By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

LaRue “Barney” Barnum has been around for a long, long time. In an age where there are people alive today, albeit young, who have never known life, never known a time, without televisions, video games, computers and cell phones, Barney can not only remember times without those amenities, he remembers life without radios, cars, living in a real house and even a time without any telephone at all let alone one that a person carries around in his pocket.

Barney, an off-and-on fixture in Moapa Valley for close to 100 years, was born in Mesquite, March 3, 1913, when that fair city consisted of about two streets, both of which were gravel. The Barnum family actually lived on a little ranch in Beaver Dam Wash in Arizona, but Barney has always considered himself a native Nevadan since he was born in this state.

His dad was a miner who’d lost most of one hand as a young man setting off dynamite for an Independence Day celebration. His mom, a housewife who worked hard keeping food on the table, the clothes clean and her three kids, Barney and his brother and sister out of trouble.

Times were tough in those days. After moving and working in one mine or another for years, including the dusty widow-maker Delamar, which today is a ghost town this side of Caliente, and dark holes in Tonopah, Barney’s dad eventually moved his little family to Arden, a tiny mining community about seven miles southwest of Las Vegas, where he mined for U.S. Gypsum (USG) for $5 a day, a very acceptable wage.

Most men working for USG earned $3 a day. Barney’s dad made the extra two bucks because he worked with explosives. Seems the little incident on the Fourth of July the few years previous had been a good learning experience and taught the young father how to be cautious around dynamite.

There were only six little houses in Arden in those days, each consisting of three rooms, and they were already occupied when the Barnums arrive, so the family moved into a tent. It wasn’t bad living in the tent, Barney says, since almost everything was done outside including eating and sleeping, except in the worst of weather.

At summer’s end in 1920, mom decided it was school time so Barney put on a brave face, clean school clothes and marched off to face the great unknown. His first day of class was a little traumatic since he had never been in school and knew absolutely nothing about it.

Opening day in this day and age usually involves a veritable mountain of forms and paperwork, a background check worthy of the FBI and innumerable inoculations against a host of diseases and illnesses.

Not so in Barney’s day. After appearing at the door of the one-room school house that was just down the road, Barney and the other six kids who were starting class that day were lined up and inspected by the teacher.

“How old are you and what grade are you in?” were the first questions the teacher demanded of each of her new students.

Barney said he could faintly hear the responses from the other kids but hadn’t the slightest idea what “grade” meant.

“Finally, the teacher asked the boy next to me, ‘How old are you and what grade are you in?’” Barney remembers. “He said, ‘I’m 6 years old and I’m in the first grade.’ Well, I was 7 so, based on what that kid had said, when the teacher finally got to me, I said, ‘I’m 7 years old and I’m in second grade.”

Barney is as sharp today as he was those 91 years ago and it still tickles him no end to recount how he never had to go to first grade, something that could never, ever happen today.

Barney is a true Moapa Valley character. His life, his insights and his stories are what we here at the Moapa Valley Progress like to think Rural Rants is all about. Occasionally, from today until whenever, Barney and his exploits will appear in Rural Rants and we hope you’ll enjoy them.

“Rural Rants” is a column about rural living and the people who live here. It appears the first and third Wednesday of the month. Your comments and input are important and will be appreciated. Contact me via email at mouse@mvdsl.com.