The good and the bad, sometimes in a mixture, sometimes in the starkest of contrast. Is that not what and how life really is? The day before had been Dusty's birthday. While I did most of the early home chores, Charlie Mike delivered our cards and I think a dozen or two cookies I had held from a batch I made And then it was Saturday again.
Aug 21, 1965 Sat
Today was good and bad, a holiday and a chore all in one. I overslept as a result of staying up too late but was out before 7:00. No hurry as we were driving. We talked around the breakfast table and finally set out. It might have been over Dusty’s head (maybe--but he was not at all slow or insular in his ideas)--about the scientific problems of the astronauts etc. We drove out with hay and took Rufus over to Nick’s. His son is sick and he wouldn’t even consider a deal. I was no sooner home than Mar and her outfit came. We went to look at Buckshot (once Tony) and she decided no deal. So that was all more or less wasted motion, so far. After lunch Charlie Mike and I took a hike up to the old dump and it’s really a gold mine of old glass. We found some lovely pieces and must go back soon. We’ll have to tell Dusty about it. We came back by the outfit and I looked at the new cook car and climbed up and down the steps. I suddenly felt at home there, as if I’d climbed down from 1000 80’ steel cars--a prophetic vision? I can scoff but once I scoffed at the idea of ever having any dream come true. Like being kissed, like walking into someone’s arms… Charlie Mike and I rode out; nothing unusual. I ironed and now it is shower and bedtime, all too soon. Where do the days go? But the weekends fly and I am glad of that. My least favorite days now are Saturday and Sunday. The local came in today. Maybe it will resume its old schedule. But I don’t care. Perhaps we’ll move to the Duncan area. OK. Still in Arizona at least but SP instead of ATSF.
What a jumble of a day but for once, no major issue arose. Rufus--a big red mule we had gotten from the hay and livestock dealer in Phoenix, Mr Harrelson. He was a nice mule but almost too big to be a good saddle mule. Nick had a second hand store near the Cottonwood cemetery among other properties. Mar was my friend Maureen Jewel, now going to college but still avidly working on horses. Buckshot was my one-time little Navajo Pony that I had called Tony for Tonalea where he came from. Charley Bryant had swapped dad a mule to get him back (he had first given the horse to me) and then sold him. I had no way to buy him back but now was about to, though just temporarily.
The old dump was past the vacant warehouse building on the north side of Bitter Creek and the west side of the road to the smelter and the depot. I'm not sure how we discovered there was a lot of old glass there but we did and took advantage of that treasure. This was special old glass, most of it the really old kind that turned color when exposed to long term sunlight due to chemicals in its particular composition. Most turned violet, anything from pale lavender to a rich purple, but some went to amber, from pale yellow to a rich deeper almost true amber shade. Of course most there was shards but we did find a number of unbroken whole items from bottles to actual dishes. One could find such many places around old mines and deserted camps or ghost towns back then. It is very scarce now. Dusty was also a collector as we had recently learned.
B&B 6 had been assigned a new cook car which the local had brought in and cut into the outfit, probably that day or the last prior visit. Since the crew had the skills, it was up to them to take the gutted old steel passenger coach and remodel it. Over the winter they did a fine job.
Of course the Morgan pipe dream of moving and setting up that envisioned ranch went on--forever. I no longer took it very seriously. Oddly enough, some years later the parents with Alex--Charlie Mike was gone by then--did relocate to Duncan from Grant County, NM but not to a ranch or anything that grand. In fact Dad died there in an accident and he and Mom are both interred there.
No photos of Rufus. So sun glass samples. I have some other pieces that have been packed up for years; someday soon I will open the box and get some out to photograph. These are a few I keep out in my memory shelf and 'shrine' area. They are at last 100 years old or more. Next I am bringing up the rear on Tony the summer of 1958 when I had him. Crossing the Verde below Clarkdale--that area looks vastly different now after years of flooding. Then a shot of him with his Navajo first owner. I think he was about two years old then. He became more speckled or roany as he aged. The gray mare may have been his mother.
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