Memoir Monday, May 10, 1957

 Going way, way back here!

May 10, 1957 Fri

Got up about 7:30. Horse work as usual. Dressed, ate and left for school. Had more of our math test and part of reading test. Home for lunch. Back up. More work on my skirt. Had two movies 5^th hour down in the science room. I sat by Carolyn, second best to Jan! Had a test 6^th hour with Miss Rayle. The weather was cold and damp when I got home. I rode Chindy all around and Louie got into mischief. Finished horse work and came up. Made dad a birthday card. Ate supper and worked around a bit. Notes: Saw Jan at recess playing all, also at noon on the front steps and twice in the hall. TLG was over but left just before I came home. Botheration. On romance deal; Jan opens curtains so he can watch me ride while he practices his trombone.

This was my first year at Mingus, which was then still Clarkdale Junior High and High School. I was in the eighth grade. It had been a big adjustment for me because I had gone to school at Bridgeport in Willard Grade School from 4th through 7th grade. Willard was a one-room school with a decreasing enrollment of about 25-30 students from grade 1 to 8. Now after several months, I had mostly gotten accustomed to the totally different environment. 

 I finally even got a small crush on a boy! The boy was Jan Nobles, the eldest of a family that lived across the arroyo from me down in lower town. He was a freshman and his sister Carolyn was in 7th grade. There were some more younger kids too. I ended up graduating with Carolyn, but that is another story. Like most kids about 14, my crushes were not too long-lived but intense at the time. 

I was taking Home Economics, which was required. I did not care for Miss Berg and she was a stickler on sewing, baste everything and cut all those notches and tabs on the pattern etc. But I was sitll excited to learn to sew and made an apron and then a skirt, a simple gored a-line style. There is a bit of that skirt  fabric in the quilt I just took off my bed as the weather turned warm!

My Dad's birthday was May 11 so it always fell close to Mother's Day. It appears that year his birthday was Saturday so then Monther's Day would have been Sunday the 12th. I was not cooking much yet so Mom probably had to make the dinner or dinners and also her own cake. A couple of years later, I took over a good bit of those things.

Chindy or actually Tchindi was an old retired cowpony mare that was one of the first two horses we had obrtained in 1954 and Louis was the first mule we got. The year before we had also got my mare Tina as a nine month old colt but we were not riding her yet. Chindy was gray, actually going white as she aged and was mostly well behaved but had some tricks. She would edge around to try to keep you from getting on and sometimes managed to step on your foot. She would also puff her belly so the cinch could not be tightened enough and then the saddle would turn under you. I learned what I had to watch out for pretty fast! Tchindi is a word from the Dine or Navajo language that means a restless, spirit of one newly dead and that pretty well fit her! She was not mean but just wily like a mischievious ghost! And her color fit too.

Photos: Jan from the yearbook.  Mom and me riding; she was on Chindy and I was on Lady on some land we had south of Bridgeport. And me riding Louie.  Looking closer I can see this was the flat across the arroyo south of  Lower Main and Nobles' house would have been out of sight off to the left.