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    A Promise Given
    A Promise Given
    A Promise Given
    Ebook162 pages2 hours

    A Promise Given

    By Rick Steber

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    About this ebook

    "A true story of a remarkable love, a promise given, and of bluebirds... A Promise Given is a nonfiction book dealing with the many diverse issues each of us must face at various points during our lifetimes: love, loss, the complexities of growing old, and how each of us has the opportunity to directly effect the environment in which we live.

    This fast-paced narrative quickly pulls the reader into a Northwest setting and the time period surrounding World War II. Trevor Russell enlists in the service and returns home to attend college and become an elementary school teacher. He falls in love, they marry and through a lasting marriage spanning nearly six decades, the couple is forced to meet the challenge of having to remove their son from life support, one of them battles a terrible disease and finally they escape to live on a remote ranch 60 miles from the nearest town.

    It is here that Trevor makes a promise to his dying wife, promising to bring the mountain bluebirds back to Oregon. He fulfills that promise by building bird houses. Trevor has built, and put up, more than a thousand birdhouses. Because of his determined efforts, the beautiful mountain bluebirds are making a strong comeback on the High Desert, and spreading across Oregon and beyond. This proves that each of us in our daily lives have the opportunity, and responsibility, to try and make a positive impact on our world.
    "

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRick Steber
    Release dateDec 12, 2012
    ISBN9781301068265
    A Promise Given

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      Book preview

      A Promise Given - Rick Steber

      A Promise Given

      A True Story of Life, Love and Bluebirds

      Rick Steber

      ~~~

      Smashwords Edition

      Two Star, An imprint of Bonanza Publishing

      P.O. Box 204, Prineville, OR 97754

      Illustrations by Don Gray

      Copyright © 2012 Rick Steber. All Rights Reserved.

      Cover Design by Gary Asher

      Book Design by Jody Conners

      Bluebird Art by Mary Marquiss

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Dedication

      To Vivian with love...

      Note

      When the first European settlers arrived on North American soil they were greeted by great flocks of friendly songbirds with lovely blue feathers. The colonists named the bird blue robin, and noticing the way they hunted insects in their gardens, orchards and fields, they erected bird houses on trees and wooden fence posts to encourage the birds to nest nearby.

      Over the next two hundred years, the species that became known simply as bluebirds were driven to near extinction. Ninety percent of the bluebird population was killed. Many factors contributed to this staggering loss; the most apparent was triggered by one man, Eugene Schieffelin who took it upon himself to release into the United States all of the European birds mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare, including the house sparrow, bullfinch, chaffinch, nightingale and skylark. But it was his release of 60 starlings into New York City’s Central Park in 1890 that caused the greatest damage. Starlings, aggressive by nature, drove the native birds from their traditional nesting sites and within a hundred years starlings had spread across the continent and their population had grown to more than 200 million. They are now listed as an invasive species.

      Another cause leading to the decline of the bluebird population in America was the widespread use of DDT during the 1900s. This agricultural insecticide eliminated the food source of many birds and weakened their egg shells, making reproduction impossible. DDT became a rallying point for environmental awareness and in 1972 public pressure led to the banning of DDT in the United States. And finally, the bluebird population has suffered because modern development destroys sensitive areas and traditional nesting sites – urban sprawl, corporate farming practices and the replacement of wooden fence posts with steel T-BAR fencing.

      The good news is, in the past few years the population of bluebirds appears to be on the rise, due mostly to bird lovers who have erected bird houses in safe locations and those in the agriculture community who are turning to alternative methods of pest control. If this trend continues, bluebirds will become a familiar sight and their clear, sweet songs will once again spill out over the hills and meadows. What can you do to help make this happen? Put up a bluebird bird house.

      Bluebird Valley Ranch

      Chapter One

      My wife and I own a ranch in Eastern Oregon. We named it the Bluebird Valley Ranch and on this day, like most days when the weather cooperates, Vivian and I ride to the top of the ridge and sit there for endless hours doing nothing more productive than to enjoy the beauty of the landscape.

      Off to the west the timbered Maury Mountains rise like folds and pleats on a thick, green blanket. The draws and canyons are defined by the changing leaves of aspen and cottonwood. Stands of tamarack in the process of dropping their needles show here and there as patches of soft gold. In all other directions the muted grays and tans and browns of the High Desert stretch to the far horizons. It is this rich beauty, and the vastness and solitude that we drink in with such gusto. We sit side-by-side, hips touching, watching a hawk ride the silent wind, or a black vulture curl in tight circles in a rising thermal. If we are lucky, and sometimes we are, a mountain bluebird flashes across our field of vision and Vivian is thrilled beyond words.

      These days Vivian finds it difficult to talk. She more whispers than talks. I have to lean close to her lips to hear what she is saying. My hearing isn’t so good. Damn this old age, but if you live long enough we all go through it, the slow deterioration of body and mind. We do if life does not come at us all at once and change in a heartbeat: we suffer a crippling stroke, a sudden brain aneurism, an incurable disease, even a car wreck. We know all too well about those things. Misfortune has struck our family many times over, and yet as we look out over the mountains and the desert we count our blessings.

