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The 1980’s and a Prayer to Make It, by Shad Sullivan

The 1980’s and a Prayer to Make It

Weighing yearlings on the Sullivan Ranch on Antelope Mesa. “Little” Jerry Sullivan on the fence, Kenny Anderson and Roy Hughes mounted, Afton Harmon running the scales. Circa Fall 1982

By Shad Sullivan

I remember there was a cow-chip on the desk with an ink pen stuck into the center of it. Perhaps an ode to the cow and the source from where the money flowed into most rural banks. I was mesmerized by it. As my dad conversed with the loan officer about the purchase of my mother’s home ranch from her parents, the importance of that conversation was as far away from me. Afterall, I was only 4 years old and I wanted, so badly, to pick up that dried cow chip and inspect it. I now wonder if that cow chip was a sign of things to come.

Somewhere in that conversation the tone of my dad’s voice change as he said, “Joe I’m not sure I should go ahead with this purchase, I’m worried about the interest rates.” The year was 1978 and nobody was really concerned about the future, much less the looming farm crisis. Even as young as I was, I understood the context of my dad’s voice. It wasn’t one of anger or aggression, but of concern. Thirty-four years later, in the last stages of his life, I told dad my memory and he told me the rest of the story.

Dad explained that his concern was the upward tick of interest rates. At the time he thought he could handle the debt load. He told me that when he expressed the possibility of a rate hike to Joe, the loan officer at the Federal Land Bank in Pueblo, he said, “they aren’t going to raise the interest rates Jerry and you’ll have it paid off before they do.” Dad and mom went ahead and signed the note, after all, they had to make a living.

By 1983 the wreck was on, and his interest rates had climbed to a staggering 18 percent. I watched as my dad and mother struggled every day on every single issue.

As they battled to make the payments, I would hear them talking at the kitchen table at night. Dad was often yelling at mom about the money she spent and my mother, as with every ranch matriarch, understood the pressure he was under and held it all together through many nights of tears. She never wavered but often had to stand firm with him and us kids.

Dad told mom to call to the electric company and have them shut off our “blue” yard lights that lit up the corrals and the parking lot. Dad bought sugar, flour, and pinto beans in the 100lb sacks and told mom to “make do.” All the while, she grew a big garden and canned all summer. Even on our ranch, beef was a luxury. We ate a lot of chicken. Mom would grow baby chicks and we would harvest them. Quail and cotton tail was not off limits. Hand-me-downs were what we wore and though mom always kept everything neatly pressed, the girls often didn’t fit in at school with their checkered britches and bell-bottoms. She made a lot of our clothes and I often wore my boot’s so hard, masking tape was the fix-it-all. On Christmas Eve dad would take us to the Pueblo Mall to buy shoes and that was our Christmas.

It was unsettling to me. One midnight I awoke to a fight between mom and dad in the utility room. It scared me and I asked my mom if we were going to lose everything, and she replied, “I don’t know son” and hugged me tight as my dad stormed out the door. Dad sold two of his best horses for $900 each to buy groceries and I remember being in town with mom and asking if I could have a candy bar, to which she replied, “son we don’t have the money for that kind of stuff anymore.” I was devastated. I was scared too, and as the youngest and only boy I felt pretty alone. The only place I could turn to was prayer. So, for the next 10 years I said that same prayer every single night. “Dear Lord, please help my mom and dad get through. Help us pay the bills and please let us MAKE IT, in Jesus Name… Amen.” I will never forget that prayer as long as I live. I’ll also never forget that feeling of fear deep into the pit of my stomach.

The 1980’s farm crisis seemed to lead to a period of heartbreak and unlucky draws for my family. Dad was a yearlin’ man and he conditioned a lot of calves. One fall he hauled in hay to grind from the valley and stored it in a make-shift pit on the south and east side of a barn and windbreak. After feeding one morning, he decided he would grind enough hay to get through the next five days. That night a severe southwest wind blew in and the next morning over half of that ground hay had blown away. He had us kids out there with water hoses trying to save what was left. The same winter, a January norther’ hit with sixty mile an hour wind and three feet of snow. The low pressure forced his cows to start calving and we lost most of the calves born during that storm. He had also sent yearlings to east Texas to winter on rye grass and discovered two truckloads of calves had disappeared.

All of this, while the Federal Land Bank was calling for their money. Dad was a mess emotionally. He was a roller coaster of highs and lows. His anxiety was high. He didn’t sleep and he became known for his negative attitude. Dad would sit at the kitchen table all night, long-figuring on whatever paper he could find. Mom would wake up to a whole stack of napkins and newspapers with financial figures all over them. He was short with her; he was short with his kids and he seemed distant. None of us had a positive relationship with him, yet we all understood what he was going through.

I often think of the days when the bank came calling. Dad managed to sell a small ranch he owned outright and that bought some time, but eventually they called the note on his family homestead and he handed it over to them. This was the beginning of the end for my dad. He was never the same after that and he told me on his death-bed, “son, don’t ever depend on the land, I saw a time when I couldn’t give it away.”

Dad and mom were the kind of people who worked hard and never quit. They knew the risks and they accepted the outcome. Thankfully, they were able to hold my mom’s ranch together. As the years have passed, we have replaced the acres that we turned in during the eighties. Our ranch has been paid for several times and we have made it through trial and tragedy, sadness and sorrow. But we have also seen treasures and triumphs and thoughts for tomorrow.

Perhaps my dad struggled with a bit of genetic mental instability, but the farm crisis of the 1980’s took a wider toll than his genetics. After the 80’s dad expected to lose at everything he did. There was no positivity like he had in the sixties and seventies. To my knowledge he never contemplated suicide, he never sought medical or emotional help, he never medicated himself with alcohol or food and he never took drugs. He “toughed it out” and for that, I’m sorry, because I know he never found joy again.

Every night for ten years I said the same prayer, and it worked. We made it. Maybe not the way my dad intended, but we made it. Thank you Jesus.

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