Memoir Monday, April 12, 1958, 1960

Both of these entries were kind of blah so I will just stuck in two.  Not many applicable photos either. Is this project getting too b-o-r-i-n-g??? I can always stop. LOL. But how else could I invent something to post every week?  So we'll see. There are a few days in May I want to cover anyway. 

April 12, 1958 Sat

Got up about 8:00. Did the chores. Ate. Cleaned the corrals. The weather is lovely today. Went uptown and mailed some things. Came home. Ate lunch. My feet are killing me. Tina stepped on one and the other has a blister. Wrote some letters etc. Sat out in the sun some. Bill C and his mother drove by and he nearly fainted when he saw me “smoking” a rolled up gum wrapper! Rode Tina some.  Law me, I love her. She doesn’t run, she flies—floats. Did the chores, ate, messed around. Drew a picture. Adios manana, Gaye

April 12, 1960 Tues

Today wasn’t exactly a pleasant day but like most it had its nice parts if you cared to look for them. It was cloudy and rained a good deal of the time. We managed to make two trips to the pasture, do the usual chores here and tack front shoes on Frizzie. I walked uptown in the rain to go to the PO and the library. I got part 2 of The Tewksbury Feud. Charlie Mike and I are both reading it.  “Breed” Tewksbury is the hero, a big man, one of those sober, quiet, deceptively gentle and slow moving men. Went to watch The Rifleman. It was rather exciting tonight. Luke is one of those big gentle guys too. I go for that kind that talks quiet and moves easy until trouble hits and then really cuts loose. Maybe I will find a real one someday but I’d better be prepared to settle for less or I’ll end up an old maid. Oh well, I can be like Edna Ferber. I guess she never married and doesn’t seem to mind. If I can’t have the best then I’ll take zero. Adios. Gaye

Not too exciting in either case but these narratives both give a glimpse into my life and what was going on in it so very long ago.  Looking back on the first, I guess I can see why I have a very mangled and tender left foot now and the right one little better. I never wore pointy-toed high heels much so I cannot blame my bunions and twisted toes on that. Horses stepping on me? More likely since that happened many times!

I have to laugh about the one little vignette. It is still clear in  my memory.  I was sprawled on an old rusty cot, the style with the mesh hung on springs style of support. It was against the far west wall of the second house we used for an office/workshop and storage there in Clarkdale, thus out of sight of the 'home' house. No one in the family smoked so I had a little curiosity about it, and feeling silly, I  rolled an empty gum wrapper into a cylinder and pretended to hold it in a sophisticated way and 'puff' on it. Bill Christenson  was a freshman classmate at Clarkdale High. I can still see the total shock on his face when he saw me--timid little goodie-two-shoes "Margaret" (I went by that instead of Gaye for the first three years I was in school at Clarkdale)-- "smoking" right out there in broad daylight! I almost rolled off that cot laughing. He never mentioned it though I slightly feared he might!

I was head over heels in love with my mare right then. By this point she was three years old and pretty well saddle broke. Most of the time I rode her by myself and she handled well. Once in awhile she would be a bit feisty and scare me. She was a tall mare, a bit over 16 hands (a hand is 4" and a measurement used on horses that denotes the height at the withers, that crest in the spine between the body and neck, analagous to the little bump we have there.)  I was my full height then but still had to scramble a bit to mount her and it was a long way to fall if I were to do that... I wasn't the fully proficient rider and trainer yet; that took a bit more time and practice. 

By 1960 I was nearly there. I took my turn riding many of the mules we had acquired which  I was helping to train and finish so they might be sold. Frizzie was a  bay, a tall lanky female mule who was sold somewhat later. She had come in the first batch we got the previous August. She became  sore footed fairly quickly when ridden so we kept her shod. She was good about the process anyway, thank goodness. Front feet were very easy but she did not kick a lot either. That is a big plus for a mule! 

The Tewksbury Feud was a western novel serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. Many magazines did that then, most tales condensed a bit but not to the degree Readers' Digest excerpt books did. I found many good authors that way. This one was written by an Arizona writer, Jeannie Williams, who I think was related to "One Eyed Jack", a one time governor of the state.  I encountered her later and read that book in paperback as well as some other titles she wrote. Charlie Mike was nine in 1960 and read well, just as I always had. He liked cowboy tales and stories of adventure, sports and danger. There was plenty of action in this yarn about the Pleasant Valley War, a range feud in the Tonto Basin back in the late 1800s. I liked the romance part of the plot but there was much else happening also.

I had begun to think finding the cowboy of my dreams was a long shot since I was not turning up many prospects and most of the guys I saw were clearly not long term material. This was the year I was out of school and lacking any hint of a social life. The idea of being an old maid--perhaps a school teacher like Miss Rayle who I'd idolized or one of the authors I read--did have some appeal. I could be free and independent, 'doing my own thing' as a kind of literary cowboy girl-blue stocking! In many ways that almost came to pass. I was 28 when I finally got married, an event that happened rather suddenly and much to my surprise, really. At the lofty age of 17, I had no clue!

Three shots of me with Tina in various situations--she might not have been a sleek beautiful pure bred but her spirit and our bond were special enough to overcome any other lack.  And last a shot of me at about that time, probably in 1958. I loved that jumper. It was corduroy and an odd shade of green that somehow was still pretty although that was not a favorite color.