Memoir Monday Feb 15, 1962

 Feb 15, 1962 Thursday

Another good day. I can’t believe my luck. Please don’t ever let it end. It is so nice. I got up fairly early and was ready to be off. School was o.k. I read in study hall, wrote in English and didn’t do much else. In Art I glazed my bowl and jewelry yesterday. Now they are ready for a final firing. Reen’s horse is coming along. Her Dobbin cut his foot badly yesterday, thus her absence. I got lots of mail today, the most interesting being a scholarship from Grand Canyon College. I’m so thrilled that I can’t think straight. I’ve got to find out more about the details from Mrs. Fitzgerald. Anyway I think it is just too fabulous. I rode Annie out and swapped her for Trix. Ritz is recovering nicely and the fact she is feeling better is proved by her decreasing docility. I’ve spent the evening doing nothing of importance. We are all sort of relaxing. We need money again but somehow I just can’t feel too worried. Something is bound to turn up. It always does. I got the third letter from Jose which I have not read yet (no privacy). I’m so happy tonight—not really—but more or less. (Now that makes lots of sense doesn’t it?)Well anyway today was pretty good for me and I am proud of myself for winning that scholarship to GCC. I hope I can go there. I think I’d like it. 

Still stuck in my senior year.  The "Reen" was Maureen Jewell. She had come to Mingus as a freshman the previous spring and since she was also very into horses and western stuff we became close friends. We had PE together both years and were both in Art in 1961-62. She had made a gorgeous horse statue about 15 inches high working in clay. Tragically it broke in the kiln when fired. I felt very sad for her as it was really very well done. Clay was not my medium. I made some sloppy bowls and things and a few little squares or conchos that I intended to use in jewelry but most of them later got tossed.  I may still have one simple dish somewhere--it was glazed in red and had livestock brands or Native symbols engraved on it. 

Stella was a nice little mule we had that was more or less mine since we had swapped a little Navajo pony that was given to me a couple of years earlier for her. She was sold to a lady in Tucson who decided she was "not friendly enough" and sent her back to exchange for another that did not please her either. After three we gave up! I always liked Stella. She eventually went to a buyer in California,. Ritz or Ritzi was a young mare who had been born to a mare we got in a deal in early 1960 and was supposed to be mine. She had distemper, I think, just before this and that fall she died in a sad accident. She was a hard luck creature though very pretty and generally well mannered. I had just begun to train her. 

I ended up not using that scholarship since I did not manage to go off to college for four years and when I did it was to NAU where I also got a scholarship and a Pell Grant that covered me for four years with just a fairly small deb,t mostly for my last year when I did graduate work. By going most summer sessions I got two degrees in four years. 

As I mentioned last week, Jose was a pen pal who wrote very long letters, using several colors of ink to delineate different moods or themes. He was probably the most interesting of the varied pen pals I wrote over the course of three or four years there. We never met and eventually quit writing.  

Here are the pictures given to me by Wayne, the rodeo cowboy and Jose. I don't have a photo of Stella but this is about that same time and I'm holding Prez; not sure why I was still in school clothes for that photo. The other is Maureen sitting on the steps of the Art Building up at Mingus on the last day of classes in May 1962. I finally had a camera and was using it a lot!