Back to the interim year betwen the two halves of my high school career. This seems to have been one of the dry years, and yes, they happened even then before "Climate Change" was such a huge issue. My "mule year" was winding down, though it never actually 'ended' for another six years, but I would return to school a month later.
Aug 2, 1960 Tuesday
I don’t believe it’s ever really going to rain. It is hot and drier than ever. I rode Tina out to do the chores and then rode Trix to get mail. I got a long and quite interesting letter from Linda Bush. She sounds like a real nice girl and is interested in many things I am. I spent the afternoon over at the shop working on Charlie Mike’s stuff. We reduced it to three boxes. Got to start planning our move, you know. Evelyn is back and had to tell me all about her trip. She brought me a pretty necklace. She sounded like she had a pretty nice time. I’m glad we're leaving; I can’t say that enough times. Oh of course I’ll miss some things and people. I just missed seeing BlonG today. He drove in over at Cottonwood just as I rode out. Saw “Slaunchy Raunchy Kewlman” who stared as usual. Also Dale Graves. He’s got a car—an Olds no less. Man, he’s my pal, (Not really) Also saw “Wes” and “Johnny.” I guess I’ll miss my HH’s for awhile but I’m sure to find some new ones. We’ve got our land up for sale now. I can’t believe it is all real. I don’t tell anyone for fear it will fail. Anyway, it’s going to be a surprise. “One of these days and it won’t be long, you’ll call my name and I’ll be gone.” Maybe I’ll let them give me a goodbye party though. I don’t know whether or not I’ll tell “Wes” that we’re going. Maybe I could get him to kiss me goodbye. Quien sabe? Now I’m being silly, no? Haven’t really seen BlonG for quite awhile but I believe I’m getting over him. At least I did not remember I’d forgotten something when I saw him drive up; I just kept right on travelin’. He’s no damn good anyway. Poor old Lady is awfully thin but her milk is drying up so we can put her on the grass pretty soon. Then she’ll pick up. JB and Jenny are thin too. They all need some freedom. They are rebels like me. Adios.
By now my regular readers know who Tina is and probably Trixie. I rode several hours most days and usally divided that time among two or more mounts so they all got exercise, training or both.
By this time I was starting into the pen pal adventure, mostly girls to begin with. Linda Pflug (nee Bush) was an early one. She had a letter and a drawing in the Junior Horseman column of Western Horseman magazine weeks before I did and I wrote her which started a freindship which has lasted until this day. We were both near the end of high school when we began to correspond and have probably exchanged a novel or two worth of letters over the years. She is now in a care center in Washingrton (state--near Spokane) due to some major health issues but is on FB and we are still in touch. BFFs in the finest sense of that idea--sharing our love of horses, marriages, her kids and my step kids, and many other events. We have actually been face to face just a few times over those many years.
At this point our family was really trying to find and buy a ranch to move to so we could do a much better job of our livestock business. Sadly that never happened for a number of reasons. I cover it all much more in my book-length memoir, still a work in progress. At this point I still had hope and faith it would happen. We were "going to" move over to Wickiup in Mojave County at this point and I was planning ahead--fruitlessly as it turned out.
I used lots of nicks and aliases for my ill-assorted "Handsome Heroes" and "Former Fancies." Some I have mentioned before. One was my nemisis and I came very close to getting into a serious mess there. Thank goodness I survived intact. Enough said!!
Lady was Lady II. She had borne a mule colt in May and he was killed in late June in a very sad accident. We had to feed her light for a time to get lactation to stop and the whole thing was very hard on her. JB and Jenny were burros.
Now for photos. Linda's high school senior picture. She had naturally curly blonde hair--really cute! Then Linda and me in about 1998 when she was able to spend a week with me at Whetstone. We had so much fun!! Next is Jenny (Jennifur) and one of her babies. She was allegedly Charlie Mike's and had come from Sam Steiger's ( a livestock dealer over near Prescott) in about 1958 or so and had several colts over the years. Baby burros are so adorable! Then another shot of Jenny and another female burro named Lila and their babies. Again, so cute!
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