Remembering Russ
12/02/19 04:31
There was a time when every auctioneer in Montana knew Russ Salisbury. They knew that they could get a dollar or two from him for a bucket of unsorted junk from a farm shop. They knew they could get a bit more if they stuck a Craftsman tool in the top of the bucket. They also knew that he was a savvy auction buyer. If they tried to pass something off on him that he didn’t intend to buy, he’d turn his head or hide his auction card so they couldn’t get his number. Auctioneers learned to memorize Russ’ number at the beginning of the sale.
There was a time when every Highway Patrol Officer in Montana knew Russ Salisbury. He would have a severely overloaded trailer behind a sometimes-too-small truck, both in questionable operating condition going down the road at a pace considerably slower than the typical traffic. They might be able to pull him over and give him a warning ticket for a taillight that didn’t work, but they wouldn’t do that too often, because he would stop on the spot and fix it, even if it took him half an hour to find another bulb or the problem with the ground. He was known to swipe a bulb out of a clearance lamp to make a tail light work. He’d even swap out the entire lamp if he could find something to make do.
There was a time when every organic farmer in Montana knew Russ Salisbury. He had driven his old Toyota Tercel to the home of each one of them and spoken to them about organizing a cooperative for marketing their produce. He had hand delivered feed sacks to them. He had provided the first flour mill for the cooperative and kept it running with parts he purchased at auctions.
Russ never showed any interest in fame or being known. He was interested in the Blackfeet Nation also known as the Siksikaitsitapi people. He formed friendships over decades, learned from their elders and observed their ceremonies. He never tried to become one of them, simply to learn from their wisdom.
He was interested in the stewardship of the land. He brought together the pieces of land along the Missouri River in Montana that had formerly been the homesteads of family relatives, purchasing a few acres here and a few acres there until he had assembled a single ranch that was a legacy for the extended family. He patiently worked to have all of the ranch certified organic and to find the proper crop rotations and farming and ranching practices that had the least negative impact on the land.
He was an inveterate inventor, making machine and tools that he needed. He studied auto body repair after high school and made custom vehicles from the garage of a gas station in Carter Montana for a few years. He crafted a pickup from a 1948 Kaiser and gave it a beautiful blue pearl paint job. He took a 55 chevy and cut the top off to make a hard top convertible, with a system to reattach the roof when needed. He rebuilt several vehicles purchased from salvage sales. For several years he had a 1962 Mercedes diesel that had been resurrected after being declared a total loss by the insurance company. Russ was an expert at taking things that others discarded and turning them into useful tools. Russ took the front wheels off of two 830 John Deere tractors and fashioned an articulating connection to make them into a single four-wheel drive tractor The tractors had to be started separately and gear selection had to be made independently. He had a long steel bar that enabled both clutches to be engaged simultaneously, and another to operate the throttle on the front machine while he rode on the back one. There were a few bugs, but that tractor could pul once you got everything running.
50 years ago he moved from his parents’ ranch yard to the river bottom. Moving was quite an adventure because his “double wide” was really two regular mobile homes that had been remodeled into a single house. The two mobile homes weren’t even the same length, so there was considerable adaptation. A few years after the move to the river bottom where water came from a hand-dug well, he put a continuous roof over both trailers and solved the problem of water coming in through the seam between the trailers. There were decades in a home that was designed as a double-wide and placed next to the original home before a proper straw bale home was built.
Russ went through phases with vehicles. There was a time when he’d buy any Jeep Forward Control pickup that showed up on an auction regardless of its condition. He usually be able to keep one or tow running by salvaging parts from the row lined up in the yard. There was the Volkswagen beetle phase. There was a stack of parts cars lined up. After that it was the 4 wheel drive version of the Toyota Tercel. In recent years it was Dodge diesel pickups, 1 ton preferred. He did the same thing with farm machines. John Deere R tractors, John Deere 830s, Steiger tractors, Cat motor graders, John Deere 95 combines. After a while the area where the junk machines rested was so crowded that the devised a corral by staking up used machines all around the area where the cattle were kept.
