Vern Weddle
Scott Mclean
Here’s the next installment in the McLean-Weddle story.
When I was about 14 we had a visit from Vern Weddle. He was an old cowboy who was over six foot tall and straight as a ramrod at the age of 84. He was still herding cattle in the mountains of Idaho!
He went by the name Salmon River Slim and lived in Salmon Arm Idaho. He said that at the time, you could do anything there you were tough enough to do. He claimed a deputy sheriff came to town and was going to lay down the law until someone fired a couple of shots over his head. Talk about old west!
He said if you came to his town, just ask for Salmon River Slim and Flo. That was his wife.
He said he and his wife were checking on cattle and he saw a bear. Flo was riding a horse that went nuts at the sign of a bear so of course he asked her to ride in the direction he’d seen the bear in. I guess the horse freaked out and ran straight down the mountain with Flo hanging on for dear life! Sounds like tricks on girlfriends or spouses involving horses ran in the family.
He grew up on a homestead in Eastern Oregon and said he and his sister heard that pigs would eat rattlers. They gathered a bunch in a gunnysack and threw it in the pigpen. I guess it was like the pen exploded with pigs and fencerails going everywhere! The snakes undoubtedly escaped.
He said his parents took a wagon on the long trip to town one day and were going to be gone overnight. They ended up having a cougar on the roof of their cabin and were considering shooting through the ceiling but thought better of it.
Here are a few more of his stories.
He said his Uncle was a blacksmith and was traveling to a new town to set up. He and his sons were going by wagon. When they stopped one night, the boys ran a rope under their Dad’s bedroll. They imagined pulling on the rope and making their Dad think a rattler was under him.
Again with my family and rattlesnakes!
It backfired because their Dad made them stay up all night hitting the bushes with sticks to scare the snakes.
At a later date, one of the boys had done something to earn the Dad’s displeasure. He had thrown a hot piece of metal on the ground from his forge. The child who displeased him came into his smithy and was asked to pick up the piece of metal. It was still quite hot, unknown to the kid, and burned his fingers. This was followed by being told why he had deserved it.
Harsh lessons in that family.
We really enjoyed listening to Slim and it was great because he had actually met some of the people in family stories. He told me I looked like a McLean and that was a proud moment.
More family lore later.
Bye!