H.. The 000 Road

H. The 000 Road

Neil Vanderburg: Took off that direction.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so we're right at the 000 Road now.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And this is where the road used to go to the Dickey's, from here.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, but it went right straight back this way. See where the small trees are? That's where their road went, right through there.

Bob Zybach: And this group of trees on the left.

Neil Vanderburg: They were on our place.

Bob Zybach: And those trees date back to when you were a kid?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. They were smaller trees, of course. And there was a lot of brush in there. We used to pasture our cows in there. Good spot for the cows to scratch to their backs and so forth. Now, I want you to look at how this road went on up this way and dropped down into our place. And figure out how you'd stop a truck with two wheel brakes with all your life's possessions!

Bob Zybach: Oh, so you can remember coming in when you were first moving?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, when we lived here, most of the time we lived here this road hadn't been cut through.

Bob Zybach: So you came all the way up from the desert in California and you can remember this hill from that whole trip.

Neil Vanderburg: Oh, you bet. You bet. Because we had to come clear up to the top of this hill, and then "ZHOOMP", right down into our place.

Bob Zybach: Kind of an exciting entry, then.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. We were kind of wondering. . . we had an emergency brake on that truck that came clear up to the windshield. Daddy says, "Grab the emergency brake Neil!" and so I planted both feet, I was pulling on the emergency brake and he was pushing on the foot brake.

Bob Zybach: Had he ever seen the place before?

Neil Vanderburg: No.

Bob Zybach: But you knew when you got here.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, we bought the place from a realtor by the name of Dollarheide in Albany. And we stopped in Albany when we came up and he gave us directions in here. Well, daddy had directions before because he had a second cousin or something that lived over by Jefferson, and he came out and appraised the place for my dad, and he was an engineer and he drew maps and showed where all the fences were and all the buildings, and everything. So my dad had a pretty good picture of what he was buying.

Bob Zybach: Now, one thing while we're sitting here, we've got a good view of what you call Folks Hill. Does that look like . . . what did it look like back then?

Neil Vanderburg: I called it Smith's Hill.

Bob Zybach: Oh, you called it Smith's Hill?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, I called it Smith's Hill. I always thought it belonged to Smith, but Folk lived on the other side of it, but I don't know that Folk ever owned it.

Bob Zybach: I see. Now, what did that hill look like then? Was it covered with young fir like it is now?

Neil Vanderburg: Oh, quite a bit younger. You could see sheep in quite a few areas out there. There was quite a few bare spots.