"Stir" takes to the road again!

[Stir Young]

Hey, its me, Gary Young! You know, the smart alecky guy who was gonna go out west??? I thought I might try doing one of these blog thingies about my trip to Yellowstone Park and back.

So who is Stir? Well, that's been my nickname since I was in high school. I was originally called "Youngster" by one of my friends, I guess because I only looked about 12 years old when I was a Junior. As time went on, "Youngster" got shortened to "Ster", or "Stir", as I prefer to spell it, and people just ASSUMED that the shortened variety came about because I "stirred" up trouble. Why, nothing could be further from the truth....c'mon, you know me....I'm a peacemaker!

Well, anyway, about 2 years ago, I embarked on a quest to find people whom I'd worked with in Yellowstone Park in the summer of 1969. It became a cooperative project as I found others, and they started looking too. Along the way, we've been able to account for about 12 people, and the idea for an employee reunion came about. That reunion took place on August 14th and 15th 2009, in Gardiner, Montana, and the story that follows will hopefully tell a little about the summer of 1969 in Yellowstone Park, and my journey back there 40 years later.

And just who is that mischieveous looking guy up above? Why that's me, in the summer of 1969, of course.

[Stir Young]

From another angle, running clockwise from Brian's empty chair; Alice, Karen (hidden), Fooge Brownie, Ken, Ris'Kay, Stir and Diana.

I enjoyed my meal here, a smoked salmon club sandwich. The waitress had some problems, especially when it came to the bills. I notice, looking things over now, that I got a 20% discount, which rightfully should have gone to Karen.

[Stir Young]

Here we are in the Mammoth Dining Room. The empty seat belonged to Brian, who graciously agreed to take pictures. Running clockwise, from Brian's vacated chair, are Alice, Karen, Fooge Brownie, Ken, Ris'Kay, Stir and Diana.

[Stir Young]

After we looked over the dining facilities, and took our pictures, the group of us decided to head back to the parking lot. We met up with Fooge Brownie and Alice again. Somebody thought perhaps we should go have lunch in the Mammoth Hotel Dining Room, and quickly decided to do that. Arky and Rhonda elected not to join us...they wanted to get back to the Yellowstone Inn to meet up with Mee-Shell, who was now arriving. Unfortunately, Diana and Brian had to leave right after we had lunch, so they would not get to see Mee-Shell.

The rest of use walked over to the Dining Room, and were seated. this was a very nice place. I had never been in it back in 1969......in those days Betty's meals in the dining hall served me just fine.

[Stir Young]

Betty the cook was another interesting person. I mentioned her earlier, she had a gruff exterior, but I think under it she was very nice. She used to sit out on the porch almost every night, after everything was done in the kitchen. Both Elmo and I would try to sit with her for a few minutes if we saw her out there. We both knew that befriending the head cook could in no way be anything but good for us. As the summer went on, sometimes she would let us know that there a piece of pie, or something, in the one unlocked refrigerator on site.

The hardest thing to sitting with Betty was the fact that she always had her chihuahua, "Corky" with her. That was one nasty little dog, always growling, and snapping and barking at us. Betty would say, "Oh, Corky wouldn't ever hurt anyone", but damn, that dog sure never showed any signs of making peace. Betty once told me that she would never leave Corky alone outside, because "packs of wild coyotes" had been known to come down out of the mountains and pick up small pets. Being a city boy, I found that to be hilarious....I couldn't believe it. Naked, and my friend Juditz, from the Gift Shop, and I had a ball with that line, we used it all the time. We went nuts with it, after all, we were all smart aleck city kids.

Of course, as the years went on, and I lived, as I do now, in a rural setting, I learned that coyotes are very well skilled in grabbing small pets, and not just in the country anymore. Every year in my subdivision lots of cats and dogs come up missing.

As I learned, Betty understood the rules of nature much better than we did.

[Stir Young]

One night after work, I saw Tom Nicholson, who bunked two rooms down from me with his wife, bring a six pack upstairs. He said hi, and went into his room.

That got me to thinking, I'd like to keep some beer upstairs too. I didn't have a cooler, but I remembered an old trick that one of my buddies (the same guy who mailed me the joints) had shown me once.

The next time I went to Gardiner, I bought a six pack of Budweiser, and brought it back, and took it in the bathroom. I pulled off the lid to the tank on the toilet, and arranged the cans in there. Presto, cold beer any time I wanted one, it was just a quick walk to the community bathroom.

A couple of days later, Amanda, asked me if I knew anything about the beer in the tank of the toilet. It seemed that the cans had shifted around, not letting the mechanism work properly to fill the tank. It kept running because the tank couldn't close. It didn't overflow, but it just kept running all the time.

I fessed up, and told her I'd take them right out. She walked away with a puzzled look, like "what are kids coming to these days?"

Despite those two little indescretions that Amanda busted me on, I got along very well with her. We had a sitting room upstairs with a small black and white TV that got one fuzzy channel. I used to sit with her there for a bit, almost every night. We would watch the news, and I also remember watching some of the stories of mans' landing on the moon. I think Amanda liked the company, and I was piling up the brownie points...I never knew when I might need to cash some of them in.

Oh, and while sitting up there with Amanda I watched "Hee Haw" on TV for the first time, a show that I watched quite often for at least twenty more years. In fact I wouldn't start my Yellowstone Saturday night socializing until Hee Haw was over.

[Stir Young]

I have a lot of memories of that building we were looking at. I spent much of every day there, working, eating and sleeping. As I only took home about $115.00 per month after taxes and room and board deductions, every night was not a party night during the summer of 1969. Very often I could be found in my room in the evenings. Well, SOMETIMES I could be found there.

I remember a couple of incidents where I used questionable judgment in interpreting the house rules.

On my first day, the housekeeper, whom I mentioned earlier I think was named Amanda, told me that men could not have women in their rooms. I tested that rule very quickly.

The evening that Nake brought the van load of girls from Tar to the first dance, I met one, and was dancing and talking with her. I wasn't really used to how cold it got in the evenings, and how quickly, and I only had a light shirt on when the dance started. After going outside a couple of times, I was getting really cold. So I asked one of the Tar girls if she wanted to walk over to my dorm so I could get a jacket. She said yes, and when we got there, I invited her upstairs with me while I got warmer clothes. i got my jacket, and we left, and we hadn't been in my room more than a couple of minutes. We walked back to the dance, and when it ended, Nake went back to Tar with all his passengers.

The next morning Amanda was quick to ask me if I had a girl in my room the night before. i told her yes, but just long enough to get my jacket. Amanda smiled, and reiterated the no girls in room rule to me. I apologized and told her it wouldn't happen again, and it never did.

[Stir Young]

Ris'Kay had brought a snapshot from 1969, with Arky and me on each side of her, vying for her affections perhaps. I remembered when the picture was taken. We had called it "North and South United". Ris'Kay graciously consented to being in a new, 2009 version of the shot.

[Stir Young]

Karen was a great person to have along with us. She provided us with a lot of information on how things are done now in the park. And she didn't show any obvious fatigue after hearing all our old stories.

Thats part of Arky on the right.

[Stir Young]

Stir, Diana, Arky and Ris'Kay

This was on the entry porch to the dining room. People brought several pictures of activity on this porch in 1969.

[Stir Young]

We wandered around the terrace boardwalks for awhile, and decided to walk over to the old dining hall, which of course is where I had also lived and worked in 1969. There had been some confusion on where exactly we had taken our meals. I had looked this site over quite thoroughly on the day I got into the park, and thought perhaps I could clear up any confusion about it. Fooge Brownie and Alice decided not to come along, but the rest of us took the short walk to get there.