Published: April 15, 2009 10:04 pm         

MARK BENNETT: Taking the high road with cattle, spinning odometers, litter, moon rocks

TERRE HAUTE — Every young boy daydreams about it. For most, that’s all it ever amounts to, unless you’re Clint Eastwood, John Wayne or Billy Crystal. But I got to live it, a few weeks ago.

Yes, it was my first cattle drive.

To tell the story of the Yegerlehner family’s semiannual cattle drive near Clay City, I joined about 60 of their adventurous friends, neighbors and fellow church members as they guided nearly 90 dairy cows (as well as 30 males) from their winter pasture to their summer pasture. It’s a one-hour, 3.5-mile journey along a country road. We didn’t have to fight off any cattle rustlers, but some drama did unfold — five of those dogies got loose and had to be lured back into the procession. Most of us were on foot, not horseback (except for three young first-time cowboys). Still, it gives me something to tell the grandkids about someday (in the distant future, of course).

The day’s fun began with a haywagon ride to the starting point, and ended with a delicious lunch and ice cream dessert from the Yegerlehner/Jegerlehner Swiss Connection Farmstead Cheese shop and farm.

Rowdy Yates never had it so good.

It was the start of an interesting month. As always in this job, I learned something. For instance, my earlier use of the word “dogies” is a stretch, technically. (Most of my ranching education came from “Rawhide” reruns.) A dogie is a motherless calf, and I’m not sure whether the five cattle that bolted the herd at last month’s drive were, in fact, estranged from their moms. I also, thanks to an astute reader, received a sobering lesson in the difference between steers (castrated males) and bulls (intact males).

With that in mind, I’ll bull forward with more reader input from stories and columns during the past month, and beyond.

• My Valley Life story (March 22) on folks driving vehicles with 200,000 miles or more drew some eye-opening responses. Weeks before the piece was published, the Tribune-Star used Web and print ads to find local motorists sticking with their high-mileage cars and trucks. Nearly 20 people with odometer readings eclipsing the 200,000-mile plateau responded, topped by Carla Wehrmeyer of Prairieton. Her 1997 Honda CR-V has traveled 294,000 miles.

Apparently, life behind the wheel merely starts at 200,000, for some folks. Two readers left the 300,000-mile mark in their dust long ago. Marla Thompson of Merom drives a 1997 Ford Expedition from her home in Merom to work in Terre Haute daily, and its mileage hit 358,000 late last month. Terre Haute resident Donna Pickens’ 2000 Saturn SL has rolled up 340,000 miles on weekday commutes to work in Indianapolis.

But the Wabash Valley’s ultimate road warrior is a 1996 Toyota Camry, piloted by Bridget Brown of Hillsdale. Her mileage is (drumroll, please) 547,000.

OMG.

Bridget’s husband, Wayne, says the Camry is in mint condition, with its original engine and exhaust system, and no major repairs needed since they bought it new. “We drive it to save fuel [costs],” Wayne reports. Most of those miles belong to Bridget. She works for the Indiana Department of Health, a job that takes her around the state. You go, girl.

• My Perspectives column (April 5) on the scourge of litter in Vigo County and Terre Haute sparked some lively responses. A few folks pointed out other reasons for the buildup of roadside trash, beyond carelessness or, as I put it, stupidity. Some litter flies off semi trucks flowing in on I-70 and State Roads 46 and 159, bound for the Sycamore Ridge Landfill, reports reader Don Sumansky of Terre Haute. Also, the cost of trash hauling prompts other people to toss their garbage along the motorways, another reader says.

Still, thoughtless disregard for the look of our community accounts for most litter here. Tossing emptied pop and liquor bottles, fast-food bags, Skoal cans and Twinkie wrappers out a car window leaves a mess for others to clean up.

Every working day, Rob Hasbrouck picks up litter scattered in front of the business he built on Johnson Avenue nine years ago. Some blows in from a nearby store. Some gets pitched by motorists. “I have taken pictures of the problem over the years, called the City [of Terre Haute] and e-mailed them the details and documentation, asking for help,” he writes, but nothing has changed.

More fines need to be enforced, Hasbrouck suggests. “It has to come down to money or punishment,” he writes. “When you look around, it’s hard to believe the City only handed out a couple citations in 2008 for littering.”

The City recently began writing more litter citations, Mayor Duke Bennett said last month. Darrel Zeck, the city public affairs director, said citizens can report accumulations of roadside litter to his office at (812) 244-2320, or the code enforcement office at 244-2258. In Vigo County, outside the city limits, people can call the County Highway Department at (812) 466-9635 to report roadside litter buildups, or to participate in the Adopt-a-Road volunteer clean-up program.

• Folks who read about West Vigo Middle School teacher Diedre Adams (Nov. 30, Valley Life) know she’s spent the school year in Washington, D.C., working in NASA’s Office of Education through a prestigious fellowship program. Recently, Adams has crossed paths with astronaut Sally Ride, Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and former VP Al Gore, she reports.

Even cooler, though, was her flight to New Hampshire for a lecture at a school there. On the plane, Adams carried real moon rocks in a briefcase … safely handcuffed to her wrist. That ranks right up there with a cattle drive.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

     

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