Memoir Monday, Sept 2, 1966

 Sept 2, 1966

It had been a busy and bumpy week from August 26 to September 2.  Every day had a new slant, a new uplift and/or a new let-down. I’ll cover the actual day of September 2 first and then go back and plug in a few events that happened in the interim. Even with having written several lines or paragraphs almost daily, it is hard to reconstruct this complicated epoch. In one more week, it seemed as if I  might  have died and been reborn. Very few events in the whole eight decades of my life were quite so abrupt and complete in bringing a change tome and my life.

Sept 2, 1966

Came and went it did. Just like any other day. I kept busy, of course. Rode Buzz, Lyno and Leo. Made soup for Alex and myself for lunch and then did the washing. I was exhausted when I finished. I did the home chores while Mom and Charlie Mike went out. I got cleaned up when I got finished. Mom drove me up. Now the infamous occasion is over. I ate steak and Jim, being a good Catholic, had fish on Friday. We had a rather pleasant chat and I got a ride in the four-on-the-floor green Merc. No money yet, but I am hopeful. And he has Cindy Walker, chapter one and my resume, which he is to return to me after awhile, with comments. As good as could be expected, probably. The future remains to be seen.

I mentioned last week Mom had started a job on August 15, in a new small factory in Cottonwood that made some kind of garments.  This did not last too long and I am not sure why she was let go. About the 14^th we had gone to the races in Prescott (Quarter Horse track there had races every weekend all summer.) A mare broke her right foreleg right in front of the stands. It was hard to watch; she was a four year old like ours… The track was muddy and she lit wrong, I think. It was right in front of us so we saw and heard the bone snap. A few days later I learned she had been put down and felt so sad. I’d hoped they could save her for a brood mare.  

August 29 I got a telegram from Linda Tellington: if I could get to her place she’d hire me on a trial basis. Oh, that put me in a quandary!! I did consider  trying to do it yet the developing goal of college, knowing a lot of people had worked very hard on that for me made an obligation I had to see through. I though of recommending Maureen and told her but do not think she went. That started a chain of eventful days. 

Charlie Mike and I went out to the pasture twice that day and the folks went to Prescott.. The next day I heard from Mr McLarney (who I soon was calling Jim since we were much closer to equals now I was no longer a student! He was only eight years older than me.) I was invited to dinner on Friday to discuss the college matter.  It also rained and washed my long lost Man ‘O War medal out of the litter in the back yard. I had lost it early in the spring, even before B&B 6 left town. With that, I felt as if I had my luck back. On Aug 31,  I learned I had been accepted for admission to NAU and sent a check to reserve a room in the dorm. I was still concerned about funds but trusted something to come through if it was meant to be.

In case readers have forgotten, Jim McLarney had been my English teacher for two years at Mingus and we got along well then. He helped me with my Valedictorian speech and I guess I was slightly a teacher’s pet. I had  hardly seen him since though and was a bit surprised he remembered me. “Cindy Walker” was my girl-and-horse novel I had been working on for several years by this time  Suddenly it was September, a month that had often been significant for me the last few years. Would it be so this time? The next week could reveal the next chapter of the story...

Pictures are hard to come by. First, here is a car that is about the color (it was dark metallic green) and style of Jim M's  that we later called "The Green Hornet". And  a very imaginary 'fairy godmother" such as I wished for but doubted existed. Might I have one after all? 

The Other Kamala-- Poetic View

The Other Kamala--a poet's view 

Life is so full of Celtic Knots.  It took me awhile because that was long ago but after I began to follow Ms Harris as our candidate for the Presidency of the USA, a small light came on. Where had I heard that name before? Then the phrase "The Lives of Kamala" crossed my mind. A verse. Yes. So long ago. I wrote it in March 1970 as I was moving toward earning my MA at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, Arizona. 

It was created as a special extra credit effort  for a class I was taking, I think called East Asian History. I had 'gone Asian' late in the last semester of my BA year mostly due to the influence of my Guru at the time, who I met through a Humanities class called Asian Cultures.  I ended up taking every Asian related class I could and working Asian related things into my history classes, be the European, US and even American Western themed (derided by the department head as "Cowboy and Indian" History!) It was not such a stretch as one might think.

