Memoir Monday, Aug 29, 1964

 Now back to the railroad work train saga which will pop in and out for the rest of 1964 and all of 1965 as well. I will share no spoilers and let the tale develop as it actually did. I am pretty sure I mentioned this gang, Bridge and Building #6 or B&B 6 had been there in the spring, coming back in the summer for a short stay. They had left on August 21 but were back a week later on the 27th as the Bitter Creek Bridge had been almost washed out, again something I have mentioned before. I'd been half-heartedly trying to get acquainted with Danny, the laborer who had the Corvette and the Plymouth Fury. That was not progressing fast and in the long run was not meant to be. Dan ended up marrying Joyce Killabrew in 1965 and was starting to go with her about this time. It was a short lived marraige as they split within about a year. But I had a mild crush for a bit and worked on it as I could, aided and abetted most of the time by Charlie Mike who wanted more ties to the railroad industry that so fascinated him. I might mention both our grandfathers had been railroaders, G'pa Morgan was train crew and G'pa Witt in the admin side.Trains were in our blood for sure. Still fans though my favorite AT&SF and his D&RGW are no more.

Aug 29, 1964

I got up early to get off to an early start and I did. Even with riding out all the fences and putting up the Forest Service fence, I got back by 10:30. Led Chief and Pat and then saddled Leo. He went off real well. Guess who’s staying here this weekend. I nearly flipped. Finally the riding and chores were done and we ate. Charlie Mike and I rode over but Dan was out of sight. He was in eating but wouldn’t come out. Later Charlie Mike went back to talk. Dan is 20, his b’day was August 17. He graduated from Winslow High in 62, had 14 cars and then went to work for the railroad. He wants to quit and start a garage in Winslow. Woody’s at Winslow, they say. We did our chores a little early. rode over again but Dan and Jim Wilson were inside. After supper Charlie Mike and I wrote letters. He said I should go ahead and send what I wrote.. I really want to talk to him but if I can’t by tomorrow pm, I guess I should. Darn, why did I start liking him? But I guess I do so that’s that.  And now I’ve got to play my hand. All is fair in love, war and horse trading, no?

I don't say what horse or mule I was riding but that was not too significant. I had taken on leading the two stallions and another stud colt for exercise almost daily. They were kept in small paddocks or pens about 20' square or so and needed to move more. Chief, the Appaloosa, was well broke but Dad did not let me ride him for quite awhile. Leo, the young Quarter Horse was being ridden for training as a two year old but not yet  fully trained, and Pat was Patrick, the gray mare Patsy's colt sired by Chief. I broke him the next summer.

Dad rode Leo a few times but with his big saddle was too heavy so I pretty much took over his training as I did with several of the young horses. I rarely had much trouble with them and (brag, brag) think my gentler and less demanding manner really worked out better than the rougher "mule style" that Dad employed. I actually got pretty upset several times when he deemed it necessary to 'teach them some manners' in a rough way. These colts were almost born gentle and Did Not Need that kind of treatment. But arguing was fruitless and didn't make things any better. I mostly learned to keep my mouth shut, whether or not I disapproved.

As September began there were two trips that both were impactful but I'll let that ride until after next week when I cover September 5. There may be an extra post next to kind of bridge across some things otherwise not covered. The trips were on September 10 and 12, so the latter will be a regular entry bit may need some background. In this bit, Woody was a guy who had been on the gang earlier and Jim Wilon was a new man we had recently met. Charlie Mike had talked to him several times but I had not much at this point.

Pictures? Horses I guess since I never got one of Danny and there is not much else to cover... First I'm riding Annie and leading Chief , Probably a bit later in the fall since I  have a jacket on. Next Leo Mix as a two-year old. He was shaping up to be quite a handsome horse! He also had a very sweet temperment. And last my young Patrick, about a year old now and going to be a good looking horse too!  He was a son of Chief and did not get the Appy color (he was born almost black and went a roany blue before  he was grown. It was pretty, anyway.) but a lot of similarities in the conformation. I broke and sold him the next year.

