Family Reunion Ypsilanti North Dakota …
At some point in the week long stay in Ypsilanti at our grandparents house, we all loaded up into the family car and went to Uncle Roland and Aunt Mary’s farm for the family reunion. I remember there being a lot of people there on the farm when we arrived. I saw several picnic tables in the yard. There were adults present with the children, however, I don’t remember spending any time with any of them.
I also don’t remember something else, that was always talked about. Apparently when I got out of the car the first thing I spotted was our Aunt and Uncle’s dog. It was told that the dog did not do well around children and in his temperament he would bite, because of that they had tethered the dog to a tree at a distance away from everyone. However, before anyone could grab my hand and hold me back, I slipped passed them all and headed straight for dog, saying, ‘dogie’. When I got to him, I knelt to the ground and put my arms around the dog’s neck and gave to him a gentle hug.
They said, that everyone just stopped and held their breath, because they feared that the dog was about to bite me. However, as luck or fate or whatever had it, the dog let me hug him and pet him without so much as a fuss about it. However, I don’t remember any of that. Nor do I remember the food at the festivities, or any of the people that were there.
Reunion Festivities
I do remember the horse, Flicka. She was brought out for everyone to take turns on to ride. I watched my sister, my brother, my cousins Dale and Gary. And even a few other teenagers that were there that took a ride. They’d get on and she would gallop to the end of the drive out onto the road a ways, and they’d turn her into the ditch line that ran congruent to the yard of the house. Around the house they’d go and then back to the starting point, which was at the barn across from the yard. I was standing in front of the door to the house in the yard, watching them.
I wanted to ride. “Can I mama, please”, I asked. For her it looked too dangerous for a child my age. However, Uncle Roland assured her that Flicka was a special horse and well trained for small children to ride. I didn’t know what that meant. I just knew I wanted to be on the horse’s back, gallop down the driveway, like everyone else.
After Uncle Roland’s assurances, mama said I could have a turn. So up on the horse’s back daddy put me and handed to me her reins. Off she went at a walk down the driveway. But I wanted her to go faster. I remembered seeing the others kick her sides with their heals. So I tried that. She just continued to walk. I kicked and I kicked and I kicked some more. I even slapped her butt with the flat of my hand. And at a steady walking pace she continued to go. When we got to the ditch line I turned her towards it and she stopped. She would not go into the ditch line and up onto the other side, like I’d seen her do with the others. After a couple of tries to get her to do and her refusal at each one of them, I turned her with the reins to go back to the barn. Flicka, indeed was a very special horse.
The county fair show entry
After my ride I walked back up to the house. I saw Uncle Roland talking to Daddy and I over heard him tell him that he had an entry to the county fair for that year. The horse for the entry was at the barn corral and would he like to see it. So the two of them began to walk out towards the barn. Daddy paused and looked back at me. “Do you want to come too?” I ran to catch up, putting my hand into his and together with Uncle Roland we went out to the barn’s corral.
He opened the gate and we walked through it and there was this huge horse. What I remember most from that moment in time, were the feet, of course hooves, on that horse. That’s all I looked at and I never really saw the horse. My hand still in my daddy’s hand as we stood there, my eyes fixed on those feet, big as an elephant’s as I imagined. “If he stepped on me, I’d be squashed”, I thought. So I watched ’em, to make sure that didn’t happen. I also, didn’t move an inch from my daddy’s side.
I learned later in life, the type of horse we were looking at that day, well they were looking at while I was watching its feet, is a Clydesdale. Mostly seen today in the Budweiser commercials, if one is not from a region where as they are raised and used for farming.
Soon they were through looking at the county fair entry and we walked back to the house. Many of the folks that had been there were gone with but a few cars remained still parked along the fence to the pastures. Dusk was about to settle in. At some point I spotted the horses grazing just along side of the fence, just on the other side of the cars.
Keeping one’s self entertained
Off I went on my little adventure to get a closer look at the horses. Once there, watching them eat, I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I wanted to feed them. The taller grass for them to eat was on my side of the fence. So I pulled up long blades of grass. I held the grass on the opposite end for them to grab making sure my fingers where no where near their mouths. But explain that, to mama.
Remember when I said I liked it when I wasn’t getting noticed. Which was often the case and which by the way, was how I learned things. No one noticed me when I was out by myself, watching my sister and brother plant firecrackers on the railroad tracks in front of our grandparents house. They knew nothing of the gofer I had discovered with its leg trapped in the gofer trap set just for him, until I alerted them about it.
But let me disappear from sight and here mama comes looking for me and finding me feeding the horses at the fence line. She sternly grabbed me by my hand, marching me away from the fence, beyond the parked cars, telling me, ‘stop feeding the horses, they might bite’. When we got back to the house, she turned loose of my hand and said, ‘now go play’. And what did I do — I made a bee line right back to the fence where the horses were and I picked the grass once again for them to eat.
Once again, here comes mama. However, as she grabbed my hand, there was no scolding this time, but there was a spanking on my butt that began right in between two of the parked cars. That put an end to my feeding of the horses that had been standing at the fence line, watching everything that had been going on. Just like me.
As dusk turned to dark everyone that had shown up for the family reunion had said their good-byes and had left. The only ones who remained was us. We stayed the night that night at Uncle Roland and Aunt Mary’s. I remember the room where I slept on a pallet made out on the floor of the room with a pillow under my head. As I laid there, my ear to the floor I could hear a steady noise coming from the vent in the floor. “What is that noise”? I thought to myself as listening to its rhythm, put me fast asleep.
Returning 41 years later
(Still Gathering String)