Blueberry
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: High Deserts of Western Utah!!
Posts: 698 |
Not many people like this anymore....
Found this story.... Really liked it thought you would too... How it used to be way back when...
A Most Unforgettable Character
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A person whom I will never forget is Sander Tergerson, a lifetime citizen of Mustang. His father was Terry T. Tergerson, one of the first Norwegians to settle in Mustang Community. The people who knew him best called him “Sanders.”
Sanders was, to me, the last of the real “old-timers." In my eyes he could have been a buffalo hunter, a scout for the cavalry, a stagecoach driver, or maybe a gold prospector. Sanders had a unique look about him. He had a ruddy complexion, piercing eyes, and an ever-present big chew of tobacco in his mouth. I can not recall but once or twice when he didn't have tobacco juice running down the sides of his mouth. He walked with a slight limp, much like Grandpa McCoy on the TV series "The Real McCoys." Sanders always had a grin on his face, and always looked as if he had been, or would soon be, pulling a joke on someone. He was an outdoorsman. He loved to hunt, fish, and listen to dogs on a trail. I remember seeing him sitting on the banks of Mustang Creek catching "goggle-eye" or sun perch. He'd bait his hook with a worm or a grasshopper, spit tobacco juice on it, and throw it into the water. He said the tobacco juice was good luck.
Most of the time Sanders wore bib overalls, a blue cotton shirt, work boots, and a straw hat. He always wore his hat with the brim flat (although some folks would roll the sides up slightly to give it a western look). I remember Sanders driving around the community in his old black Plymouth pickup truck. I was told he never had a driver’s license or a hunting or fishing license. He was an avid deer hunter. He used an old hexagon barrel .25 .20 lever action rifle. The rifle was a real antique and probably the only deer rifle he ever had. When Sanders went hunting...he went hunting. It didn't matter to him if it was deer season or not. It also didn't matter if the deer had horns or not. He shot at anything that resembled a deer. He always had some wild hunting story to tell, and folks around Mustang always had a "Sanders story" to share.
Each fall Sanders would get the urge to go deer hunting. He'd carry his rifle in the pickup as he scouted the grain fields in the community. It seems one particular fall (during the 1950s), a large flat rock had been turned up on end from plowing out in Leonard Wallace's field between the schoolhouse and Highway 22. Due to poor eyesight, or a runaway imagination, Sanders shot at the rock every time he'd drive by. If you happened to see him and ask if he'd seen any deer, he'd say, "Well, I got a shot at a big buck out in Leonard's field a couple of times. I'll get him before long because he's there every time I drive by."
My dad tells a story that is typical of Sanders. They were hunting up on Albert's mountain early one morning and a doe came into view. Dad was watching the doe through his riflescope and commenting on what he was seeing. When Sanders finally saw it he told dad, "Shoot it!” Dad said, “I can’t shoot a doe.” Sanders responded, “It's a deer, ain't it? Shoot it! When you go deer hunting, you shoot deer!"
The deer hunters of Mustang who have known Sanders all their lives say Sanders probably never killed a legal deer in his entire life. I personally believed whatever Sanders did was all right since he was hunting long before there were hunting licenses, hunting seasons, and game wardens.
Sanders never went to a doctor or dentist. If he injured himself, he would simply wash off the wound with coal oil and put Red Top axle grease on it and go about his business. If he got a bellyache, he’d chew live oak leaves. If he got a toothache, he'd pack chewing tobacco around it. If it got too bad, he would seek out Carroll Knudson, his private dentist. Over a period of years, Carroll pulled more than one of his teeth. Once when Uncle Carroll and I were fixing fence on the east side of Flat Top, we saw Sanders slowly making his way up the mountain. When he arrived it was very evident that he had an extra large "chew" in his mouth. After a few minutes of small talk he told Carroll he had a toothache and one of his jaw teeth needed to come out. He brought his pliers with him. Sanders removed a massive chew from his mouth, and opened wide his mouth as he relayed to Carroll which tooth needed attention. He sat down flat on the ground in a crossed-legged fashion, opened his mouth, while Carroll yanked on the tooth, bouncing him up and down, until it finally came out. He never uttered a sound in pain. It bled a little. He spit out the blood and then packed the tooth hole with tobacco. He worked the rest of the morning with us. I believe he was the toughest old man I ever saw. Carroll to this day will tell you that the times he pulled Sanders' teeth.... Sanders never winced.