Alan Watts wrote, “We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe “peoples." Russ Salisbury taught me that we all come from the earth. Our bodies are made of the elements of the soil that produces the crops that we eat. Russ was a man of the earth. He always belonged to the earth. So his death is not a surprise. It is a sadness, but not a surprise. His memory will never leave us and we will all one day be reunited in the elements of Creation.
Russ was my cousin. I am a lucky person to have shared this life’s journey with him.
There was a time when every Highway Patrol Officer in Montana knew Russ Salisbury. He would have a severely overloaded trailer behind a sometimes-too-small truck, both in questionable operating condition going down the road at a pace considerably slower than the typical traffic. They might be able to pull him over and give him a warning ticket for a taillight that didn’t work, but they wouldn’t do that too often, because he would stop on the spot and fix it, even if it took him half an hour to find another bulb or the problem with the ground. He was known to swipe a bulb out of a clearance lamp to make a tail light work. He’d even swap out the entire lamp if he could find something to make do.
There was a time when every organic farmer in Montana knew Russ Salisbury. He had driven his old Toyota Tercel to the home of each one of them and spoken to them about organizing a cooperative for marketing their produce. He had hand delivered feed sacks to them. He had provided the first flour mill for the cooperative and kept it running with parts he purchased at auctions.
Russ never showed any interest in fame or being known. He was interested in the Blackfeet Nation also known as the Siksikaitsitapi people. He formed friendships over decades, learned from their elders and observed their ceremonies. He never tried to become one of them, simply to learn from their wisdom.
He was interested in the stewardship of the land. He brought together the pieces of land along the Missouri River in Montana that had formerly been the homesteads of family relatives, purchasing a few acres here and a few acres there until he had assembled a single ranch that was a legacy for the extended family. He patiently worked to have all of the ranch certified organic and to find the proper crop rotations and farming and ranching practices that had the least negative impact on the land.
He was an inveterate inventor, making machine and tools that he needed. He studied auto body repair after high school and made custom vehicles from the garage of a gas station in Carter Montana for a few years. He crafted a pickup from a 1948 Kaiser and gave it a beautiful blue pearl paint job. He took a 55 chevy and cut the top off to make a hard top convertible, with a system to reattach the roof when needed. He rebuilt several vehicles purchased from salvage sales. For several years he had a 1962 Mercedes diesel that had been resurrected after being declared a total loss by the insurance company. Russ was an expert at taking things that others discarded and turning them into useful tools. Russ took the front wheels off of two 830 John Deere tractors and fashioned an articulating connection to make them into a single four-wheel drive tractor The tractors had to be started separately and gear selection had to be made independently. He had a long steel bar that enabled both clutches to be engaged simultaneously, and another to operate the throttle on the front machine while he rode on the back one. There were a few bugs, but that tractor could pul once you got everything running.
50 years ago he moved from his parents’ ranch yard to the river bottom. Moving was quite an adventure because his “double wide” was really two regular mobile homes that had been remodeled into a single house. The two mobile homes weren’t even the same length, so there was considerable adaptation. A few years after the move to the river bottom where water came from a hand-dug well, he put a continuous roof over both trailers and solved the problem of water coming in through the seam between the trailers. There were decades in a home that was designed as a double-wide and placed next to the original home before a proper straw bale home was built.
Russ went through phases with vehicles. There was a time when he’d buy any Jeep Forward Control pickup that showed up on an auction regardless of its condition. He usually be able to keep one or tow running by salvaging parts from the row lined up in the yard. There was the Volkswagen beetle phase. There was a stack of parts cars lined up. After that it was the 4 wheel drive version of the Toyota Tercel. In recent years it was Dodge diesel pickups, 1 ton preferred. He did the same thing with farm machines. John Deere R tractors, John Deere 830s, Steiger tractors, Cat motor graders, John Deere 95 combines. After a while the area where the junk machines rested was so crowded that the devised a corral by staking up used machines all around the area where the cattle were kept.
Alan Watts wrote, “We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe “peoples." Russ Salisbury taught me that we all come from the earth. Our bodies are made of the elements of the soil that produces the crops that we eat. Russ was a man of the earth. He always belonged to the earth. So his death is not a surprise. It is a sadness, but not a surprise. His memory will never leave us and we will all one day be reunited in the elements of Creation.
Russ was my cousin. I am a lucky person to have shared this life’s journey with him.