Monday Memoir, Aug 22, 1963

Back a year from last week. My random selection habit does that. But if one really must read the whole contiuing tale, I do have e-copies of my 1943-1971 autobiography/memoir. It's not quite publication ready but I am no longer keeping it under lock and key. Heck, I opened the skeleton closet some time ago and a lot of junk fell out! It is very old news and many mentioned are not even in this world anymore. So call it declassified (LOL) No longer TS/NoForn (maybe that is not used now but was when I was with the Air Force. Meant Top Secret, No Foreign Release. (i.e.) Stuff about the Space Track program that I wrote as a historian at NORAD was in that category often. So long ago--1975-77!)

Aug 22, 1963

I rolled out about 6:30 and saw clouds in the treetops almost and heard rain. I fed and did the morning chores in a shower. Annie and I rode out and checked the fences etc. We came up to the corrals and there we saw a new addition. Jay-jay’s baby had arrived. He was an ugly-cute little pink-brown scrap of a burro! We shod Chief and I pulled off Annie’s rear shoes. Dad planned to ride Chief after lunch but it rained so we had to drop that plan, (I wasn’t terribly sorry!) I spent the remainder of the afternoon sleeping. We got on with our evening chores a little early and got them  done without event. We’ve christened Jay’s baby “Little Pete”. She seems a good mother. After supper I wrote a couple of business letters and worked on two more chapters of Cindy. I just keep polishing it. We got a letter about the Colorado place and are more interested in it than ever. I surely hope we can get it because it sounds like a fantastic bargain truly. Well it’s late and I must say adios. I may get some film tomorrow. Cheers.

Nothing too risque here anyway . Another very routine day as so many were in those four long years. Annuie was a favored mule I  have mentioned often and showed in several pix. The trip to the pasture from my Clarkdale house was about 2.5 miles--guessing--and I usually rode down a dirt road past the tailings pond, dropped into the river bottom near the end of Tuzigoot, crossed a sandy flat dotted with mequite and entered our lease thru an old style bob-wire gate. At a good trot it took maybe 12-15 minutes to  make the trip each way. Then depending on what work had to be done, I'd be there for anywhere from half an hour to a couple. In the summer, downed fences were common so a boundary check was usually needed. If repairs were too, that took a bit more time! Then always putting out hay, supplemental feed to include grain in a feedbag for one or more of the mares, making sure the ditch was flowing where they could drink from inside the main corral area and so on. Also look all the critters over for any signs of injury or sickness.

Baby burros are the cutest. JayJay was Jennyfur Jr, the scond colt of a jenny we got from Sam Steiger a few years before. She allegedly was Charlie Mike's--as if he really wanted a donkey! This was JayJay's first foal. Unfortunately too line bred since I think the baby was sired by her sire, one of the jacks we had--not a good thing. The colt had a genetic fault called Parrot Jaw, a kind of severe overbite issue. But baby burros are really adorable! They almost look like fuzzy toys.

I mention afternoon siestas often. It was almost necessary. I got up early--normally 5:30 to 6:30 and was at work pretty soon. Then the nights were often hot for sleeping and I had a habit of staying up late to read, write or do other things of my own desire. Say 6:00 to 11:00 made a pretty long day, more than half usually active and outdoors.A nap in the afternoon heat did help to keep from totally running down. I often spoke of being tired also and I was. A lot of it was physical but also partly mental since there were frequent stressful and difficult issues and situations that gnawed at me.

Of course the eternal 'ranch hunt' never really ceased. We were looking at and trying to manage a move to the SW corner of Colorado a number of times. Around Cortez and Mancos was some beautiful country and only a bit more severe winters than say Flagstaff. It was never possible, of course--but that vague carrot-on-the-stick to dream of and long for...hope is a strange thing.

And I wrote and re-wrote on Cindy, my YA novel, off and on for several years. I had gone beyond my early teenage efforts at "ranch romanes" and tried to apply my experience and knowledge to a story teen girls would find interesting, at least those of that time. Now problaby not so much. They are much more sophisticated and urbane now, worldy-wise and .into different interests. Do any girls still love horses?