Some of my fondest memories growing up include Sanders Tergerson. I vividly remember loading the dogs in Carroll’s old green Dodge pickup truck. Then we'd drive by and get Sanders. We would head for the Ghost Bridge on Meridian Creek. Moody Green would usually meet us there. It was always a treat to go coon hunting with them. It was a real education to listen to Sander’s stories and hunting philosophy. It was fun to stand around and listen to Ol' Blue or Soil Top hit the trail of some varmint. It intrigued me as they could tell what the dogs were chasing by how they were barking. Before too long, I too learned to tell what they were running. They moved faster when trailing a fox or bobcat; coons just naturally ran slower and usually would stick to the creek and thick briars. Bobcats and fox usually headed toward pastureland. When the dogs treed a varmint, their barking style changes. When they treed, we would get in the truck and drive as close to the dogs as we could. We would then walk to where the dogs were and shake out the quarry. Most of the time the varmint never hit the ground. The dogs would catch the coon in mid-air and usually rip him into as many pieces as there were dogs.
Sanders would always tell us about some old dog he had forty years ago, and how there will never be a coon dog as good as old so-an'-so. He was always talking about hunting in the "good old days"...when dogs were better...coons were smarter and faster...and there were more of them to chase. In spite of his rough, tough external appearance, he was a gentle man who loved the common everyday things in life. He enjoyed what life had to offer. He took time to "smell the roses" along the way.
More than once Sanders came to our house to dig worms out where the dishwater from the kitchen sink drained by the big live oak tree on the south side of the house. There were plenty of good red wigglers. Sanders would dig up enough worms to fill a coffee can, and then he would head for the creek or someone's pond. He also had many fish stories to tell. He told about a big bass that he was trying to catch in Carroll's creek. One night while coon hunting, I heard him tell a story about a dog, "old nigger," he used to have. This dog was the smartest dog ever. He said he could come out of the house with his shotgun, and the dog would bark two or three times, and then run out and tree a squirrel. According to him the dog did it every time. One day he thought it would be funny to come out of the house with his fishing pole just to see what his dog would do. When he came out, the dog seemed a little confused at first... he whined and barked... ran around the house two or three times and then made a bee-line to the sheep shed and started digging worms.
Sanders was always willing to help his neighbor. Sanders would come and help us debeak and vaccinate turkeys. He spent time helping Carroll with his turkeys in the '50s. He was willing to help fence, drench sheep, butcher hogs, help get a wayward bull back into the pasture, or help in anyway he could. Sanders and Otto Nygaard helped Grandpa build our concrete tank house in 1942. Sanders also helped build the water tank at the old station. In my mind, I can still see him driving his old pickup along the dusty roads of Mustang. He had a bad habit of driving on the wrong side of the road...or down the middle. Many times the locals were scared to death to see Sanders coming up the road... he'd give you a big friendly grin and a wave as he would almost force you into the bar ditch. There used to be a blind curve in the road on the north side of Flat Top. Folks had horrors of meeting Sanders on this part of the road. Neighbors were very pleased when the county finally widened the road and straightened out "Sander's curve." I guess every community had a driver like Sanders Tergerson, but Mustang was blessed with two. The other was old man Carl Baake who lived north of Mustang on the road toward Spring Creek. Like Sanders, Baake had a bad habit of taking his share of the road out of the middle. The good citizens of Mustang knew that someday Carl Baake and Sanders would meet in the road, and something very interesting was bound to happen.
Thomas Sander Tergerson was born in 1879. He lived all of his life in the Mustang Community. He died in 1964 at the age of 85. He is buried in the Rock Church Cemetery.
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Matthew Barton
Home of Oquirrh Mtn. Kennels
PR' Willow Creek Will's Miss Molly
PR' Oquirrh Mountain Blue Belle
Two steps forward, one step back.
Least yu'r still movin'.
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11-24-2005 05:16 AM