Just where this name came from I cannot say. I may have read it in a John Masters' novel or other reading and it felt rather "Hindu/Indian" to  me at the time. Parts of the verse were a not-too-subtle tribute to my personal Guru, (of whom there is also an interesting tale--no room here)  and where the rest  came from I do not know. As with much of my fiction, a character appeared and I wrote what was dictated to me.  I got nice comments from the intended Prof and the piece was passed around through the History and Humanities departments where I knew most of the faculty through classes or my year of working as a clerk in the Humanities office. It was mostly well received.

Yet I find it a strange coincidence that I named the heroine Kamala. I cannot call the modern one a new incarnation of the woman in this tale but then I cannot scoff either. Fate and the Universe move in peculiar ways. II had never put it on the computer and finally found the original among the other papers I had saved from those years. I am not sure now if it is significant or not... When I wrote it, today's Kamala was a small child, perhaps the age she looks in some of the old photos in her campaign resume. For what it is worth, here it is. Long, so wade through if so inclined. Comments or critique are welcome. 

The Lives of Kamala

Speaking through my humble hand

A gentle sage of another land

Is offering her lovely truth

to the rushing world, especially youth.

My only task when she implored:

to pick my open up and record.

 Canto One

In history books you read it, now--

All those stirring tales of how

Brave men, for company and crown

Centuries ago sent down

To the shores of Hindustan

To wrest an empire from our land.

 Clive’s great battle of Plessey;

Hastings came and had his day.

Wellesley, Macauley, and the rest,

Pale conquerors from the west.

Read those stories then with pride,

But there was another side.

 “Those heathens we must civilize;

With books and laws we’ll anglicize

All the poor unlettered wogs,

Lift them out of those bleak bogs

Of their customs, crude and strange.

Long live England, long live change.

 The pale ones did not fight alone.

With treachery amongst our own--

Promise of great gain woke greed--

And in the hour of our need

Divided in our ranks, we fell

Tumbling to the gates of hell.

 Even while others bravely fought

Rather than forsake truths taught

To us as children by the wise

Gurus among us, some told lies,

Betraying us into their hands,

Those foreigners from far-off lands.

 They changed our ways most heedlessly;

So many suffered needlessly.

At last they saw but ‘twas too late.

They had disturbed the wheel of fate.

Lives cannot begin anew

Nor can apologies undo.

 Damage wrought when they denied

A widow’s ritual suicide.

My Love had fallen to their arms;

What cared I then for the charms

Of the sheltered life I’d known,

Having now to live alone?

 The beauty that he’d loved, I cursed.

These Englishmen would have me first

before the flames could set me free.

Release was not the fate for me…

Tarnished, tainted how could I bring

myself to him, my love, my king?

The soldiers seized me from the flame;

In that act began my shame.

The colonel winked, “T’would be absurd

To roast this tender little bird.”

He scratched his ear and rubbed his jaw.

“I think I’d like her better raw.”

 My soul went cold, my mind went dim

I will not remember him…

And the many, many more,

Each one worse than the one before.

Rani once, of ancient name,

I’m  casteless now, too low for shame.

 Any beggar has my price--

I can be bought for a cup of rice.

Harlot of Calcutta’s streets.

Strange it is how fortune treats

Her sons and daughters, cruel fate.

Death will come, but come too late.

 

Canto Two

A Bengal village next I knew.

Memory starts, perhaps at two.

We though not of ourselves as poor;

Did our neighbors not endure

The same privation, the same need?

All paid the price of Empire’s greed.

The fourth of four daughters, I

Knew not that nothing was put by

A dowry for me to serve.

Yet there was one who did observe

That cheerfully I faced each task

The day came when he would ask

 My father for me to be his bride.

I heard it all concealed inside.

But I was young, of stubborn will,

Seeking high adventure still.

Me a lowly farmer’s wife,

Bound to this dull old man for life?

But a father a child cannot naysay;

custom decrees that youth obey.

I was frantic for a plan…

And then there came a holy man,

To our village, just passing through.

I looked at him just once and knew.

Quite heedless of my parents’ wrath

I would follow in his path.

So young then, I was yet unsure

Whether my love was profane or pure.

In truth, the thought did not occur

to wonder what my motives were.

 Though under frosted hair, his face

Was young and kind; he moved with grace

And energy, never seemed to tire.

Behind his dark eyes blazed a fire

Re-echoed in each word he spoke.

He sought to lead the common folk

To rise above the tyrants white,

In a strange new sort of fight.

