Friend - Family - Mentor

by Mardi Motley Juhl

I got to know the Willis clan way back in the early 1970's when my then-husband, Lindsay Motley, and I moved from San Luis Obispo north to a little, lumber town not far from the north-west corner of Oregon. Lindsay and Porter Lynn were friends, or at least acquaintances, at Cal Poly.

Porter had invited Lindsay to come north to work with his dad and brothers on the cattle ranch they were running in Clatskanie, the CRA. Young and ambitious at the time, Lindsay arrived at the ranch with the dream of someday becoming the ranch foreman. However, we hadn't been there very long when reality crept in and Lindsay figured out that even if he could someday outlive Big Port, there was no way he could outlive all four of his sons who were sure to be standing in line before him. So, Lindsay settled in pretty quickly to life as a ranch hand.

If you've read Larryann's and Cyndy's blogs about the ranch you already have a pretty good idea of what my memories were like. When I think about Big Port, no matter where or when the memory, I think about him astride a big red studhorse. Most who knew him could share that about him. But in my case, one of my memories about Port and his stud is a little unique. When I came to the CRA I had a slender, sorrel mare that I college rodeoed on. Even by Willis standards, the mare was a pretty decent reining horse and pretty handy. I not only competed on her in barrel racing, but I roped and gathered cattle on her at the CRA and at the feedlot. While at the CRA, I came home one day after work to find my mare missing from the pasture. I jumped in the truck racing around the ranch to find Lindsay, sure she'd been stolen. When I finally tracked him down he didn't seem too concerned. He disclosed that he had turned the mare out to pasture with Big Port's big red studhorse, deciding that I would never get the few ranch colts that I had ridden if I kept depending on her. I ended up raising two fillies out of that mare and Big Port studs; and owned her first dark chestnut filly for a very long time, raising one really nice cutting horse filly out of her. So I guess I forgave Lindsay and Big Port for their conspiracy.

I could go on and on about all of my many adventures on the CRA ranch in Clatskanie – watching the guys castrate and break the colts; the brandings and cattle drives, bottle raising lambs and trying to get beef cows to accept multiple orphan calves, like a dairy nurse cow would…that was Larry's idea and I just about got my head kicked off trying! And did anyone ever mention the RAIN! Lord, what wet country that was…hardly your ideal for a cattle ranch.

Or then there were the Payette feedlot memories, where Big Port let me go around and pick up all the baby calves that were born in the feed pens and bottle raise them in the backyard of the feedlot house where Lindsay and I lived. By the time I made bottles for them all, got them their morning feeding, then cleaned all the bottles, it was time to start all over again for the afternoon feeding! Back then, Big Port would often bellow in his huge bigger-than-life voice, "well, hello there, child of the sun!" It was kind of a 'hippy name', so I thought it was appropriate for the time. I assumed that he coined it because of my sunny disposition. It was many, many years later, however, that he shared with one of my friends that I was rather a "fair weather cowgirl" and the only time he'd see me on horseback was when the sun was shining! DANG!!! I don't remember THAT?

But the memories that are the very clearest for me and most meaningful were all the ways the Willis' took Lindsay and I in as FAMILY. Lindsay and I were both southern California born and raised city brats. Lindsay knew a whole lot more about sheep than he did about cattle when we came to the CRA that first year out of college. And the only horse'n around that I'd ever done was my four years of barrel racing, goat tying and my poor attempts at break-away roping at the college rodeos. A "HAND" I clearly was not!!!

Porter Lynn reminded me not too long ago, as I became frustrated over my nephew's first fumblings around a round pen, that it use to drive him crazy that I couldn't seem to understand why the cattle wouldn't run through the hole I was determined to stand in?? I honestly don't remember that much either, cause the Willis' never really made a big deal about it. They never insisted I just stay home and not come, or never really put me down or outright told me how dumb I was. Sure they all, especially Big Port, would bellow their directions. But everyone seemed to get Big Port's wrath at one time or another. So I never took it personally. Dude-ess or not, I ALWAYS felt at home in the Willis house.

