One more in the first month of my "new life." The prior-mentioned ranch hunt activity was continuing and I was really trying to start to believe (despite two years of disappointments and disillusionment already) although deep down I am sure I knew better. It was always those grandiose plans that actually had an ice cube's chance in Hades to reach reality.
June 20, 1962 Wed
Today was the last day of spring. The calendar is a few days behind time, I think. I got up at 6:30 and fed the monsters. The folks were already up. Dad left to go with Don Lee and I took off for the pasture at 7:30. I found Ritzi with a terrible gooey nose indicating distemper and nearly worried myself into a double stew. At least I got some mail today--letters from Shirley, Boots and Wayne. I was really hardly expecting him to write but he did. I guess I’m glad. I need some sort of beau. Saw the B driving up main this morning. Dad came back with no deal on Montezuma but preliminary papers on Buckhorn. I guess I’d really like to leave the Verde Valley. If I don’t go to college next year I’ll never hear the last of it here. This afternoon I rode over to Cottonwood to get some medicine for Ritzi. I talked to Mrs Schauffler on the phone this morning and to Dr Al this afternoon. I had just swatted Trixie across the ears for spooking at a motorcycle when Gordo (aka the B) came around the corner. Like he really stared. Guess he got a free show--my blouse was half unbuttoned in the struggle. Proves I was wearing something under it, no? We drove out to feed and gave Ritzi her first dose of penn-strep. She seems better and Dad said for me not to worry about her. I’ll probably get to go see Buckhorn and another ranch down there in a few days. Boy, I’m glad today is over. It has been a good few days but kinda rough on the nerves. I’m almost convinced we might do something eventually.
My memories of Don Lee, a glib and ambitious real estate guy, are of a short, husky guy who drove a fancy car, Lincoln or Chrysler I think. I went along on one trip a few weeks later and was impressed and entertained by his tales and wild ideas. My enchantment with the pen pals and such was wearing thin and I was beginning to think I must eventually choose between the "Prince" (the suave, educated and well-heeled type) and the "Cowboy" (the rugged outdoors type man who was the modern version of the TV stars in the'westerns' I'd loved and a younger edition of old heroes Charley Bryant and Leo Greenough.) I had been avidly looking for my "hero on the white horse" of some kind since I was about twelve and now nineteen was behind me. The dream was slow in coming true!
Let's see--Shirley and Boots were girl pen pals and Wayne you have met before. I still liked to get mail and was always a little aggrieved when I had nothing in the PO Box! I had begun to debate with myself whether or not I wanted to or even could go off to college in the fall--or not. I knew I would hear about it from many local people if I did not, but I was timid about the idea of going clear to Phoenix since my scholarships were for Grand Canyon--then College and now University.
Even how to get there? (I could not count on my Dad driving me or at least didn't think I could because on one hand he talked how great it would be but also there was a strong hint of not just yet... ) After all, I was doing a lot of work, much of which Charlie Mike at 10-11 was really not able to take over. So who would take care of my equine and equi-assinine babies if I were gone? Serious issues at that time at least to me. I was stretched like a rubber band between wishes and doubts/fears.
Dr Al was the local veterinarian of whom we were becoming frequent customers. Ritzi was about two years old and had been born to the mare we got, Queenie, in a batch of mules from the Kansas stock dealer, Willis Grumbein. I was planning to start training her soon but she was illness and accident prone. A plague of distemper had been going through our herd and she got it.We never lost an animal from it but had to doctor a lot. It was a rather nasty bug.
I'd ridden Trixie, who was a good little mule but a bit flighty still at times, over to Cottonwood to get the meds and a motorcycle spooked her up near the high point on the highway between the towns as we returned. She managed to jump halfway into the road just as one of the propane company trucks came along--with my favorite SOB at the wheel. Oh dear.
So just a typical day in the life of the Cowboy Girl in Clarkdale in June 1962... There were to be many, many more of them. Had I known how many perhaps I would have forced the college issue? No, probably not --I was so lacking in confidence and trust in my own ability to do anything different and new. In retrospect that is sad and yet rather inevitable due to what I had already experienced. The enmeshed family and emotional incest issues were there and conspired to build big limits for me.
For reader-tax--a few photos: Trixie. that was my little saddle on her. She was small and cute. Next me. I had made that shirt and really liked it and was clearly dressed up here to go somewhere--maybe ranch hunting? And Ritzi-not a good photo of her, shaggy in a winter coat when she was normally shiny and a bright sorrel color with flaxen mane and tail. Mom was feeding her some grain in the bucket.
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