John was very smart, even as a child, and he knew it. Unfortunately, when he was younger, he tended to over-estimate his capabilities. There is no better example than his first car wreck . . . at age 5!
It was his first year in school and John was walking home with his friends. Somehow, the subject turned to driving cars. Now John had seen his parents drive, and it didn't look that difficult. And so he announced to his friends that he knew how to drive.
Of course, his friends couldn't just accept that. "Prove it!" they urged him, and so it happened. His mother was meeting with some other mothers at the local church, and it just happened that John saw the family truck sitting in the parking lot. "Sure!' he exclaimed, as he walked over to the truck and climbed in.
With almost no effort, he had the truck running, but then he had to make it move. "Let's see," he thought, "Push in the clutch... Put it in gear... Let the clutch out..." Suddenly, the truck lurched and died.
His friends laughed and taunted him: obviously, he didn't know how to drive. John couldn't leave things in that state. Again, he started the truck. "I know! The gas!" he thought, "Push in the clutch... Put it in gear... Hit the gas and let the clutch out!" Unfortunately, he had placed the truck in reverse. With a lunge, truck threw itself backwards... and smashed into a neighbor's car.
At the sound, people began to pour out of the church. But before they arrived, all of John's support had evaporated. Luckily, he was able to sneak off, but, as we all find out, friends cannot keep a secret.
First, John got the tongue lashing of his life so far, then, he was put in his room. From there, he heard the arrival of... the Mounties! Terrified, he opened the small window in his room, and wiggled out.
Near their house was a grain elevator.
Grain elevators lift grain to a huge storage area.
Railroad cars are carted next to the elevator, and then gravity pulls the grain down a chute into the car.
Grain elevators are also one of the most fascinating places for a five-year-old to play.
So, John climbed up the elevator and jumped into the grain stored there and buried himself up to his neck.
To top it off, he reached out, grabbed a bucket sitting there, and up-ended it over his head.
Now, he was invisible!
Meanwhile, back at the house, the empty room was discovered. The mountie left, and John's dad went to work searching for him. John never knew how, but it seemed like only moments before the bucket was lifted off of his head. He was brought home, lectured further, and again sent to his room.
Again, he heard when the mountie arrived and, quick as a wink, he was off to the window. Only now, he found that it was nailed shut! With only seconds, he chose the next best option and scurried under the bed.
The mountie entered, and John had to surpress a giggle as he heard "He's not here again!" Since the window was nailed shut, he had to be there somewhere, so the search began. John knew that they wouldn't forget to check under the bed. He had to find an escape! Looking up, he saw that there was some space in the box springs, so he put up his feet, grabbed with his hands, and pulled with all his might; and it was just enough! They looked under the bed, but saw nothing.
Eventually, scratching their heads, they gave up, and John listened as the mountie left. After waiting long enough for the mountie to really be gone, he wandered out with an obvious look of false innocence. The five-year-old had won! Or at least he thought so; but frequently, the judgement of five-year-olds if flawed. Taking no chances, his dad whisked him off to the mountie station, where he finally had to face his consequence.
When John was a little older, he got a golden labrador retriever he named Shiner. Of course, he trained Shiner to be a hunting dog. Soon, she was a great addition to any duck or pheasant hunt.
Shiner was unusually intelligent.
On one duck hunt, the temperature dropped to well below freezing.
Finally, they hit a duck which fell into the nearby lake.
Shiner immediatly ran towards the duck until she reached the edge of the lake, touched the cold water and stopped.
She looked back at the hunters, but they just urged her on.
Shiner then started looking for the duck, but for some reason (ha, ha) couldn't see it any more.
The duck hunters threw rocks and sticks out by the duck and with each splash, Shiner would raise her head up and act as though she had no idea what was happening.
Finally, in order to get her to fetch the duck, they had to throw her out into the lake.
The next summer, John and some of his friends went for a ride in a small rowboat, and, of course, Shiner went along.
After they had rowed for quite some time, they decided to jump in the water for brief swim.
Shiner went nuts!
She barked and barked, just knowing the kids needed to be saved, but had no idea how to help.
After a little while she stopped barking and stared at John.
The look in the dog's eyes communicated volumes.
