Tales of the old days, and a certain bachelor pulpwood cutter

Editor's note: This is a slightly edited version of a story Arnold Collman wrote about his old neighbor, Adolf Langholf.

His name was Adolf Langholf, must have had some German in his blood. He was our neighbor, a bachelor and lived alone. Adolf lived up Highway 73 on the north side of Molberg Lake. He visited our place often. Liked to sit, and "chew the fat" if he wasn't too busy. He would come for Sunday dinner. Ma baked bread and washed clothes for him. Ma never wanted much for those chores. But you know Adolf always paid more than she asked. He was like that!

I took to him right off. You can always tell something about a man if kids and dogs take to him. You see, he never talked down to me. Always had time to "shoot the breeze," as he used to say, with the little folks or pet the dog. He was like that.

The season came and went. I grew to be a teenager. Used to visit Adolf often, tried to help him back as seemed he was always helping us. Sometimes when nobody was around he would slip his hand into his pocket, out came a handful of change, saying "here." Course I took the change and his eyes would twinkle.

Adolf was a small man, 5-foot-5 or so. Maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. But he was almost as tough as iron. Worked in the woods. Back in those days, everything was done by hand. "Just a logger," he used to say.

Adolf was a man with simple needs and wants. His glasses, old wire rims, bent, with drops of solder hanging like dew on those gold frames. Broke often in the woods and as the need arose, Adolf would fire up the old gasoline blow torch until the soldering iron was hot and just add more solder. "Good as new," he used to say. I can still see his hands in my mind's eye: never real clean, nails deformed, scarred from logs dropping or fingers caught in machinery. Adolf would just laugh when I asked him about a new bandage that appeared on those hands, hands that were knotted and almost as strong as steel cables.

Which brings to mind "the fight." This big fellow, a neighbor, had bought a pile of lumber "as is" from Adolf. On a nice winter afternoon, the big fellow was just loading the good stuff on his sled. Well, Adolf came home. He'd been drinking. Bad time to take advantage of him. Cuss words lit up the afternoon air. About that time the big fellow pushed Adolf over backwards on the lumber pile and started roundhouse punching him. Looked mighty bad for Adolf. Of course, he had what you call "chopper mitts" on (seemed like he wore those winter and summer). I was worried, but Adolf managed to pull a mitt off his right hand. Remember those gnarled hands I was telling you about? Kind of reminded me of old tree roots. Well, somehow Adolf got his thumb up one nostril and two fingers down over the big fellow's nose. Clamping down like a steel vice. Now the big fellow had to take his chopper mitts off and it took some doing to pry Adolf's claws loose from his nose. By that time, the blood was squirting. The big fellow finally got loose, jumped on his sled, whipped the horses, blood streaming down the front of his sheepskin coat and on down the road. I turned as he went by so he wouldn't see that sly grin skulk across my face.

Adolf wore long wool underwear winter and summer. Used to say, "keeps me warm all winter and keeps the heat out all summer."

Oh, he had talent. He could sharpen a hand saw, make those big 7-foot crosscut saws slice into those big white pines. Dad on the handle on the one end, Ivan, another neighbor, on the other. The saw just whispered as curlers of sawdust spewed out with each stroke. Then the cry of "timber!" as a 150-year-old giant crashed down to the earth. As a small boy, kind of made butterflies in my stomach to see a majestic white pine topple. But Adolf and his crew had to make a living.

He hauled logs on a Joker, ancient Dodge school bus. No cab, bare frame, with bunks on the back for logs. A swinging boom with 100 feet of cable and tongs. Most of this was handmade. Wrenched in logs usually from the side. Logs would hang up, or catch on stumps and such. Adolf would pull on the winch control lever till the Joker was tipped 45 degrees or so. All the while, clouds of blue smoke pouring out of the engine exhaust. Exceeded only by cuss words pouring out of Adolf. The air was double blue. The clutch was slammed in and the Joker would come down with a crash. I could never understand how flesh and machinery could stand such abuse. Every trip back to the woods stopping at the hand pump. The Joker had to have a pail of water and a large pinch of snooze (Copenhagen). One pinch for the Joker and one pinch for Adolf. He said it kept the radiator from leaking so bad. Never said what it did for him.