I can't count the number of times that everyone on the ranch, from the Willis boys to the farmhands, stomped through Averyel's kitchen on the way to an afternoon feast following some branding or harvest venture. Muddy boots, smelly jeans, soaking wet jackets and chaps, it never seemed to matter to Averyel or Big Port that we were in the 'bosses' home. We were all, always welcome at their table. And their table was always FULL of Averyel's awesome ranch cooking. Whenever I think of Big Port and dinner, I picture T-bone steaks with that special Willis sauce (catsup, dill pickle juice and brown sugar and lemon) broiled into it. It was true that Lindsay was just one of the ranch hands, as I mentioned at the beginning of all of this. And I was just a tag-along. But, we never felt like "just hired help". We were treated as FAMILY.

Even years after leaving the feedlot, moving on to our own little ranch, then into the cutting horse world, and eventually on to divorce, the Willis' seemed determined to keep track of me, popping in at my home in Galt, CA; with Big Port's promise that if I ever wanted to be horseback again he'd make sure I was mounted! Then tracking me down again six or seven years later and inviting me out to the Buckeye to gather cattle. They never lost track of me throughout all these many, many years! How honored and loved that makes me feel!

For sure I can say that Big Port saved my life on more than one occasion; sometimes intervening when I was tangled up in my lass-rope about to get my fingers cut off or pulled off my horse; or just making sure I was ALWAYS mounted on some big, stout, super-safe horse (like Kahlua) who was never going to sell out on me in a pinch.

But the rescue I'm most grateful for was in the spring of 1990, a few years after my divorce. I'd been living alone, totally abandoning my cowgirl roots and living on and off in the Bay area. Confused and totally lost about what I wanted to do when I grew up (I was, by then, almost 40), I was talking to Big Port on the phone one evening and shared that I really didn't know which way to turn. In his calm, seemingly unaffected way, he suggested that I "go to the mountains" and let the wind blow through my hair for a summer. Encouragingly, he told me to call his friends the Roser's (sorry, I've forgotten how to spell their name!). They have a pack station in Mammoth, he said, and he was sure, with my riding skills and people skills, that they'd hire me to take day rides out from the pack station. "You need to get horseback again, child-of-the-sun" he said. "Get out of that city and get some fresh air in your lungs… you'll find your way home." So I called the Roser's and on Big Port's name and recommendation alone, they hired me for the summer. I spent the first three days taking day-rides out, then spent the rest of the summer leading packers out into the John Muir wilderness and making pineapple upside-down cake in a cast-iron pot over an open fire! I'd NEVER camped out a day in my life! But that summer I became a camp cook, part-time wrangler, and even learned how to pack my own mules and balance my pack boxes. I slept alone under the stars, fourteen miles into the wilderness, over shale pathways not much wider than I was --- which was a WHOLE LOT less wide than I am today! I can't describe all the fears I over came that summer and how much I grew from the experience.

Big Port's advise and wisdom worked. I ended up going back to college after that summer, got my Master's degree in Marriage and Family Counseling, and found my way into the world of foster care. I guess after that summer, I figured out there wasn't much I couldn't do if I set my mind to it. I am now the administrator of a fast growing Foster Family agency, working with abused and neglected children. I still ride, start my own colts (now with a little help from my nieces), live in the mountains just above Sacramento, and still dream of the times that I roped and branded, and slopped through the mud with Big Port looking after me. Thank you, pops! I still hear myself, as I'm coaching my nieces with their horses, saying things like, "Big Port use to say…"; making sure that they know how important a teacher you were for me.

You did a grand job looking out for all of us who seemed drawn to you and your BIG ways. I will miss you more than you know. But will always think of you in the fondest of ways and still continuing to look after me!

You were truly my FRIEND, my FAMILY, and my MENTOR!

Love and blessings to all of your family. Mardi (Motley) Juhl.