Equine Memories

On July 15th, 98 years ago, my dad was born in a very different time. Horses were transportation -- when you didn't walk. Planes were still a novelty and cars were yet to be a part of my dad's life. He was just a youngster when grandpa acquired his first car.

Growing up on a small farm with his two siblings, it was walking about a mile to the public school. Walking to school a mile away was normal unless there was a ride with grandpa delivering milk to the cheese factory.

Time moves on and Dad had trained one of his father's draft horses for riding. In this photo at the age of 21 in 1936, dad had ridden to my Grandpa Reinie's farm and my mother or Grandma Jo took this photo. Probably my mother took the photo.

Shortly after Mom and Dad married they took over Grandpa's farm. King and Dick were black percherons providing the farming horse power in 1947 when dad bought a tractor -- an International Harvester Model H. It was powerful enough to handle the farm loads. The percherons were sold.

Fortunate for me, Dad never lost his love for horses. So when a 14 year old kid wanted a horse, soon there was a horse added to the farm. Don't know how much I rode, but it was Dad and me that rode the horse. My siblings had no interest.

Horses were one of Dad's many interests. Tinkering, thinking and inventing to make life easy is the way I remember Dad.

Dad lived to the age of 90. Get out of Wandrin Lloyd's way. With those genetics, at that age I will still be driving Silver Slug towing Wandrin Wagon. You've been warned.

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Western movies and TV shows were a part of my upbringing and the cowboy myth was deeply instilled in this brain to the point of belief. Then there is reality. I share that reality in the Shattered Myth.