I was puzzled, I confess

By his unfailing gentleness,

And how he said the Buddha’s way

Would surely guide us all someday.

Almost shameless at the first,

Driven by a senseless thirst,

I sought to make him notice me.

Until his teaching set me free

from the bondage of desire.

I came at last then to admire

 More than the man, the things he taught

Until finally I too caught

The strange contagion of his dream.

Like the holy man’s fierce beam,

Hope was falling in a band

Across the darkness of our land.

But then, alas, violence erupted.

My guru’s message was corrupted

In the mouths of his false friends

reshaped to fit their selfish ends.

Bombs and bullets tore apart

that dream, it’s dreamer and my heart.

 

Canto Three

The century was near its close

Ere my soul a new life chose.

The karma of that last crusade

For a wicked past repaid.

And so cleansed now of my shame

Once more I bore a noble name.

 In a hundred years, much changed.

Society was rearranged.

By now all India understood:

The English ways were here for good.

Though we might drive them from our shore,

Their essence lingered evermore.

 With this certainty in mind

My father wisely sought to find

Ways to fit his children best

to the future, to the west.

He sent my brothers and even me

To English schools, across the sea.

 Following my timid feet,

My sari trailed a cobbled street

In this city called London-town

Where the slippery fog creeps down

To wander by the riverside.

Amongst the strangers, one could hide…

Then one day what do I see

Two blue eyes that smile at me.

And down the street of cobblestone,

I walk, no longer so alone.

The strangeness faded until I knew

Englishmen are people too.

Then tossing waves echo in part

The painful turmoil of my heart.

Will my parents understand

This ring of gold upon my hand?

Will it bring them joy or shame,

A grandson with an English name?

 The green line drawing nearer, fast.

India! Bengal! Home at last.

My parents, older, gaze in awe

At the first Englishman they saw

As a person, as a friend,

Not just a bringer of the end.

They love him first because I do,

But later on, for himself too.

I think perhaps I found the way

That we can bridge and fill someday

The aching gaps twixt man and man,

If love cannot, then nothing can.

 Yet I suffer for my son…

I know the task has just begun,

And as yet there is no place

For those connecting race to race.

In the meantime they must pay

And wait for love to find a way.

Once more I had to lose my man

As violence swept through every land.

Once more love was interrupted,

The pattern of two lives disrupted.

I was left alone and knew

It would affect our next lives, too.

 

Canto Four

 Still paying off some karmic debt

That fate will not let me forget…

I cannot even name the wrong,

But I know I do not belong

In the form I wear today

With skin too pale and eyes of gray.

 Untimely death, reborn too soon.

Now I at dawn and he at noon

Cannot span the chasm of years.

Sternly I contain the tears

When memories reflect the cost,

Reminding me of what I lost.

Accepting, humbly I pray

That love and kindness can repay

my debt for good and I can be

Finally, in my next life, free.

Or else united never to part

With the owner of my heart.

 I envy youth its joy and faith.

Now I am haunted by the wraith

Of conflict. I am torn asunder.

In the still taut lulls, I wonder--

Can mankind learn to live with love?

Placing that unity above

Nation’s interests, princely gain,

All that brings the lowly pain?

Seeing all mankind as our brother,

Truly loving one another?

Finally do away with war,

With hate and violence, evermore…

Thus, my dharma in this life

Is to walk amongst the strife,

Repeat my story everywhere,

And try to teach the world to care.

Practice love in all I do,

That my example prove it true.

To leaders, who would act in haste--

Does not my story prove the waste

Of politics and great ambition?

Join then in the demolition

Of barriers that separate

Man from man with walls of hate.

 My simple tale should prove to all

Just how senseless is that wall

Of language, culture, kingdom, race.

Drifting in infinite space

We all are part of one great way

Which will absorb us all one day.

The question is: why must we wait

Entangled here in nets of hate?

Blind selfishness, preventing peace

Can disappear if we just cease

To cling to some identity.

Only the serene are truly free.

First, is there right or wrong,

Good or bad, weak or strong?

Man lacks the judgment to decide

What to praise, what to deride.

He lacks the right to try to change

Others, although he thinks them strange.

