 I'm with Leroy James Thompson. We're at the Sugar Pine in Beef Falls, Oregon. Okay. This sugar powder, this white fur was five foot and it was about a rind about like that. A rind? A rind. That's all it was. It was solid completely green, you know, with conchs on it. And my partner walked up to it and stuck his saw into it and it pinched it. So he hollered and I went very far away so I come over there and I stuck my saw in it and pinched mine. So you had two saws stuck in it? You got two saws stuck in it with full of them and you get mine out. And I touch it again and it says pop and it come in like that and went down inside the stump. Here's a 200 foot tall tree, you know, and it's crooked like this. Where do you go? You go. It sucked Mel saw, my partner saw down in with it and it's idling. How long was his blade? How long was what? How long was his saw blade? It was 32, 32 inch, which is, you know, that long. And it sucked the saw down in with it and mine fell out. And I got it in my hands and we're running around the tree because you can't outrun it. You know, when it falls, you've got to be going the other direction because you can't outrun it. And this tree is starting down and it's splitting. And our circle is getting wider and it's going this way or it's going that way. We're running around there and bumping into each other and pretty soon it lined out and we went the other way. And anyways, when it hit the ground, we started looking for his saw. 40 feet up that tree, it split open that far up and it's jelly up there and just knots down below. And anyways, we started looking for his saw and it was up there in that jelly and it was still idling. Nothing mattered with it. How did it get there? We don't know. But Medco left those trees for the salvage people, which that was us, that came behind them to get. Because if their timber fallers had to fall it, then they got a buck and a quarter for it. We got nothing for it. And after that tree was on the ground, we went back to the pickup and ate lunch because the leg wouldn't hardly hold us up. You're just shaking. I bet. Yeah, it was quite exciting. Did you leave the tree on the ground then because there was nothing there? Yeah, we had the bucket a couple of times and two it was all rotten. And we had a sale up by Fish Lake, it was called South Fish Lake sale, that we left those stand. And after we got done taking the trees out, then we hired another guy to come along behind us and he'd fall those trees over stumps so we wouldn't have to fool with them. Because there was nothing in them. You get out that big around and they're still hollow. So did they pile and burn those? They piled and burned them, yep. What else could you do with them? I mean, there is a time, and it was, that you could have shipped them in and made paper out of them. But it ain't worth it because there's such a little bit of wood in them. That's still sticky. Wow, at least you got your sauce back. Yeah. And another time, I see we was working up, when I first went to work for Medco, we was up buying Maple Creek and there was a burn up there, it was called Wolf Deadening Burn. And anyways, I was setting chokers and we took three trees out of there that we had to get four special permits to haul them. The butt cut and second cut of a pine and then a butt cut of another pine and a butt cut of a dug fur. And I was setting chokers behind Farrell Dyer and this was on Medco ground, this went on Forest Service. So why did you need to get a permit? It was too big. Oh. The first thing to do when they get it down there is they drill it and blast it because it's too big for the head rigging and blow it in too. Well, we could have done that up there and it would have been a lot easier to have done anything with it. But that wasn't the way they did it. They done that down there. But anyways, people like to think of those big trees as really being something. They're not. They've had an eight winching and a seven pushing it on a gentle slope down to the landing and they couldn't walk with it. They had to let the bull line out and winch it to them. And if they didn't get exactly straight, it took six chokers to reach the hook. And four would have gotten around it, but you'd have had the choker up here. You know, the bull hook up here, see, and it's pulling down on it. And you don't want that. But anyways, every time they get a little bit off from pulling straight, which you've got to do, the chokers come off. We was hours getting that thing into the landing. And after you get it there, then they have to strap it and lift one end up and back the truck under it. And then he'll take it and as you lift up on the small end or the big end, you know, the back end, as you lift up on it, the truck will pull forward. And then you've got to put the trailer back on and swing it under. And you've got to let the stakes down on one side because it's too big, you know. And then put it back, put it on the back end on because there's nothing would lift that whole log. But it was, I mean, you get so you hate big logs. And it's not just loading and skidding of them, they're hell to cut. You've got to take your face out with as big a bar as you can. And then you've got to gut cut it. You've got to, after you get your face out, you've got to cut a pie piece out of the stump. And you've got to bore in there. And then you've got to cut out the whole inside. And then you go around and you'll always leave a little bit in the back. And you cut up both sides and then you cut that back off. She's taking your picture. Oh, yeah. How did you get, how were you paid? Were you paid by the board foot? We was paid by the foot and it was milled, we always got paid milled scale. So if you cut, say you fill 30 trees today and there was mills or wood scale, there'd be like 60,000 mill scale, there'd be about 30,000. Medco's cutters always bragged it, you know, that they got so much money, you know, half of it was gave to them because they didn't cut nearly the scale as what we did because ours was scaled in the mill and theirs was scaled in the woods. Yeah. So you didn't work for Medco, you were an independent? The guy I worked for worked for Medco. Okay. And I worked for him. And we had a side for Medco and we had a side for Burl. Okay. And when I started out it was just a side for Medco. When I first went to work in the woods it was, I went to work for Medco. Well, I graduated from high school on a Friday night and Monday morning I went to work for Medco. Did your dad work for Medco? No, no, my dad was, he worked in Idaho. And he was killed in the