You could notice all those interesting hairs that grew out of his nose and ears. On rare occasions, he would light up a farmer match on his overall pants leg and burn the long hairs off, and just laugh.

Adolf was tough all right, but he could never win the battle with the bottle. Oh, he could drink, work all winter in the woods, sell lumber and pulpwood, pay the men off and go on a three-week drunk. End up sick, lots of stomach trouble and broke, get money advance for the summer logging and back to the woods again.

He was a World War I veteran. Some said he'd loved a girl once and that that was a long time ago. Maybe the bottle numbed the pain for a time as he never talked about the war or the girl.

He was careless. He would drive the old Chevy wood truck home from the tavern late at night drunker than a skunk. Always made it home, though.

One November, as deer season rolled around, Adolf, Dad and Ivan headed for the woods before daylight on a cold snowy morning. Keep in mind, Adolf carried an ancient 12-gauge shotgun with exposed hammers. He made his own slugs dumping the bird shot out of the shotgun shells. He would melt the bird shot in a frying pan, on the wood stove, with other scraps of lead lying around. Then he poured the molten lead into the shotgun casings to cool and become a slug. Dangerous, you bet!

Dad and Ivan walked away to try to chase a deer to Adolf. After a time, as they circled back to where Adolf waited and watched, they heard two shots. Bang! Bang! As they approached the birch, Adolf was standing on the ground looking rather pale and unable to talk. He finally told them what happened: when he saw Dad and Ivan returning, he tucked the shotgun under his arm and started back down the tree. He lost his grip on the gun, it fell with both barrels pointing his way. The hammers caught on the rough bark, firing both barrels up toward Adolf! The slugs whistled past his ears.

Adolf had a milk cow to supply milk, but mostly I remember the two pigs. They followed him everywhere. Some summer evenings he would go down to the lake and fish for bullheads from his rickety dock. As he fished, the pigs enjoyed swimming. It was quite a sad day as winter approached and the pigs were turned into ham and bacon.

I always loved the one-room tar-paper shack he called home. Underwear, wool pants, chopper mitts, and wool liners hanging and drying on the crisscross ropes held by nails driven into the walls. Time seemed to slow almost to a standstill as the sweet smells of woodsmoke, coffee, tobacco and pine pitch would embrace you as you basked in the heat of the potbellied stove. Fire trying to peek through its cracks, the soft crackling of the wood fire, the old wood chairs creaking. The kerosene lamp casting odd shadowy shapes on the walls. Talk of the weather or a day's work well done. Maybe, just maybe, that's all a man needs in life. Adolf seemed happy on those quiet winter nights.

The call came on the old crank telephone that summer night. Dad and I ran for the car as we heard Langholf's truck roar north from the Prairie Lake Tavern. A neighbor made the call. Adolf's house was on fire. We pulled in right behind him. That tar-paper shack he called home was an inferno. Heat seared our faces from 100 feet away. What can you do? What can you say? We just stood and watched all his possessions drift off into the night air. As the fire burned itself out, Adolf just shrugged his shoulders and walked away to spend the rest of the night with the neighbors. He was like that.

Years later, my boys and I hunt deer up there almost every November. I always stop for a moment to remember and pay tribute to Adolf. The white oak trees still stand deeply scarred but alive from the fire. The ruts from the old Joker could still be followed to where the pines grew.

As Christmas rolls around, I remember back to when times were poor and somehow Adolf knew families not able to afford to buy gifts. He would buy toys and just drop them off, never wanting a thank-you.

So ... what does a life count for? I don't know. Maybe this pencil brought a part of him back tonight. He always wrote with a pencil.