"You mean, that you sent me out in the cold water to fetch ducks? And you can SWIM?!!!"
On another occasion, a visitor wanted to go pheasant hunting. Once they got out in the field, Shiner was paired with the visitor, and within minutes, Shiner had located a bird. As she had been trained, she froze and pointed out the bush with the bird in it. The visitor, readied his shotgun then prompted the dog to flush out the pheasant. She dashed in! The bird flew up! BLAM! The visitor shot! And whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the unharmed bird flew away. Shiner just gave the visitor a dirty look then went back to work. A short time later, she found another bird. Again, she froze and pointed. Again, the visitor readied his gun, and sent the dog in. The bird flew up! BLAM! The visitor shot! And whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the unharmed bird flew away. Shiner stared dumbfounded at the visitor for a while, then went back to work. For a third time she found a pheasant. For a third time she froze and pointed it out. The vistor readied his gun and then prompted the dog to flush the bird out. This time, Shiner paused. She looked at the visitor. Then she looked at the bush. Then she looked back at the visitor. Then she looked back at the bush. She paused and stared at the bush a little longer, then, quick as a flash, she dashed in, but no bird flew up. Instead, Shiner trotted out of the bush, proudly walked up to the visitor, and dropped the pheasant at his feet. Then she just stared at the visitor. The glare she fixed on the visitor was as loud as words: "I will not be made to look bad! If I bring the bird to you, do you think you can pick it up?"
Living in rural Alberta, Canada, John had numerous unusual experiences. Here is a small collection.
One spring, a lamb was born, but its mother died. They decided to bring the lamb into the house and begin raising it by hand. At that time, they also had a dog that had recently given birth to puppies. For one reason or another, the lamb made its way to the mother dog, and fought its way in to some milk, and the exhausted mother dog didn't do anything to stop it. This continued, but there was one side-effect. As the lamb grew, it thought it was a dog. People would get a really funny look on their face when they saw a sheep chasing their car going, "baa, baa, baa."
To help make ends meet, John's family ran a service station. They formed a corporation, and every person in the family had a role. John's dad (Welburn Van Orman) was the president, and his mom (Georgia Mendenhall) was vice president. His young brother, Peter, wanted a role. Peter was really too young to take a very active role, so one had to be invented. Finally, it was decided that Peter would be the official "company nuisance."
When John was young, natural gas was not piped to individual houses.
Instead, each house had a large propane tank that had to be refilled regularly, and the family's service station was the propane supplier.
To begin with, John's job was to work on smaller propane tanks that had been traded in.
He had to: empty the tanks, make sure they were safe, clean all of the rust and old paint off of them, repaint them, and fill them back up.
Cardston, his home town, occasionally had very cold weather.
On occasion, it would get so cold, the propane would not turn into a gas so it could be used in the house.
Households would paint their tanks black or put a black tarp over the tank so that it would absorb the sunlight.
Or better yet, they would cover it with a tarp, then place a light under the tank.
The idea was to warm it up just enough to be used.
John recalled a time when it got so cold, that when he went to clean the tank, he was able to pour the propane into a bucket and put it back when he was done!
John told stories of frequently having to get out of bed to pump gas for Indians that had stayed in town late, and needed gas to get home again. He and his brothers finally required such customers to pay extra if they came by after they had gone to bed. Of course, such money was not reported to his parents, so they ended up with a little extra pocket cash.
One time, a chinook came through town.
A chinook is a warm wind that blows through an area for a short time during the middle of winter.
In this case, there was tons of snow on the ground.
Then the chinook came through for several hours, and a large amount of the snow quickly melted.
Once the chinook left, there was water everywhere, but now, with the cold back, it quickly froze.
Imagine a thick sheet of ice covering everything.
And of course, as a good Canadian, John had ice skates.
He talked of being able to skate for miles, over frozen fields.
The Boy Scouts organization is in many countries, and the awards the boys earn, and the requirements vary from country to country.
In Canada, boys have the ability to attain the rank of Queen's Scout, which John earned. (It would be equivalent to the Eagle Scout rank in the U.S.A.)
One of the requirents to earn this award is to take what he refered to as a Queen's Scout Hike.
This basically involved hiking into the wilds without leaders, setting up their own camp, and basically taking care of themselves over night and then hiking back.