woods in 1948. So I was just a little in. So why'd you go to work for Medco? Pardon? Why'd you go to work for Medco? Well, it was a job, you know. Easy for you to get a job. Yeah, it was a job, you know. It was a good job. Yes, it was a good job. And it's really a sad that somebody like Simmons could come in here and buy the company out. Medco had a, they had 60 million a year they could take off their own ground that was a sustained yield. He come in here and he took 160 million a year off for 12 years and then sold it. Now you tell me that it's good business. It's not. Yeah, it's not good business at all. He raped it and left it. When he left I asked, well when he got, when he took it over we was working piece up behind camp two and that was Medco's. And I asked Bruno Meyer, which was a forester over it, you know, I asked him, I said, we're going to have to go back through this? And he said no. He says on paper it's a clear cut. So everything, what we was doing was taking everything down to 24 inches. So, you know, there were spots on it, there was still a lot of timber left. But to Medco it was worthless, you know. Under 24 inches wasn't worth it? No, because they didn't have a mill set up for it. Yeah, so they made plywood out of those big trees? If they were specky, you know, then they would make plywood out of it. And a lot of the white wood they did, and white wood I should say. And the smaller stuff then later they had bought Della. You know, well, when they started getting down to where they didn't have the big wood anymore, they bought Della and Della timber, you know, cut that small wood. And they took it all, went to there. But it's really a shame that you could, an outfit like that could have that much volume, you know, and could have done it forever. And somebody like Simmons could come in there and buy controlling interests and completely destroy everything they'd worked all that time for. And everybody knew at the time that it would destroy a forest. Yeah, oh yeah. Well, there's still some of it going out, you know. I mean, you see it all the time. And when you can produce that much volume, it don't make sense to go in there and completely destroy it, you know. It's not a sustained deal, you know. It's something that somebody lined their pocket with. And well, Simmons, he took it back to Texas, you know. And how many thousand employees, you know, or families in Southern Oregon lost out for it? Yeah. And that's something that the government ought to do something about. So what happened? What happened to jobs at that time? What happened to the communities at that time? Well, here it is. We're dead, you know. I mean, we have nothing. The schools can't do anything. They're just barely existing. And because there's no money coming in for them. It's a shame. It really is. Yeah. So a lot of people left the community? Well, yeah, a lot of them did, but a lot of them stayed here. But they, like me, I stayed here. My family stayed here. I worked from Central California to Southeast Alaska. You know, wherever you could go to find a job. And that's what you had to do. How'd you find out about jobs? Well, I started making phone calls. A friend of mine that I had broken in years ago, to fall timber, he was bullbucking in Southeast Alaska and I went up there and went to work for him. Spent several years up there. So did you work at girl? They were open longer than Medco, right? Yeah. So did you work for them when Medco? Yeah, we had a side for Burl and a side for Medco. And Burl stayed there longer. And so I worked on that side. As a matter of fact, I jumped from side to side wherever they needed me because I could do everything. But Burl couldn't employ all those people who'd worked for Medco. No, they couldn't employ everybody. I mean, not very many people had that choice. Yeah. They had either... The timber fallers, by that time, if they could find a job doing something else, they took it. And I was talking to Mike Meredith when... Well, Mike Meredith talked to my boy. And he said, where's your dad at? And he says, Southeast Alaska. And Scott says, why? And he says, well, we got a timber sale over at Cave Junction and we can't find anybody that knows how to cut it. That's a problem, isn't it? Yeah, it's a problem. And yet they say it's not a skilled laborer. But it takes you two years to break in. It takes you three years before you should go out on your own. You know, but it's not a skilled laborer. Makes sense. So you told a great story about the six-foot pine. That was an exciting and dangerous experience. What was the best thing about working in the woods? The best thing? What's the best thing? What's the thing that you remember? What I really liked about it, you didn't have anybody out there telling you exactly what to do. You know, when you walked up to a tree, you had to decide where he's going to put it and how he was going to get it there. And you just did it. Nobody looking over your shoulder. I had a state industrial guy come out one time and we was working over on the Evans Creek and it was steep. And there was a lot of great big oaks in it. They hadn't taken them out when they'd been logged the first time. So anyways, here's this big old oak. It must cover an acre or more, you know. And all these trees were going to grow up through it. Of course, it was breaking them off. The tops get up there and they break off in the wind. Well, I had two trees hung in that. You tip them over and they don't go because they're up in the limbs up there. And so I start back working up the hill and throwing trees into it. And I had six trees hung in that oak tree. And he came up there and he said, now what are you going to do? I said, I got one more tree. If it don't break that limb out, all I can do is ribbon around it. I said, what's it saying in the book to do? And he says, it ain't written in the book. And so I got this tree was three and a half foot. You know, it was one of the bigger trees. I got it all ready to go. And I looked around and see where he's at. And he's standing over there. And he says, why? And I says, because if that limb breaks, it's going to throw a big slab right back through there. So he moved. He went on up the hill. And I fell that tree in there and I took off. And it hit there and stopped. And then that limb broke. And it threw a chunk. Right where he was standing, that chunk was a foot thick and six foot long laying there. Right where he had been standing. So if he hadn't have moved, it would have got him. We want to thank you for your story. It's a great story. Yeah, it's a great story.