 

                        © Gaye M Walton, nee Morgan

                      March 30, 1970

 

 

 

Monday Memoir Aug 26, 1966

 

Aug 26, 1966

I was writing most days by now but oddly did not on August 26 and not sure why. However I did on the 25^th and 27^th, so that will have to do. They rather run together in my narrative.

Aug 25, 1966

Stayed awake half the night listening to the folks (dad mainly) complain and gripe . I  raged silently inside half the night so it was hard to keep going all day but I did. Rode and led, saw the local in and a crew truck but no sign of Earl. We made it up to Jerome. Mr West was very agreeable and suggested that I see Mr. McLarney who is chairman of the Dollars for Scholars committee. That all sounded favorable. I got to drive out with the boys to do the chores. I’m a fairly competent driver now but still can improve greatly. And to think I thought I’d never be able to drive period. And I may even really get to college and living in a dorm yet. That’s absolutely crazy. I did dishes and made cookies for mom so I think I earned my chow today. Damn but I’m tired. But it’s only ten days now until September 5^th. I have a lot more poise now than I once did. Lots of room for improvement but half a year away from home ought to do a lot for me. I am enthused abut it if no one else is. I thought of Dusty and pictured him at his desk in his camp car, the radio on and he’s working on paper work or maybe his coins with papers and photos strewn around.

Aug 27, 1966

Its 11:00 so small wonder that I am tired. Haven’t really done much today though nor yesterday. I rode Leo yesterday and had a long talk with Maureen. She’s not planning to be at NAU this fall. I was sorry to hear that. No special news today but Charlie Mike and I had a nice visit with Earl. He says B&B #6 will be at Drake until the first of the year at least. But that is of small significance to me except that Drake is only so many miles from Flagstaff, mostly on a good highway. It is beginning to seem more real to me that I might go now. But I dare not let my hopes get too high. They can be dashed cruelly so very easily. Oh I’d be shattered if I wasn’t very careful!  There is too much to do in too little time. That is my main worry now. Well I got my three letters to the Santa Fe executives done last night. Now to round up some “fan club members.” Ain’t that just an absolute howl? It sure is a crazy world. I hate it but they make a liar and a cheat of you. So if I must, I’ll be a damn good one.  And don’t think I can’t.

I know some ‘splaining is needed here! For one thing, Mom had started a job in Cottonwood, another effort thru the clinic, I think. There was a new small factory making some kind of garments and she started there about the 15^th so I was catching up some of the household tasks as well as still doing the main livestock work. September 5 was  the start of dorm move in at NAU, I think. Whether I would be there then or not I had no real idea and barely dared to hope.

While directly to me, Dad had mostly been all chipper and enthused about me going to college or acted so, almost as it if had been his idea and he was all for it. But I overhead him that night bitching to Mom about it. Not quite the same as the “donkey murderer” diatribe but scarcely milder. I was such a piece of trash, lazy and selfish and wanting more than I deserved or was entitled to, shirking my duty and abandoning my responsibility to the family and the “business”  and not keeping to my ‘proper’ supportive role etc.   Needless to say this totally infuriated me!! I was not a freaking indentured servant! My ‘dues’  or bond had long since been paid IMO.

And what’s this “Clarkdale Santa Fe Fan Club”?  That was a hoot. Charlie Mike and I had been discussing we’d both love to go to work for the railroad in time and I had written off for all sorts of information about the ATSF company and mentioned the “Clarkdale Santa Fe Fan Club” in some of those letters. I had even drawn up a ‘membership card’ and started a big file on the data. It was really almost a joke, but some of those PR and Headquarters chaps took it for real. Whoa--what should I do now? Postpone and prevaricate!  LOL. This little tale was not quite over yet…

I was starting to almost hope this NAU gig was going to work out. My mood rose and fell day by day, almost hourly, but I was making myself press ahead and at least act as if it was going to be real. By the next week it was still not positive but before long... Stay tuned!!

Pictures--scarce but a few of names I mentioned from my high school career, especially senior year. In the first one, there is Jim McLarney middle lower row and above at the right, Joella Mahoney, my art teacher, who later became a noted artist of the southwest landscapes. In the second group,  Mrs Fitzgerald  the counselor and to her right Ernest Gabrielson who was the other English teacher I had and had gone to high school with Jim Walton in Bisbee!  I knew them all, of course, but had not taken classes from all of them. I miss a few-there may have been one more page in the year book. Do not see Mr Clark or Mr Crawford here but they do not figure in this current epoch.  And last, an ATSF Fan  Member card, created without benefit of any thing but ink and my hand. 