So some eye candy to liven the dull narrative: sorry, no cute cowboys. I didn't know many either. Okay, first is Jennyfur with one of her babies, not sure which one but this is cute and a shot I like..Next I am with one foal, very likely Little Pete but not sure. And last, Charlie Mike with Jennyfur. I think his expression is priceless--he really was not too thrilled with his new pet.This was about 1959 or so, making him maybe 8-9 years old.

r..

 

Memoir Monday, Aug 15, 1964

Now well into the second full year of that cowboy girl life...or my sentence of  unspecified length to hard labor. Things were going to change for me soon in a small but also very impactful way. I'll feed that part of the story in bit by bit--because that is the way it happened. 1964 was a pivital year and the wheels of change began to turn, v-e-r-y slowly for awhile but moving...yet I did not know.

Aug 15, 1964

Got up about like usual. They had plenty of water so I didn’t bother to water them, just went straight to the pasture. The river was really up. Prez and I waded by the fishing place but by the time the chores were done and I  returned it had dropped two feet. The folks took Alex to the hospital and I went to work. They returned to report he had roseola (?) rosacia(?)  I got a single letter from Laura. Got the chores and leading done by 1:30. We got some fly spray and put it on Chief, Leo, Pat and Prez. By golly, it works. I wouldn’t have believed it but it does. After lunch I finished the 7^th chapter of Cindy That’s been hanging fire for quite awhile and I’m glad to get it done.  Charlie Mike reports that the hombre who is watchman for the work train told him that Dan is only 20 and spending the weekend with a girl in Cottonwood. Shouldn’t let that bug me but I do. Something always goes awry. We did the usual chores to night. I caught Patsy and fed her out of a feedbag, I was so proud. Eve asked me to go to church with her tomorrow but Dad plans to go to the races so I guess I can’t. I’d like to though, really. Maybe next Sunday. Anyway I’ll be all cleaned up for come-what-may. Eve’s curse tomorrow? Damn!  Damn, I’m mad at Dan. I think I’ll ride by on Monday and flirt with all the other guys, especially Charlie, and just ignore him. If he likes me at all that will hurt him, his ego anyway.  

As I mentioned before --maybe in the weekly flashback last Friday?--the summer of 1964 was a wet one.  There had been a rain up the river, possibly coming down Sycamore Canyon or other tributaries, and a fast rise took place. But it subsided fast as well. 

Let's see--Alex was now five and I recall he got a weird rash. I cannot read my own writing on the word but anyway it was diagnosed as not really dangerous but I think he got some antibiotics or other meds for it.

Laura was one of my pen pals and our correspondence finally faded out. I think she got married and maybe moved house not long after this. She was back in the  Eastern US--West Virginia comes to mind.  Cindy of course was the YA novel I had been working on for some time, Cindy Walker being the heroine's name. Yes, it was eventually finished but never published. Eve's Curse was my term for the monthly miseries that usually hit me hard. I had terrible cramps often, due I later found to severe endometiosis.

And then, a Santa Fe work train had come to town. It was a B&B Gang or one that repaired bridges and other structures--mostly heavy carpentry type construction work. They had been there for a while in the late spring and had come back this month due to damage caused by the heavy rains.  Charlie Mike was a big rail fan and fascinated by all the different kinds of work and I was somewhat interested also.  In the spring I had gotten curious about the small red sports car one guy drove and had ridden by and struck up a conversation with some of the guys. It was a Corvette and belonged to a young guy named Dan or Danny. With my lack of social life and contacts, I got at least midly interested in that guy. This time he had come back with a different car--a 1959 Plymouth Fury. It was metallic blue and white, very cool (more than a Corvette to  me but had it been a T-bird maybe not so much!) Being a muscle car fan, I really wanted to get a ride in it...but that was not easy to manage.The Charlie I mentioned here was the foreman of the gang, and I was a bit put off by him at this time for reasons I never could later explain. And I did not flirt with him... I really never did.

So some photos: Evelyn (Morales-nee Graves) and me a bit later when I did go to church with her. The Plymouth Fury parked near the work train area. A general view of what a work train looked like--at that time they had old box and passenger cars converted to bunk houses on wheels for the crew. This practice has long since died out but Charlie Mike did get to experience it in Colorado with the D&RGW  about a decade later when he started to work on what became his life-long career. 

