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.
Every now and then, things align. Sometimes, they create lifelong memories. They can be completely unexpected, unplanned and simply spur of the moment.
As I ate lunch with my best friend Tad McMillan in the teacher’s lounge of the James H. Moore Career Center at Riverton High School early one Friday afternoon, we talked about what we were doing over the upcoming weekend.
It was the opening weekend of Wyoming high school football and I knew what I was up to, it’s the same thing I’ve done every Friday afternoon or evening since 1980, I was headed to a football game.
Tad asked where I was heading later that day. Usually, I take in a home game in Shoshoni, Pavillion, Riverton, Lander, Ethete or Dubois, but that Friday all six teams were on the road.
The closest game was in Basin, with Wind River playing the Riverside Rebels in the season opener for both schools.
Tad’s expression lit up, “When are you leaving?” he asked
I’ve got Wyoming geography down to the classic western terminology of hours and minutes versus miles so a quick calculation had me in Thermopolis in 45 minutes, Worland 25 minutes later, then Basin 25 minutes after that.
“Around 5,” I said. “Kickoff is at 7 pm.”
“How about leaving a little earlier and I’ll go with you,” Tad suggested.
Tad’s sister Jill and his brother-in-law Guy Tharp live near Hyattville, a few miles off the main highway above Manderson where the town of Bonanza once stood. Bonanza is now a ghost town, with just an oil field bearing the name of the little town that once was.
“I’ll call Jill and maybe we can meet them in Manderson for dinner before the game,” Tad said.
He called, arranged the time and we left Riverton right after school let out that Friday afternoon.
The magic of Wyoming is the small towns of the state, and don’t confuse yourself, every Wyoming town is a small town. Cheyenne, Casper and Rock Springs wouldn’t even be marked on a highway map of California and even semi-rural states like Ohio and Illinois would require many clicks on the zoom button of Google Maps just to locate communities as small as our largest cities.
I think that’s fabulous. We should all enjoy the wide-open vastness of our little corner of paradise. I often hear people complaining about the “barren wasteland” between Shoshoni and Casper, but I like the drive. It has an openness that doesn’t exist in much of the modern world.
It’s not quite as open once you hit the Wind River Canyon on your way north, but the views of the mountains, meadows and hills of the Big Horn Basin are spectacular all the same.
The views of those mountains, and the ruggedness of the landscape appealed to Jill and Guy. That’s why they’ve endured the challenges of agriculture in their place for so many years and raised their family there.
A little background on Jill and Guy.
Jill is the only girl in a family of three boys. If you find a kinder, more open, loving person than Jill Tharp, you’ve hit the jackpot. She is one of a kind.
Her partner in life is a study in deception. At first glance Guy plays the role of a country bumpkin with little regard for the niceties of modern life. Don’t let that façade fool you, he is one sharp individual. I’ve watched Guy work crowds at weddings and other shared events with the McMillan and Tharp clans and he is a master of setting people up. It’s always fun when people suddenly realize that he is not what he appears to be.
Tad and I had a great time driving to dinner in Manderson. I can’t remember the conversation, but when we get together it’s almost always agriculture, family or school that we talk about, usually in that order.
We arrived at the Hi Way Bar and Café in beautiful downtown Manderson, Wyoming around 5 pm.
I played football against the Manderson-Hyattville Demons a long time ago and their field looked the same, scrubby patches of grass with a big alkali deposit stretching on an angle across the south endzone from around the 15-yard line.
We walked into the Hi Way and Guy was waiting for us at a table.
He made a few brother-in-law style insults towards Tad then tossed a few my way just for good measure. It was the type of friendly insults that guys share when they meet old friends. Jill was charming as usual.
We asked what was good at the Hi Way and Guy took on a professorial tone and said something like this, “If you don’t eat the chicken fried steak, you’ll regret it.”
We had the chicken fried steak. Is there a small-town restaurant in Wyoming where the chicken fried steak isn’t the specialty? These were excellent.
We had a great time. The hour and a half at dinner flew by, it was time to leave if we wanted to make the 7 pm kickoff.
As we walked to the cashier to pay our bill, Guy stepped in front of us and pushed us back a bit, “Your money’s no good in this town,” he said with a grin.
It was the classic line from hundreds of old westerns where the local bully tries to throw the hero out of the saloon, and Guy timed it perfectly.
He paid for our meal and we walked into the parking lot a little after 6:30.
It isn’t a long drive to Basin from Manderson, only about 20 minutes from the café to the football field.
Jill and Guy followed us.
Tad was able to visit with them for another couple of hours as I watched Dick Quayle’s Cougars handle the Rebels 29-6.
We said our goodbyes and two hours later Tad and I were back home.
A memorable trip to the “Basin” of a shared experience with old friends.