.  What we called old fence was constructed using sturdy and dead tree branches that had been cut out from the tree stand in the coulees — up to four or five feet long and about two inches thick, they qualified it to be a post in the old fence.  They were of every shape and size, but once the barbed wire was stretched tight and stapled around them, then anchored by an occasional serious wood post at a corner or an some interval established by the farmer, they made a strong fence that would stand up almost anything thrown at it.  Almost.  But if the coyotes got a group of cattle on the run in the middle of the night, that the old fence couldn’t stand against.  If there are five or twenty-five cattle running pell-mell across the open prairie scared out of their wits with coyotes yelping at their heels, they will go straight through such a fence.

After they’re rounded up the next day, each one is examined for gashes and cuts on their eyes and their mouths, or any wrap-around barbed wire damage on their necks or front legs that might need some salve for a few days to be sure no infections set in.

This actually became more of a concern as the equipment that was available to farmers improved when the farmers moved up to steel posts for the barbed wire fences.  A visual ribbon of deep green steel posts walking firmly up the hillside just sort of brought order to

things in a way that could be satisfying: each one driven into the ground with the post awl, setting that wide steel wing about eight inches down which guaranteed that that post wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what hit it.

Then he’d stretch the barbed wire and measure out the precise number of feet to where the next post would be sunk.  It was a lot of work and a thing of beauty in its own way.  And, like I said, it wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what hit it.

If a few coyotes got a few cattle running in the night and ran them into this fence, they wouldn’t have be hunted down the next day, in some far off corner of someone else’s pasture where they ended up the night before.  No, they would be right where they had hit the fence. Some standing there still dazed and bleeding, some laying on the ground with mangled legs that the coyotes had chewed on for awhile before they got bored and went off to chase the sunrise.

I understand how and why predatory wolves are deeply hated by cattlemen, but there’s something about coyotes that is different, something more random that I really despise.  Coyotes seemed to chase and torment for the fun of terrorizing.  Do wolves do that?  I don’t know.

Very occasionally there would also be a pack of domesticated-dogs-gone-wild that would get to running through hundreds of square miles of prairie, the pack size fed and sourced from the two small towns located within fifteen miles of one another in our area.  Both the townspeople and the farmers knew that such a pack just meant it was time for target practice.  The farm boys would grab their guns, jump in whatever old rattletrap was handy and have the problem solved before sundown.

The strengths and vulnerabilities, the good memories and the hard ones are what make the mailboxes and old barns of our lives.  These are the places on the road where we glance up — see that old barn — and know exactly where we are along the familiar roads of the past, but the achievements and the attitudes, the disciplines and the skills, the problem-solving and the surviving were not unique to those times.  Not at all.

Every single thing that I have ever described in any MBOB written over the past few years, including this one,  is still happening today.  Somewhere.  Some of you live MBOB.  You always have and you always will.

Living MBOB was not a product of the times (the 1950s) but of individuals.  It is different in that the majority of folks lived MBOB then because it was what they were surrounded by and it meant living well, getting things done, making a living and enjoying family.  Those things were valued.

Nobody told them they had to live well or work hard.  The fact is, not all of them did.  There were lazy people then, too.  They just didn’t outnumber the hard workers.

MBOB could be described as being nostalgia stories.  Hmmm….maybe. Nostalgia, to me, speaks of “way back when”….and none of this is inherently “way back when.” Each of us can be making all the MBOB we want today.

I usually don’t go this direction in these essays, but wanted to make two points.

First, as I’ve already said,  we can still MBOB all we want.   Don’t just put this all in the past like it’s somebody else’s memories and not available any more.  That simply isn’t true.

Secondly, what I haven’t said,  not all MBOBs are good. And not all of my MBOBs are fuzzies, warm or otherwise.  A few red and white heifers with their necks and faces ripped by barbed wire because they were terrified in the night is one of my MBOBs.  In most of the MBOB essays, yes, I have focused on fond memories because we need encouragement in today’s world and sometimes that’s best done with stories that speak of peaceful things.

However, sometimes folks who have been through shared battle experiences are encouraged by remembering how they fought, filling in the details of why a particular battle went badly, or remembering who died in another battle.  MBOBs are not all good, and it would be dishonest to pretend they are.

We live life the way it is, not the way we wish it was.  Just like my parents did.  Just like my grandparents did.  Just like your parents did.  Just like your grandparents did.  So make the most of it.

We can be just as proud of the barbed wire in our lives that serves a purpose even if it has a downside, as we can of the amazing wheat harvest. Settle down and rest at the end of a day that was either flat wearisome or exhilarating. Because we worked hard. We got it done.  We strung some barbed wire. We found the cattle that needed finding and shot the coyotes that needed shooting.

Living life the way it is — not the way we wish it was.

That’s where Mailboxes and Old Barns come from.