Memoir Monday March 8, 1959

 

March 8, 1959  Sun

Another day spent mostly in the saddle. We rode the mares over to Mickle’s to check on the mules. I’m sure glad that the shoes helped Lady so much. In the afternoon we went up to Ray’s to pull Lizzie’s shoes. I caught her and stopped the old heifer from running off. She nearly tore my hands off but I held her. All and all this has been a nice weekend. I guess I’m a man’s girl in a way because you see I like sports etc.  Guess I must go, Gaye

1959--I was a sophomore at Mingus that spring, basically bored with school and to some degree with life. I tended to live for weekends and getting out to ride . "Heifer" was a word I had adapted to describe some terms that were frowned upon at home if I spoke them aloud like slut and bitch. Charlie Mike and I were getting skilled at adapting words and making up some of our own. We both knew how to cuss fluently by this time but also knew very well that doing so in the hearing of our parents would bring sharp retribution. So we came up with place holders!

At that time we had animals farmed out at different locations and visited often to check on them and give any care needed. Within a couple of weeks we would see five mules sold and gone, Lizzie being one of them. We'd had her a year and she was generally well behaved but still had a few mulish tricks that you had to watch for. I had learned a lot about how to handle the equine and related critters since I got Tina, my special mare, in February of 1956. I was well on the way to becoming pretty much an expert horsewoman. Lady was actually Lady II, a mare we had acquired some months earlier from Bob Reeves. We named her in honor of our earlier mare, Lady I, although that might have already been her name. That I do not recall. Apparently she had gotten sore footed or lame and shoes helped. The mares would have been her and Tina. "We" I am sure was my dad and me. Mom was not a big horsewoman and also about seven months pregnant with our baby brother who was born that May and Charlie Mike was only eight at that time. 

I'd share more of the earlier time, say 55-57, except most of my entries were pretty sparse at that time and I was not discussing a lot of things. Journal keeping was still a new effort and I was thinking in terms of more traditional diaries where maybe three lines were provided for each day. It wasn't that nothing happened or I had no thoughts or emotional reactions, but rather than I did not write them down. 

Actually there were lots of fun things during that time when I was going to school at Willard Grade School in Bridgeport with my dad as my teacher. I started fourth grade there in the fall of 1953 when it was a two room school but it went to one room two years later when I as in 6th grade.  I liked the country school where jeans and even bringing a horse to school was okay! In my main memoir, a work in progress, I do go into that more. 

Photos: Dad riding Lizzie and working with Albert. They both were 'rejects' from the Grand Canyon herd that we got in the spring of 1958. This was probably mid-1958. Next I am riding Lady II and looking over the first large batch of mules we got at the end of August, 1959. And last, mom on Chindy (Tchindi) and me on Lady I in the winter of 53/54. My posture was much more relaxed than mom's even then.