      Vivian sits beside me in a Kawasaki Mule, a four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle. I have to strap her to the seat with a belt or she might fall out. She is that weak, and there are times the body tremors make her muscles spasm in uncontrollable fits. But I don’t mind any of the hardships we face because, for all these years, Viv as I affectionately call her, has been my wife, my best friend, the mother of our four children and my Rock of Gibraltar. I don’t know what I am going to do when she is gone. But let’s not talk about that. Not now. Live in the moment. That is our motto. Live in the moment but believe in the past, our shared past.

      One would think the yellow ball that is the sun should be warm but on this late fall day there is a harsh crispness in the air that lets you know winter cannot be far behind. Viv is wearing both a sweater and a coat. I had wrapped the scarf she once knit, back when her fingers were capable of doing such intricate things, around her neck and yet I see her shiver. At least I think it is a shiver and not a muscle spasm caused by the cruel Parkinson’s disease that has so ravaged her body. I reach over, tuck the ends of the scarf inside and zip up her coat. She smiles at me. She loves me. I am a lucky man. I know that.

      Could Viv have found a man more exciting than me? Probably. For 30 years I was an elementary school principal. I plowed a straight furrow through life. Never varied, never wandered. But then she knew that, what kind of man I was, going into our marriage. I was as steady and dependable as a work horse. That must have been what she wanted, a plodder she could count on and not some fancy, high-spirited thoroughbred that might have brought spectacular wins at the race track, but was just as likely to throw its rider and leave her crippled in its wake.

      Because of her disease Viv wants me to do most of the talking. She likes it when I tell stories from my past, growing up like I did out in nature, or of my recollections of the events that define the life she and I have shared. I am writing these thoughts down so that in my old age I don’t forget any of the splendid details. I know a few of my friends will read the words I write on these pages and proclaim, Trevor, you’ve written yourself a goddamn love story. Others will read the same words and call it a tragedy every bit as heartbreaking and profound as Romeo and Juliet. I suppose it is a little of both. In life we are not blessed with sunshine every single day. Into life a little rain must fall. So love story, tragedy, you can take your pick.

      What we really have here is the unfolding story of two very common people, common in most every way. In my opinion there is one thing and one thing alone that sets us apart and makes us unique and special. It is a very simple word, simple to say and ycet extremely complex in its implications, and meanings, and emotions. That word is love.

      Viv and I have shared love for nearly six decades, 58 years to be exact, and without reservation I can say our love, over time, has grown and blossomed and matured and today it is much deeper and more powerful than it ever was. It is love that resonates between us and intertwines our hearts and souls; a love that has brought us such a tremendous wealth of happiness. For me, that love is all I need to sustain me. That is everything.

      Trevor Russell

      "How the waiting countryside thrills with joy when

      Bluebird brings us the first word of returning spring...

      reflecting heaven from his back and the ground from his

      breast, he floats between sky and earth like the winged

      voice of hope."

      — WL Dawson

      Odell

      Chapter Two

      I’m a pretty reserved fellow, certainly not the type to toot my own horn, but since Viv was stricken with Parkinson’s disease she likes for me to tell her stories about my upbringing, saying the way I was raised – pretty much in the sticks – is a window to my personality. I think her assessment is correct and believe that was one of the compelling reasons for us, after we retired, to buy a ranch 60 miles from the nearest town. All my life I have sought privacy and solitude and truly do take pleasure from being out in the wilds. I have to hand it to Viv, she was a town girl when I met her, but over the years she has grown to appreciate, as I do, all the simple pleasures of rural living.

      Every night when Gordon Russell said his prayers, just before jumping into bed, he paused to ask God for one thing, to please bring him a brother. Twice his mother suffered miscarriages and then finally, when Gordon was 9 years old, in 1926, Trevor Russell was born. Gordon doted over his baby brother, and after a few years, when the little guy was able to get around, Gordon took him for walks in the woods, or fishing on Odell Creek.

      There was no doubt Gordon loved his brother, but if the truth be known he probably loved to fish even a smidgeon more. He combined his two loves and dutifully took Trevor fishing, always at a good fishing hole where he parked the child, propping a rod up with rocks and setting a can of dirt and lively worms within easy reach. Gordon instructed his brother, saying, Don’t move from here. Stay away from the water. Watch the tip of your rod and if it twitches, if it so much as wiggles, set the hook and reel in your fish.

      Having given these specific instructions, Gordon turned away and disappeared into the underbrush downstream, only to reappear hours later swinging a sagging forked willow stringer of silver-sided trout, big trout, way bigger than anything Trevor caught sitting at the fishing hole near the road.

      And during those hours while Gordon was away Trevor dutifully sat as he had been directed, watching the tip of his rod and catching an occasional fish. But at some point Trevor always came to the realization he was alone. Sometimes he panicked, calling, Gordon, where are you? When there was no answer he cried hot tears and hollered, Gordon, I’m scared. But Gordon never heard him, or if he did he ignored his little brother because a stringer of lunker trout was more important than placating his brother. Besides, Gordon was 9 years older than his brother and knew he wasn’t going to be staying around home forever. Trevor had to learn to be confident on his own.

      Trevor learned that his panic – yelling, pouting, tantrums and tears – never brought his brother back early. Gordon came back when he had caught

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