Conversations over the evening dinners at the Tulsa house about choosing our first green garden gates manager reminded Nick about his father’s story,“the sand monkey”. What was needed for green garden gates was the best sand monkey they could find.
Before the big logging trucks, The pine was brought out of the mountain forests in the solid freeze of a northern winter on huge wooden sleighs by a team of four “fine looking” shiny coal black Percheron work horses. The dead silence of early morning on the mountain top busted open with the sharp cracks of big timber crashing through the canopy and slamming down to the hard iced earth. The crosscut saws rhythmically slipped back and forth against the wood. The horses snorted, exploding steam from their wide nostrils. Leather boots would squeaked on the frozen snow and ice along the trails. When the logs were lifted and loaded onto the sleigh and the steel chains were cinched tight, the journey began down the iced tracks to the landing below where the load was broken from the sleigh to tumble into the river and on to the mill.
The Percherons were fitted with the harnesses and hitched to the sleigh. With one thunderous command, They lifted their heads high, dug into the ice, and gave a powerful jerk against the leathers. The mass of wood and runner began to move finding its way into the tracks. The horses trotted happily in cadence ahead of the sleigh free from the massive weight of the timber ready to pull again if the sleigh got stopped and stuck in the ice tracks along the mile long trail.
They watched, The sawyers, the loaders, and the straw boss of the crew, all dressed in the uniform of the woods, black woolen “long johns” underwear, a red long sleeved shirt with red suspenders holding up “can’t bust em” heavy work pants, high laced leather spiked boots, and a can of “Cope” Copenhagen “snoose” tobacco tucked away in their front pockets. They all let out a yell , mixing clouds of breath into the afternoon sky. It had taken a week to get those god damned wet logs onto the load. They all turned to the “sand monkey” Their paychecks depended now on this lone lumberjack squatting down on the front of the steel sled rails under the shadow of seventy tons of frozen logs bound to this carriage. It was now up to him to get the cut out of the woods.
You see, no man on the crew commanded more respect than the sand monkey. He was more than a lumberjack grunting and pushing logs. He was an artist who had the precision and coolness of any fine orchestra conductor. His small metal bucket was filled to the brim with fine loose dry sand for the journey. He hunkered over the rails riveting his eyes on the ice tracks, feeling the motion of the sleigh. He had brought the paychecks home many times guiding the logs to the bottom of the hill. He knew that if the sleigh stopped, days may be lost getting it moving again.
As the sleigh picked up speed, the sand monkey would drop a tiny line of sand into the ice tracks. As the runners hit the sand, the load would slow ever so slightly. He closed his hands when the sleigh started to slow and waited with his bucket for the next downhill stretch. Too much sand meant the load would stop and freeze into the grooves halting the sled. Not enough would speed the load and drop the logs off the sled. It was on the sharp turns along the trail when the monkey revealed that he was truly the maestro of the timber. With fists of sand in both gloves he released and held, released and held turning and slowing the mass of logs around the curves.
After the slow and long mile, the load smoothly glided to the riverbank. The bucket of sand was empty. The logs tumbled into the water below. The sand monkey had brought in the pine once more.