 

Memoir Monday, Aug 19, 1966

 

Aug 19, 1966

So a few random notes to include a short passage actually written on the 19^th:

By now I had gotten more encouragement on the college effort and had become determined  I was going to go for it. Life as it was had become almost intolerable again. There had been more blow-ups,  almost daily. Such as trying to load Patsy (the gray Arabian type mare) in the trailer. When she did not cooperate, it resulted in her being beaten severely. It almost took her eye out and did take five stitches to sew her face up. Why she was hit in the face or how I cannot remember; that ugliness has been mostly erased. Of course I got all sorts of verbal abuse over it though how it it was my fault I have no clue. I was beyond livid as the Boss was obviously totally out of control and it was rank cruelty to the mare and in a way to me also.  After that we signed affidavits--which I did reluctantly-- for the ongoing lawsuits. It was now not just one or two but it seemed half a dozen at least. Half the county had fallen onto the “enemies list” and was named for some malfeasance, underhanded deal, connivery and/or conspiracy!!

I had managed to mail Dusty’s birthday card so I was fairly sure it would reach him before or  by Aug 20, which was the actual day. I fervently wished I had never heard of the legal mess. I wished it was September 6 and I was settling into my dorm room in Flagstaff. Ha, fat chance of that but I am fighting for it. I've been feeling almost violently ill and aching all over. If something isn’t wrong with me, I said, I really would worry. I’ve spent a lot of time sorting and consolidating my stuff. I’d done this so much in the past year but it was still almost overwhelming.  It also occurred to me, as I phrased it, “I’d be close to my foaling date had I stayed settled last December 1^st, wouldn’t I? I wanted that little brush colt very much."

Actual date of Aug 19:  The legal affairs proved rather inconclusive but “they” say we are still ahead. OK. I don’t care. I spent the day sorting and packing; have most everything in order now, clothing organized, etc. I am almost ready to go--somewhere. Should’ve ridden but one gets tired of that sometimes!

The next day we had to get hay which took until noon and then it rained but not too drastically. I was not sure if I was gaining or losing on the college effort. I had loan, scholarship and work applications to fill out. Dr Parry at the clinic said it was almost certain I could go. "It’s all up to me”. To which I say a wry “ha, ha.” It actually hinges 100% n the Boss. He says it is up to me but I know damn well that is not true.  I’d so much wanted to do this mostly on my own--on my own merit and efforts--but he has to have a thumb in the middle of everything.  And in the end may likely totally screw it up! His alleged charm or influence or ‘persuasion’ is so often ill advised, badly executed, and creates resistance or road blocks.

I do not know if Patsy really healed and got her pretty Arabian face back; I only saw her a few times soon after this incident. I was so sickened and disgusted. I still carried my side arm most of time--the irony is that 'they' never guessed how much potential danger that put them in. I was keeping a very firm control on my reactions but there were times it would have been so easy. Patsy was not one of my  special pets, being a bit remote and not socialized, but if she had been... 

I had shot snakes and a few coyotes and that had not bothered me much; it was part of the cowboy girl life and duties. Still I was not inured to violence and brutality and truly did hate to hurt anything unless it was a real necessity. I was scared of my horses being snake-bit and the rattlers came to the water out at the pasture as it also drew rabbits, rats and such which were good snake prey. What a life...

A few pictures since they can supplement too many lines of words.  First is Patsy--showing her  pretty self with her second foal.  She threw two good colts with Chief. This was Twinkles, a filly and the 2nd one. Twink was a long yearling at the time of this story. Patsy was never broke or ridden that I know of. She lead and could be handled though, and was not ever really mean or wild. Something spooked her that day. Next is a much older photo showing the trailer we used--compared to today's fancy ones it was rough but many ranchers used similar back then.  This photo showed the second Jeep pickup, several years before we had the two white Fords. Last, hoof care, a frequent task. This looks like a mule's foot that I was filing before setting on a new shoe.

