Memoir Monday, Sept 6, 1961

 

Sep 6, 1961

Well day #2 of school has come and gone. Except for being rather boring, I don’t think school will be so bad this year. I may drop either chorus or journalism, but I don’t know. Oh, they took pictures today, which was a dirty cheat since they didn’t let us know beforehand. I tried as many of my ‘glamour’ tricks as I could remember, but I have a sneaky feeling that my picture is going to be lousy as usual. Maureen was back today and we talked all noon hour and still didn’t catch up on all the news. She’s my best friend in school with the possible exception of Evelyn. I helped E on her geometry this evening. I remember it pretty well—better than algebra anyway. I put in a busy afternoon, helped unload hay and then rode Tina out and led Donna back. Boy is she ever stubborn. The more I think of it, young George really does look like his dad. His hair grows the same way etc. If he’s seventeen I guess George Sr could be as young as 37 to 40--no matter.   I still haven’t seen Gug but that is just as well I’m sure. Gotta blow.

Just starting my final year of high school. I was both a bit cynical and somewhat laid-back in my approach to it. I had decided to be basically calm, cool and collected, no flaming love affairs, no overt rebellion, and simply treat it as a different sort of "job" but as significant as my cowboy girl gig. I was determined to keep a good grade average and maybe graduate with honors.

I'd been chatting mostly about mules off and on with an older guy who drove a big truck for CTI,  hauling materials down from the cement plant to be loaded on rail cars for shipment either to the CTI plant at Marana or the Glenn Canyon damsite. (The spur track up to the plant had not been built yet.) I'd learned his  name was George Evans--no big crush or anything but just a nice man I thought of as a friend. Imagine my surprise when his son of the same name cropped up in my class. Younger George was actually in my journalism class and maybe another one or two. Never got to know him well but he seemed nice. 

I was furious about the 'surprise' annual pictures but my senior pictures turned out far better than I had even dared to hope so I just didn't bother to buy any of the regular ones. As usual I looked dorky!

By now Evelyn Morales (nee Graves) was a sophomore and my friend from the previous year, Maureen Jewell,  was also. Evelyn was getting involved with Albert who she married a few years later but we still often walked to the bus stop together and at school I chummed around with Maureen with whom I had PE and Art Class. I had not seen much of her all summer so we had catching up to do. 

Of course the livestock work went on; there was never any real respite in that from late 1959 until I finally left home for college in 1966. From about 1957-59 they grew a bit but the big change came with the arrival of the first of the mule year bunches in August of 1959. Tina was still my top favorite and stayed so until her sad death in March 1966. She was such an exceptional mare. Donna was one of the newer mules, a hard headed and not-easily trained one!

Gug was still my nemesis. A bit later he got a DWI  ticket and lost his licence so had to quit his job at the propane company. After which I saw very little of him and called it no loss. By then the stupid infatuation had died to ashes and good riddance. Not one of my finer efforts, that. But we all have to be young and stupid at times, no? 

Two photos just for 'tax' LOL. The first is either Dyna(mite) or Donna. They looked very much alike, short legged and stocky built, a light almost buckskin color. Neither one was any good in the long run! The next is with Tina out in the hills east of the river. That was some rough country as the eroded and weathered limestone was very ragged and harsh. If you rode there you needed your mount to have good shoes or it wore their feet sore in no time. And a rider needed heavy chaps to turn those thorns like the ocotillo in the foreground. Not sure what the work was that day--maybe helping Charley Bryant find someone's stray cattle.