Undoubtedly you've seen "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." The first time I saw it was at the theater in Orofino with my friend, Chris. We were probably 14 or 15. I particularly remember seeing the movie with Chris because she saw "the big W" before I did. Remember how the Dorothy Provine character sees the "W" and realizes that's where the money is, and you hear the angelic choir of sopranos sing "Ahhhhhhhhhhh." Well, now I know! There really is a choir that sings "Ahhhhhhhhhh" at the "ah-hah!" moment.
My dad never showed me around the perimeter of the farm. He leased the farm in 1965 or so, and life just didn't take us to the canyon rim. There weren't 4-wheelers in those days, and Daddy wasn't super-interested in hiking. As he got older, I think he was less interested in taking a mostly disinterested daughter to the canyon rim, especially since there was no real reason to go. It's not an easy
trek across plowed fields, though it's not particularly far and it is do-able. And as he got older, it became harder and harder for me to say, "Daddy, there are things I want / need to know." I just couldn't bring myself to think the unthinkable: that he would change his address -- permanently.Anyway, once Daddy mentioned to me that there was a ro
ck outcropping the family called "the stone face," and since becoming active on the farm, I have been searching for it. I asked brother Chuck, but he said he didn't know. I asked our neighbor, a native of the area, and he said he didn't know. Always when I hiked the farm with Mike, I searched the outcroppings for the stone face.When we arrived at the farm on Wednesday, Mike and I rode out to the west canyon rim to see if repairs had been made to the fence. We parked the 4-wheeler and hiked a short distance to a break in the rim rock where the horses come up from Little Canyon below. I suppose for the first time I stepped through the rocks and was standing below the outcropping. It was then that I heard the soprano voices. "This has to be the place!" I exclaimed. Together Mike and I looked over the outcropping until we identified the face.
You can compare the pictures for yourself: the black-and-white taken many years ago -- and the color photo I took just this morning. In some ways the old picture is better than mine but I can go back and do it better. Pretty cool that I found it, huh?
3 comments:
You knew those rocks were there, right? You just didn't see the face before? I knew the rocks were there, but always approached them from the top of the man's head and therefore never saw a face. At least, that's if you are where I think you are.
I'm sure I have been to that outcropping before, but it isn't our property. It's just outside our boundary, so we don't go there much. We wouldn't have approached it this time except to repair the fence. I'll post more pictures soon to put it in perspective.
I was telling Mike that in the early days the family's name for the property was "Rim Rock Farm." He doesn't like that name because the rim rock is not our property. My dad called it "Hoot Owl Farm," but we seldom see an owl these days. So, now we're "The Frog Farm," and I don't much like that, but it seems to work.
It's a matter of perspective. Life's like that! (I'm deep today. :-)
Anyway, so glad you finally found it! And thanks for the flash back to high school and our penchant for movies. Ahh, those were the days.
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