It was an ordinary day. Watching "ME-TV" so I can view a few of my favorite Westerns that I used to watch as a young boy while growing up in the north end of the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Covered Wagon Theater, Bonanza, Rawhide and Gunsmoke were some of my favorites which I never missed when they were on TV. Just loved the cowboys in their leather jackets, wide-brimmed hats and twin holsters with white-handled pistols. Also didn't matter if the show was in black and white. Would never miss a show unless it meant visiting with my Uncle Bob on his dad's farm in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. He would often invite me to help him on the farm with duties such as sheering the sheep or slaughtering the hogs or even mending the fences around the perimeter of his dad's farm. Around certain parts of the farm were fences made from wooden posts with barbed wire stretched between them. One entire field was enclosed in barbed wire in order to keep the steers from roaming the roads of Strasburg.
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| Fellow carefully rolling barbed wire. |
Barbed wire came about in the mid-19th century and became known as devil's rope. I can remember several large cuts and scratches I received from barbed wire while visiting with my Uncle Bob. Mom and Dad would always tell me to stay away from the fences when I visited with him. The guy who is given credit for the making of barbed wire is a man named Joseph Glidden. The first purpose of barbed wire was to keep animals in, not to keep people out. And, to display how easy this was, Glidden made himself enormously rich on the near grassless plains of the west Texas panhandle when he housed the near unimaginable number of 20,000 head of cattle. He was able to corral these animals in such numbers and at such relatively low cost by ringing the entire ranch with his newly made wire...some 120 miles of it, at a cost of some $39,000, far less than a conventional wooden fence, and far less cumbersome. Beef became all of a sudden both cheap and available, with the result that almost overnight it would replace pork as the preferred national dinnertime dish. And, the corralling took place because of the invention of barbed wire. Once Mr. Glidden's famous patent, #157124, was approved, it seemed that every farmer west of the Mississippi was determined to string his newfangled barbed wire along their property lines. Then the railroad companies began to do the same to keep the animals off their tracks. Then along came razor wire which became the world's default barrier to unwanted movement. Kept prisoners in and kept rabbits out. Also was a painful reminder that to trespass was a mistake. Never saw any razor wire at my Uncle Bob father's farm, but there was plenty of barbed wire. The only thing I do remember about his farm were the signs he attached to his barbed wire fence that said "POSTED" which meant "No Trespassing" which meant he didn't want you to hunt on his property. Never could figure why anyone would want to shoot a steer and try to get it past the barbed wire. I do remember hunting on my Uncle Bob's dad's farm, but never remember shooting anything during the couple of times I went hunting there. Uncle Bob would usually get a few rabbits or a couple of pheasants, but for some reason I never got anything. Perhaps the .22 gauge rifle I was using wasn't as good as the shotgun that he used. He probably reasoned it didn't matter if I shot anything as long as I was having a good time. Probably right, since I did enjoy my time with my Uncle Bob. Really missed him after he died. But, I will never forget those barbed wire fences we walked along on the borders of his dad's property. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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