Memoir Monday, Aug 8, 1963

The second summer of cowboy girl life--or as I sometimes call it, my "sentence"... Somewhere between endentured servant and slave and prisoner?  Long hot summers and longer cold winters---several of them...

Aug 8, 1963

I rolled out at 6:00. Today was corral cleaning day. My favorite chore--ugh. I led Leo, Happy and Lyno up. Annie and I went out and got the pasture chores done. I got letters from Judy, Kathy and Mama Witt today. Chief had his usual trot and I came in just a wee bit early. During the afternoon I wrote a letter and a poem and took a nap. I was really weary and just couldn’t stay awake.  We drove out early to do the pasture chores and let the herd in to eat flubber. We also roped and worked on Donna. She remembers an amazing amount of her teachings. After supper I began Judy’s letter. It’s bedtime now. We are going tomorrow to look at Chet McCarthy’s place on Rocking Chair Road which is on sale for $25,000. Of course there’ll be something wrong with it but we have to go see anyway. Someday it will all work out just right and we’ll really get moved. I scarcely dare to hope but I can’t stand to stay here much longer. I’d give anything for a boyfriend or even a new male pen pal. I’m “so lonesome I could cry.”

 I think I said enough about  the corral cleaning task.  Not to belabor a dull, dirty job-- it got done some daily and at least once a week a very thorough and complerte job. Leo, Happy and Lyno were some of the  young Quarter horses we had gotten in the spring. They were yearlings, not quite mature enough for serious training, much less riding, but needed to be exercised  almost every day since they were mostly confined in roughly large room sized pens or paddocks.

To explain that "flubber", we had gotten a batch of economical but crummy hay that had a lot of dried mustard weed in it.  Apparently the grass and alfalafa had grown up after the weeds had come up since they are usually very early.  That dry brittle stuff had little to no food value and probably did not taste good either. The animals confined at the pasture corral did not eat it and scattered it around with some bits of better hay. The main bunch of mules that was out roaming free were not too particular so we could move the horses to a different pen and let the mules in to clean up, which they did. 

Donna was a mule we'd had for quite awhile and worked on some. I am not sure why we did not continue with riding and training her as she was really not bad. She was not quite to where I could take her and work with her like the somewhat gentler mules and I suppose Dad was wrapped up in some other projects and did not see a need to get her the rest of the way to being basically 'broke' though not trained. 

Judy and Kathy were pen pals and Mama Witt was my maternal Grandma. I loved her fiercely and she did so much for me all the time I was a kid and growing up. She sewed fantastically and I think I inherited that interest. Grandma Morgan was also a sewist but she died when I was just a tot.

Of course the search for a place to move went on and on--never with any real results, sad to say. This one was down just north of Bridgeport along the river and on the east side. I think Rocking Chair Road still exists but the area is greatly changed or appears so the last time I drove around up there. At this point I was just 'dying' to get out of Clarkdale and some of the ongoing issues that kept arising and causing problems but ...it was beyond my power to control, direct or visualize into reality.  If I could have, I surely would have. 

And of course 'social life' was non-existent and I had run out of ways to try to make substitutes like the pen pals and some flirtations with various of the 'young and restless' blue collar guys I encountered who I knew I had an ice cube's chance in Hades of going out with or anything else. So I was lonely and discouraged most of the time. To explain that "young and restless" term--I know there was a soap opera by that name but I  watched no daytime TV and don't recall even hearing about it. I used that term for the 20-30 blue collar guys who drove trucks, did construction, and similar jobs. They'd often married young and were not happy with being a husband and father so tried to maintain a 'fun'  lif'e with such hobbies as playing cowboy, motorcycles, hunting and fishing etc.Most had a roving eye as well!

A few photos. This is Donna or possibly Dina--they looked much alike. This rig was used to get them settled down to a saddle and stuff bouncing around, part of the breaking process. Next is Jolly Babe, about a year old. She was gray with a white blaze and two white rear socks. The next is Lyno Reed; she was a  tannish sorrel color. again about a year old. Last me, on a rare time dressing up. I think I was going to church with my friend Evelyn which I did do now and then about this time.