Monday Memoir, Aug 12, 1966

Aug 12, 1966

Charlie Mike and I had been working our butts off the past week There was quite a bit of rain during the week so tons of muddy muck to get out of corrals and dirt to fill them back in, (so many buckets; if we’d just had even a wheelbarrow!), fences to fix, various small injuries to doctor etc. I said each day how tired I was and slowly more and more tired.  Finally on the 11^th we had seen Earl and learned Dusty had gone back to work that week and B&B 6 would be at Drake for some time. I was worried about getting his birthday card safely to him but felt it  easier now that he was back at work. I still worried if he was cured, really well, and feeling okay.

Aug 12

I write caught in the teeth of a hungry pain. It gnaws at my insides, tears me up like fighting animals snarling over--or in me. I really ought to go have a physical exam to check this all out, maybe a total GYN exam. Kept busy today , hauled hay and waited for it to rain but it never did. Heard from GJC (?) and the clinic. How I wish I were free to go but there’d be such an uproar. Maybe I can go and talk to Peckham tomorrow. Will have to see.  Well, Dusty’s been back one week to work now from what Earl said. 

It's  nice that he’s “safe in CA having transferred to that division and left B&B 6 to Blair. Takes awhile to get the news around but the grapevine does it. Wonder what Blair looks like? Rather like Dusty I guess since they are close to the same age.”      

I hope he does not feel as sick as I do tonight. God, I really get bugged by the pain. I dread it and start tightening up several days before I’m due. That probably makes it worse. I should quit riding and lifting etc. I only do it 1) because I can’t  quite bear to give up my favorite pets and they’d be the first to go and 2) to try to buy the Boss’s regard back and prove to him I am not a whiner and coward etc. (what a dumb goal!) But it is tearing the guts out of me to do it. I really think I feel worse every month.  That’s why I’d practically sell my soul to the devil to just pack up and go off to school and forget all of these darn problems, the animals, etc. If only these stupid lawsuits would vanish; if we could get some money so as to move out of here, sell off the stock that we don’t need, put the rest on pasture and just rest, all of us.  I don’t see how we can last this out much longer. I just get tired-er and sicker daily, the Boss is falling apart and Mom is cracking up awhile the boys are torn twenty ways from Wednesday.                                                                                        

Goddamn the whole mess. The principal of those suits for achievement and 'success'  of owning property is more important to dad than life itself. I think he’d see us all dead before he’d quit or even waver from perseverance and pursuit of that goal. It’s just not that important. But he won’t listen to anyone. The doctors try to tell him, we have tried over and over,  the relatives have as well and it’s all in vain.      

Note: the brief passage in the journal part above in the smaller font was written to be sure any sneaky reader would be thrown off! Until we locked the shed--shortly--I was still wary. It was not factual at all!

Those suits--there was revenge and a pie-in-the sky goal of getting all the losses and problems redressed and "made whole" again. Ha ha. Dad would go to lawyer after lawyer and convince them for awhile 'til they'd eventually see how impossible and unrealistic it was. Then he would say they had been bought off.  After that, he would decide to be his own lawyer--even worse.      

As the summer stumbled on, I kept feeling worse. Every month was about 24-36 hours of agony. with tearing, cramping pain. I am sure I had severe endometriosis and possibly some damage from the mumps two years earlier plus who knows what the fiercely strenuous and stressful work had done along the way. I guess if I were a big, stout, husky woman it might have been easier. I was always very thin and rather small boned. I don’t know. In some ways I have never stopped “being tired” and I found out later I was sterile for all practical purposes. A curse or a blessing? I am not sure.

I was deeply discouraged; definitely in clinical depression. Would it have helped to know it was just four weeks more until that seemingly hopeless wish came true? It is said what does not kill you makes you tough. Yes, I suppose I have to allow that since I have made it to 81 with fairly few serious health crises so it must have served such purpose. Now it seems so far away and very unreal, a bad flick or TV show, unbelievable book or nightmare type dream. I am not sure the young woman who 'lived' then really existed or if  she is still a part of me somehow? 

I cannot think of what GJC stood for or what I got from the clinic, assuming the mental health one Mom and I were attending fairly regularly. I often wrote my journal as if I would always know exactly what was going on and did not explain much!

A few barely pertinent pictures. First the little girl I once was or had been, serious if not lonely or unhappy, at Camp Wood or in the Kaibab. Then the teenager--working, always working. Setting a post for a fence, perhaps at the pasture.  Then an image I saw on Facebook that touched me in so many ways... Did the woman remember and still send love to the girl-child  she might have been? Was her heart empty now or left behind with her past? So many possible meanings; I see both sadness and hope in it.

