Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
He was the first friend I made as an incoming freshman in high school. After attending primary grades in Arkansas, upper elementary in Fairfield, California, and middle school at Mitchell Junior High School, with an enrollment of 2,200 7-9th grade students, I found myself at Wind River High School.
Lyle Furlong was a blessing that ominous first day of school. I knew him as “Cubby,” that’s what most of us called him, including his teachers and coaches.
Born Lyle Oldman, Cubby was a Northern Arapaho adopted by Bill and Jane Furlong.
He lived at the now defunct Platte Pipeline station west of Pilot Butte Reservoir and we became fast friends from our first meeting.
Cubby had an infectious, cynical outlook on life and was as funny as any professional comedian. He reminded us a bit of Rodney Dangerfield with his schtick, but he had one attribute that we all noticed. The kid could run and run for miles without tiring.
I had the pleasure, or displeasure of trying to keep up with him at track practice.
His wit transferred to the written word. Cubby was an excellent writer, a guy who could scare you to death with his gothic horror stories. I encouraged him to follow up on his writing talents, and when he was recruited by the United States Marine Corps, they promised him college writing classes and that they’d help with his budding writing career.
Cubby wasn’t the first and won’t be the last recruit lied to by his recruiting sergeant.
We ran together through the school year, and in summer on Friday and Saturday Nights, to Riverton, usually ending up at the Knight or West Drive-In and eating too much greasy food at the A&W or the Dash In.
Sometimes we ended up at Satellite Lanes with the Wilson brothers, Pat and Steve, where we were soundly drubbed every time by both of them.
Cubby passed away last week from cancer.
We didn’t see each other much after I headed off to the University of Wyoming and he left for basic training, but on the two dozen or so occasions that we ran into each other over the intervening years in Riverton, Crowheart, Lander or Dubois, we picked up right where we left off.
That’s how it is with lifelong friends.
Cubby never told me why he wanted to join the Marine Corps, but I had an idea.
We were continually getting either his dad’s or my dad’s truck stuck in the dunes and sagebrush dotting the area behind his house. Both men were patient with us, but I’m not sure I would have been.
Cubby’s father Bill was in charge of the pipeline that ran through the area. Until a couple of decades or so ago, there was a house and nearby shop in that little section between Morton and the Wind River Bridge in west-central Fremont County.
Bill was gruff on occasion but put up with Cubby and me as we shot pool in the basement, went for rides in the surrounding hills on the twin Yamaha motorcycles he let us use, and watched with amusement as we played catch with a football in his yard. He even tolerated our friends Trent Blankenship and Pat Wilson when we’d all come over on a Friday night or maybe a weekend afternoon before plotting our exploits in Riverton or Lander later.
One memorable day, June 6, 1974, to be exact, Bill was different. I knew he’d been a sailor in World War II, but in those days, all the fathers of my friends were either World War II or as in my dad’s case, Korean War vets. Military service was much more common among the Greatest Generation than it is today.
As Cubby and I came in from a long ride on those Yamaha bikes, Bill was outside working in his garden. He was visibly upset.
“Sit down boys,” he said. “I’m going to tell you two something.”
Bill began to reflect on a June morning 30 years before, when he was just a young man a long way from home in the middle of the greatest war in world history.
Bill was a gunner’s mate, on the USS Saterlee, DD-626, a Gleaves-Class destroyer cruising in the North Sea on a date with destiny.
The Saterlee was assigned to provide close support for the US Army Second Rangers on the morning of June 6, 1944; that’s right, D-Day.
The Saterlee moved close to the French coast just offshore from Point Du Hoc, where the Rangers were assigned to scale the nearly vertical cliffs to take out German shore batteries.
Bill teared up as he told his story.
“We were only about a thousand yards off the cliffs,” he said. “We could see the Rangers clearly climbing up to the German positions. Our orders were to fire close support.”
Bill’s five-inch gun battery was the biggest weapon on the Saterlee along with similar armament on the two other destroyers that sailed in to support the Rangers.
“We set our range as tight as we could,” Bill said, “I knew some of those shells were probably killing our own guys, but those were our orders.”
We didn’t say a word. Bill’s story was riveting. I think it might have played a big role in Cubby’s desire to serve his country.
I was home on a break and Cubby called my parent’s house and said he was flying home. I picked him up at the airport. He was different, we were both 19 by then. The Corps had changed him. It took a few hours and a few beers to get the old Cubby back.
The Marines didn’t do him any favors. He never got those promised college writing classes, he was never assigned to a Marine Corp publication, he ended up guarding the motor pool most of the time.
Peacetime military service can be mind-numbingly mundane and boring.
As high school kids, Cubby was never mundane or boring.
One night after track practice we took my dad’s 1969 Dodge pickup behind Pilot Butte to do some off-road two-wheel driving. I got it stuck in a sand dune.
We started off towards the Pilot Butte Powerplant where Cubby knew the maintenance man. He had a jeep and would pull us out. As we walked near the base of Pilot Butte we heard something kick up the rocks above us. It was a cougar.
Did I mention Cubby was a state champion in the half mile? My only hope was for him to trip or the cat to run the other way. I know you’re not supposed to run, but we took off. Thankfully, the cat ran the other way.
Cubby’s mom, Jane, was a secretary in the district where my mom was the business manager. Yes, it might have been nepotism but I got the summer maintenance job at the K-8 school in Pavillion and Cubby took the same position at the high school.
We sometimes were able to work together on bigger projects.
One project neither of us enjoyed was cleaning out the firebox for the coal fired heaters at the high school. Jim Kelly was the head custodian at the high school, a great guy, funny, easy to get along with and excellent at his position.
Jim enjoyed onions, and sometimes heavy hits of garlic at lunch. One hot afternoon we had to climb into the cramped boiler through a tiny hatch with Jim after one of his epicurean episodes. Cubby and I talked about that for years.
I last saw Cubby four years ago at the Crowheart Store on my way to Dubois. We talked for about a half hour then I headed west and he headed home.
We were friends for 54 years. This would have been our 50th class reunion.
Cubby went back to his original Native name, Lyle Oldman as an adult. I know a lot of kids who do that. He remained my friend for over a lifetime.
Thanks for the friendship and the memories, buddy.