Born With a Rusty Spoon: Episode 52
...Because P.G. worked on various ranches, my folks had to move into whatever old house came with the job. Without fail, those houses were dirty and riddled with mice...
Artist Bertie Stroup Marah continues a vividly-told account of her early years.
Mama and P.G. sold their Colorado place on Garnet Mesa because it was too small to make an adequate living. RG. then began working on ranches. Being a cowboy suited him just fine and he was very good at it.
Mama worked right along side of him. She loved to ride. Their life on the ranches brought them face to face with winter wildlife in Colorado causing deep sympathy for the cold starved animals that replaced their enjoyment of hunting. Mama became an avid bird feeder.
Because P.G. worked on various ranches, my folks had to move into whatever old house came with the job. Without fail, those houses were dirty and riddled with mice. We all tried to help with cleaning the places and moving their belongings. We remembered all the shacks Mama had cleaned over the years and felt an obligation to lighten her load.
When P.G. hired out on the Columbine ranch northeast of Hotchkiss, he and Mama moved into a little old house that had been neglected and uninhabited for years. I helped Mama clean out the mouse droppings and other debris while Monty, eight, and Kelly, five, fished in a nearby stream.
As we were cleaning the little house, Mama, discovering a leak in the ceiling, climbed up onto the roof with some tar to patch it. Later, when she was mopping the floor below the patched spot, the sun-warmed tar softened, and dripped through the hole into her hair. With her extensively colorful vocabulary she described the tar in detail. "Son of a bitch! Would you look at this?" she hissed as she rubbed the black tar between her fingers. "That damned shit melted and is leaking on my damned head!"
When Mama had finally exhausted her ranting she removed the tar with kerosene. After shampooing, her hair smelled faintly of acidic oil but it shined like a new dollar.
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To buy a copy of Bertie's wonderful book please visit
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Rusty-Spoon-Artists-Memoir/dp/1935514660/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1282226141&sr=1-1-fkmr0
To see some of her pictures click on
http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=bertie+stroup+marah+pictures&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=5vpkTNykBtKR4gbsgJmWCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQsAQwAA
