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Walter Brennan, the on-screen grandfather, was also a grandfather on his ranch. Tammy, Mike’s daughter, remembered this period during a tour of Lightning Creek we took with Mike in July 2014. “When the lights were off, the lights were off,” Tammy recalled, “because of the gas generator. You had to find the bathroom in the dark.” “Grampy loved it,” Tammy said, “surrounded by quiet.” Still standing is the cathedral sized, handmade barn Ray Pogue set up just before selling the ranch to Walter, “212 feet long, about 65 feet wide,” Mike said. “I don’t know if Grampy had any funny things happen to him out here,” Tammy mused, perhaps wanting to help out a biographer. “No, none.” Mike said. “He just came out here, sat, and left,” Tammy suggested. “He’d come up and go deer hunting with us,” Mike added. “I don’t recall him ever shooting anything. I’d shoot something. I took the liver out of a deer. I didn’t have anywhere to put it, so I just tucked it in my shirt, the whole bloody thing. He’d get a kick out of it.
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Carl Rollyson (A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan (Hollywood Legends))