Wishing to go back to where I was before

BY Pat Van Dyke

Pat, at age six, is pictured with her dog Lassie. Photo provided by Pat Van Dyke

Whenever I hear the phrase “Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end,” my mind quickly flashes back to the first 18 years of my life. I also remember my mother telling me, “Someday, you’ll wish that you could go back to where you are today!” Today is one of those days.

At that time, our family was living on 60 acres of dairy land in Dairyland, California. First, it was called Buena Park, but the dairymen joined together and formed the city of Dairyland, later to be named La Palma. I am proud to say that my father was the mayor during the time of the transition from “an agricultural city” to “a well-planned suburbia.”

During that time, I was a “dairyman’s daughter” and proud of it! I loved my cowboy hat, wool jacket, blue jeans and my dog named Lassie. I fed the calves, climbed the hay bales and impressed all the city kids with my vast knowledge.

As a first-grader, I shared with the city kids that the brown cows gave chocolate milk, hay was healthy for people to eat, beet pulp was actually chewing tobacco for kids, ice cream came from cows in Alaska and wearing a galvanized bucket over your head while throwing rocks at your brother was totally safe.

I would climb into a corral filled with cows to prove how brave I was and then I would walk up to the water trough, brush the algae to the side and bend down to suck the water into my mouth. Now, I won’t even drink the water out of a water fountain. I prefer bottled water, even though I do realize that most of the bottled water comes out of a faucet in the backyard of a 70-year-old house in West Covina.

While the “city kids” were playing softball in vacant lots, we dairy kids played in the backfields. We would locate five properly spaced “cow pies” and decide which one would be used for the home plate, bases and the pitcher’s mound. The largest one was always chosen for the pitcher’s mound. The placement of home plate varied, depending on how knowledgeable the team was on “dairy hazards.”  If our team was “at bat,” we wanted to make sure that “sliding into home” was possible without sliding through a less than desirable amount of “cow turf.”

Every afternoon, I would climb onto my bicycle and race up and down the hay alley using broken hay bales as jumping ramps. In my then-present fantasy world, I was a contestant on The Wide World of Sports. My obstacle course included racing through the grain barns, dodging dogs, maneuvering around cats and waving to my ever-present audience: 600 appreciative cows.

One day, my younger brother and I decided that we would drive the tractor up and down the hay alley at top speed. I successfully drove the first lap until it was time to turn around and return to the grain barn. I let go of the steering wheel to graciously allow Sherwin to drive the second lap of our journey, but I failed to tell him of my benevolent plan.

The tractor went out of control and the rear hay scraper hooked onto a pole. Soon, we found ourselves traveling back with the scraper dragging behind us. That was one day that we didn’t look forward to dinner and family discussion because we knew that we would be “discussed.”

My dad was our hero, especially when he built us the tallest swing set we had ever seen. I was sure that we could swing higher and jump further than anyone else in the world. During our summer evening “swing fests,” my siblings and I knew that we “almost reached the moon” years before Neil Armstrong ever put one foot into his spacesuit. When we were high enough, we would launch ourselves out of the seat and land wherever gravity would take us. It was always a little risky because the swing set was located in a cow pasture, complete with cows. I was always grateful when I only ended up covered with foxtails.

Most of all on the dairy, there were lessons to be learned for life. I remember fondly the love and respect that my father had for each one of our animals. Watching him as he cared for each cow personally was a lesson in how to treat others, be it a person or bovine. Observing him as he walked a cow through a difficult birthing process comforting her with soothing words taught me that harsh words have no place in life.

I learned that there are no days off in life because in life you have responsibilities that demand your attention. Every day, the cows had to be milked, the calves had to be fed and the barn had to be cleaned. I learned that there are no short-cuts in life no matter how much you try!

My last memory of my “dairyman’s daughter days” was 15 years ago. At the time of my father’s death, my brothers and mother decided to sell the dairy and move on to other ventures. One brother moved to the Central California coast and another to Northern California. My mother moved to Canyon Lake.

The day that the cows were moved to their new owners, I was at the dairy and watched the entire process of loading 1,400 head of cattle onto trucks and departing for Central California. It was not a very good day, but the evening was worse.

That evening as I walked out of my parents’ home into the still and darkness, it was eerie. The night sounds were gone. I always loved the evening sounds of the pulsating milk machines, the clanking of the stanchions as they were opened and closed for each cow to be milked, the gushing of the water hoses as the cows were washed and the cows mooing as they greeted one another in the middle of the night. I even loved the ever so familiar “dairy smell.”  I missed it all.

My mother was right. Today, I wish I could go back for even just one minute to where I was before.