Snow. Snow belongs on the mountaintops. Snow should not fall when the kids already have off from school. Why waste a good snow day when you are already home? Right, kids?

But the weather guessers say there is going to be snow as low as 2,000 feet. That means Acton and Agua Dulce will get it. So will Gorman and the Grapevine. They are also saying the Antelope Valley is getting a couple of inches of the white stuff.

Way back in 1962, we got a lot of snow. Closed school for a week. Nearly a foot of snow in Newhall, and out in Mentryville we had almost a foot and a half. Didn’t happen on a normal week off from school. I don’t remember the school year being extended to make up for the days off, but I do remember having to write a couple of essays about the snow. Wish I had copies of them now.

We were totally unprepared for the snow. In fact, we didn’t even know it was coming. Weather forecasts in 1962 weren’t hampered with a lot of digital imagery, satellite tracking and computer predictions. So when the snow started falling, we were all a little shocked. We had heard there might be a dusting of snow. I guess you could call 18 inches a dusting. Not.

Of course, 1962 was also the year of the fire in Pico and Placerita. It was the year Melody Ranch burned to the ground, and the year the barn across from the Felton School in Mentryville was lost.

After the fires, a crop duster plane came over and spread some sort of seed to grow something to hold the ground in place. I’ve not seen that since. Anyway, what they planted was something from the pea family, and it took only a little rain to get it growing. It was not bad for our cattle to eat; in fact, they loved it, but it did cause them to bloat. Yes, a cow with a huge gas problem. Bad enough, it could kill the cow.

One of our best milk cows and had her fill of the plant and was headed toward the barn when she stopped and sort of fell on her right side. Just forward of her left hip, the gas had filled her second stomach and a bubble about twice the size of a basketball was pushing up through the skin.

My father was at work, and my mother had gone to town for some groceries. I ran to the house and called our vet. He said I might have to cut a hole in the side to let the gas out so the cow could breathe again. He said he was on his way from Solemint Junction.

I ran back to the barn, and all I had was a large old knife we used to cut feed sacks open. I took it out the back of the barn and walked over to the cow. She was obviously having problems breathing.

The vet told me where to cut the hole in the cow’s side. “Place your little finger on the hip bone, middle finger on the backbone and, spreading your hand wide, cut a hole where the end of your thumb is.” That is what I did.

I did step off to one side almost enough to have the partially digested green stuff miss me as it blew out of the cow. Yes, almost enough. The knife was sharper than I thought, so the hole got to be quite large. The cow suddenly took some very deep breaths and stood up.

Now, the vet must have broken every speed limit known between what is now called Canyon Country and Mentryville, because a few minutes after the cow stood up, he arrived.

So the 1962 snow also caused me to learn how to suture. The vet showed me, and between the two of us, we put nearly 300 stiches in that cow. The knife was a little large and too sharp. The cow survived just fine. Still gave a lot of good milk. The vet also gave us an instrument that we could use to let the gas out without stitches.

Much of what I learned in Pico Canyon and Mentryville is something I don’t want to use again but would if I had to.

I don’t want to let the gas out of a cow again anytime soon. I can, and have been, riding horses, but I still look at it as work and not play. I was able to get on a tractor and do some dirt moving on a friend’s place in Acton. I’ve got some bales of straw to move at Heritage Junction. Need to find a dry place to store them where they won’t be a fire problem. So it is back to “bucking bales” after all.

A few years ago when I lived in Virginia, the city of Chesapeake had a combination county fair and urban gathering of sorts. They had a livestock area, and one of the things they wanted to do was have the City Council members milk a cow. Turns out, there were only two who would attempt it. They had three cows. I laughed and said I’ll bet they couldn’t milk a cow. I was drafted. Had to show I could.

I sat down on the milk stool and placed the bucket under the udders. In no time at all, I was milking like I used to. Both members of the City Council gave up. Their milking job was finished by the owners of the cows. I finished the cow I was milking.

So another Pico Canyon lesson was put to use again.

I have to admit that I wished one of the cows had been bloated so I could be a hero and save a cow. I thought of how good it would be to have one of the council members stand near the cow as I cut the hole in the cow’s side. Getting the politician to stand in just the right spot, he could be covered in the same type of stuff he usually spewed at all of us.

And just so you all think this is getting political, well, it is. I remembered the smell when I was in Val Verde the other day. Same smell. Wonder where Chiquita got all of those bloated cows? They sure have spread enough of the verbal bovine scatology, let alone the real stuff they spread on the dump.

All y’all be careful in the snow. Isn’t that where I started this story?

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].