Saturday, January 25, 1958
Got up at 8:00. Fed the stock. It was rather cloudy. Ate breakfast. Cleaned the corrals. Went down and met the Mullins girl. Her name is Alberta. She is really nice and I like her already. We talked about her old school, our school, horses, dogs—lots of things. Then Janni came up. We beat Cottonwood 53-35 she said. She and I sawed wood. Lunch. Then we rode up on Mingus to Zeke’s upper spring. I kept my eyes turned from Apache Maid. It would be much more romantic if Dad had forbidden me to speak of Tyce or think about him or perhaps sent me to Cottonwood for the second semester or even ordered me not to talk with, look at or dream about him. He only makes T out to be an SOB, a skunk, a slut’s son a—Oh to hell with it. Well, back to the ride. Janni stayed until all the stock was put up and fed. She is a game and spunky little kid. Ate supper. Rested a bit. Manana, vamos a la Mingus y trabajamos muchos. Y Lunes yo tengo que hace un decision muy importante. Pero hasta Lunes no peinso en un decision. Well adios for now. Y amor a quien? Manana yo veo a quien va mi amor. G
More 'splaining. Some of it I have to kind of dig to remember myself! Alberta and her family moved in down the street from us in Clarkdale that month, a few days before this. They had a pair of palomino Shetland ponies as I recall. It does not seem they stayed too long but Alberta was nice and we became friends for awhile. A few days later she went riding with me--on one of my animals, not a pony.
Janni was Janice Benatz. She was about the youngest in my gang of young lower Clarkdale gal pals and was the right age to be kind of horse crazy. Despite about a four year age gap I considered her a friend and she was mature for her age in some ways.
The hills between Clarkdale and Jerome were part of the grazing land leased by Zeke Taylor who then sold his interest to Ken Chilton. We rode though that area a lot, always careful to close gates and not disturb the cattle or anything. Where was that spring? Darn if I can exactly locate it--probably about due south of Jerome along the Mingus foothills.
Tyce--ah yes, Tyce Miller who was about the closest to a high school boyfriend I ever had. We did not go steady or anything but had almost every class together and were kind of friends being both into horses and cowboy stuff. He always seemed to feel he could talk to me as I would listen and not be rude or sneering. We were both kind of misfits I guess. He was just there the one year. For some reason my dad took a huge exception to this boy--I guess because I talked about him a lot? Where and how dad found so much stuff to criticize I have no idea; I cannot imagine why he thought Tyce's mom was some kind of tramp except she had very red hair that looked dyed. They lived out at Beaver Creek Ranch but Tyce boarded in Clarkdale to go to school.
I was taking Spanish that year and kind of fell in love with the language. I think there is an error or two here but most of it seems right. I also used it as a code of sorts since my mom knew French and dad knew German but neither really knew Spanish!
Pictures: Tyce from the annual for that year. Me holding two of the horses, the early ones we had, at a water tank but do not think this was the mentioned spring. Yours truly but probably 8th grade rather than frosh year. Looking geeky!! That perm was awful! And last, me riding Tina in some of those rugged hills south of Jerome.
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