John and a friend packed up and headed out on their Queen's Scout hike.
Once they found a good spot, they set up camp.
They cut down some good branches, and set up a lean-to against a large tree.
Then they cooked a good dinner, and eventually went to sleep.
When they awoke the next day, they were surprised to see that their lean-to was buried in several feet of snow!
There was no way they could just hike out of that!.
So, being very well trained, the began to make snowshoes from tree branches.
(In fact, John said, they had so much fun, they ended up making several pair apiece.)
Meanwhile, back home, John's dad, Welburn Van Orman, wasn't terribly worried, but he had an idea.
The local news organization, had a policy of giving $20 to anybody that gave them a good tip for a news story they used, so he contacted them and told them about the scouts out by themselves.
Immediately, a rescue was organized: people volunteered, a snow cat (a kind of tractor built to travel in deep snow) was found, and off they went to save the poor scouts.
Back at the camp, the boys decided it was finally time to go.
They picked the best of the snowshoes and marched off.
About half way home, the came across the snow cat.
Everything looked flat and level, but a deep ditch was hidden below the accumulated snow.
The snow cat had found the ditch the hard way, by slipping into it sideways.
Inside, the "rescuers" were caught unprepared and were in danger of freezing.
John and his friend quickly gave them first-aid, built them a fire, and left them wrapped in their blankets.
Then they quickly hiked back to town to alert the authorities.
Imagine the story!
The scouts were fine, and had experienced no difficulty, but the rescuers had found themselves in trouble and had been saved by the ones they were supposed to rescue!
And, their family got to keep the $20!
John was a good boy scout.
He just loved what he did and soaked up everything he was taught.
When he was a young scout, he was "killed by a bear," or so, that is how he tells it.
Their scout master had made arrangements to camp in some woods owned by a nearby rancher.
When they arrived, the rancher warned them that he had been having problems with a bear killing his cows, so he had set up some bear traps.
They were all well marked so there shouldn't be any danger.
The rancher just asked them to let him know if they saw or heard anything.
The next morning, there was a horrible noise!
When they checked, they found that one of the traps had caught a bear by it's hind foot.
The trap, however, was chained to a tree, so the bear wasn't going anywhere.
The scouts immediately loaded up and drove down to the rancher as fast as they could go.
Then they all drove right back up.
John hopped out, and was stunned to see no bear!
There was the tree.
There was some dirt the bear had dug up.
But the bear was nowhere to be seen or heard!
John, as curious as ever, ran up to the top of the pile of dirt proclaiming, "it got away!"
Unfortunately, the bear hadn't gotten away, it had just flopped down in the hollow it dug to rest.
John saw the bear and froze!
The bear saw John and didn't!
Instead the furious bear lunged at him, claws outstretched and mouth open in a deafening growl!
John's short life flashed in front his eyes, and then everything went black...
... Later, when he regained consiousness, he learned the rest of the story.
Just before the bear reached him, the chain around the tree snapped taut, and the bear fell to the ground.
John passed out, and fell backwards, away from the bear.
Whenever John told that story, it was followed by the time he killed a bear.
There was a bear that had been killing sheep and cows in the area.
One day, as he and his brother rode with their dad, they saw the bear cross the road and drop down into a gully.
Their dad quickly stopped.
John's older brother, Alan Van Orman, took his .22 caliber rifle, their dad kept his big hunting rifle, and John was left with his small 28 gauge shotgun.
John and his brother were sent down into the gully, making a lot of noise, to scare the bear to the other end.
Meanwhile, their dad, Welburn Van Orman, quickly drove down to the other end and waited for the bear with the big rifle ready.
Down the length of the gully the boys tromped, shouting and kicking and hitting bushes.
Unfortunately, nobody had taught this bear what it was supposed to do.
John kicked a large bush, and the bear stood up out of the bush with a roar.
John was as good as dead, but he did the only thing he could: he raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger.
Now, there is a problem with hunting bears with a shotgun, especially one as small as a 28 gauge.
Bears have very thick skin, and the balls from the shell won't penetrate.
But, John was very lucky.
The point blank shot went in the open jaws, up through the roof of the mouth, and into the brain.
The bear fell over dead!
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