Memoir Monday August 5, 1966

 Aug 5, 1966

A new month had begun, mostly rather routine. I had still not found a way to leave but I was working on it. I was missing Dusty fiercely but on Aug 2, Charlie Mike did see Earl and  learned Dusty was now home in Kingman and his (adopted) Mom had come out from New York to stay and take care of him for a bit. He had rented a small house or a trailer earlier to  reinforce the legal separation and avoid hassles. 

It gets hotter every day. I still manage to keep busy. Got all the horse work done in the am, made cookies, rinsed and dried the dishes and helped with the washing. I got letters from Linda and Helen Reilly today. If I can’t get a job at Tellington’s… That would be nifty, really. Mrs R claims trainees of Tellington’s get $400 monthly  and room and board. That beats anything I ever heard of. I’ll have to see what Linda T herself says next. It must be 11:30 pm now. I’ve been busily writing letters. It’s too hot to sleep. If I’d let it this lawsuit stuff would really bother me but I know I’m not involved whatever the Boss says. My name is not on the real legal papers. At least I bathed tonight. I’ve been letting myself fall apart lately on personal cleanliness etc. It’s hard to care in this weather with these problems. Oh, how I wish someone was around on nights like this. I’m at that ‘in’ cycle where I about go stir crazy for just wanting to be loved. There are other guys in the world but the thought doesn’t move me much. I’m a very one-track-filly. What was the expression Dusty used? Anyway, I can just do a bit of remembering and practically fall apart. But keeping damn busy as I can is sure a start. Maybe there is something to this sublimation bit--with all the fierce energies I have, I should accomplish wonders if I divert them properly or tragedies if I don’t. I can see how this guy in Texas felt --he shot and killed sixteen people. It’s like Donna running away, that feel of omni-power for an instant.

Linda Tellington was a trainer in California who had a special project of training Arabians and Peruvian Paso horses for the Tevis Cup 100 Mile Endurance Ride.  Much like the Iditarod, it had checkpoints and the horses were carefully monitored by veterinarians. It was a rough ride, from Lake Tahoe down to Roseville, at the foot of the mountains . The trail crossed several deep canyons with rivers in them. I had a vague dream of doing it with a mule, which had not been done then. Anyway, I wrote her and asked about job possibilities, feeling I could do a good job for her.  Helen Reilly was another pen pal, I think, and involved with the effort to save and tame the wild mustangs in Nevada. She was also a bit in involved with the Bishop, CA mule celebration. Memory is very vague! Donna was another untrained mule and one we never made much progress with. She had some weird quirks and did chew a rope to get free a time or two to run away. 

The insane lawsuit stuff was really raging about now. Of course this was used to prove "I could not leave as I was involved." I had signed--under some protest--several affidavits and such but not ever the big pleas or actual suits themselves.  So, not so fast and not so much!. And an odd notion also emerged about here: I should go to college before long  and to law school!  At first that seemed too absurd to me but the idea did root a bit--one way to escape perhaps with some approval! So I tried to use it in my planning., and I told the  Cal Aunts and Uncle of that possible goal.

I was keeping as busy as possible; too busy to think or worry too much though I was gradually getting tireder and tireder. I admitted another day I was getting “tired of sore legs, cinch sores, sore backs, shots and all that. How I ever manage to keep loving horses is utterly beyond me. I must be some sort of nut” I had sworn I would not love any special one again and to some degree I did not, but several were still special to me and precious in many ways.

 Mostly the harangues and lecturers were now fairly low-key but there were still days when surly attitudes and nasty comments plagued me. I tried to let them roll off and not get too upset. I'd done that from about the middle of July on when there was some change after those major betrayals finally ceased. Judy advised me some on how to get by and I had promised Dusty when he left in March there would be no trips to the river etc.  Keeping a level of cool was thus part of my survival.

What photos? I was taking few to none now as most of my 'record shots' in anticipation of someday leaving had been done. Could not really afford film either. Found pop bottles did not net much spending money.  So some semi-oldies. First me with the Ford pickup I drove a lot that summer, still with no license. Then Alex and me with a baby burro--probably earlier as Alex was 7 in 1966. Last Charlie Mike with Twinkles who we then had in Clarkdale as a long yearling and were doing some light training. for her. He was in typical raggedy high water jeans and clodhoppers.