Even though I have written my biography, I never elaborated on a few interesting events that have happened to me and my family. The following story has provided many a good laugh at our family gatherings. My youngest son asked me to write the story down so that they would have it in the family after I am gone.
The story had its setting sometime around 1971, primarily in the town of Liberty in the Ogden Valley, where we lived for about four years. One of our church members was moving to Arizona, and he had a mustang that he had only started to train. He asked me if I was interested in having it as a family horse. Being absent of knowledge necessary to know what I was getting myself into, I said, Yes! We rented a small pasture and he delivered the horse.
About once a week for a few months our family would go down to the pasture with the idea that we would let the kids have fun riding the horse. She was a wild beast and had no interest in letting anyone catch her, let alone ride her. We would spend nearly a half hour every time we decided to, in just catching her. As soon as we got her cornered, somehow, she would break away and run to the other end of the pasture. Eventually, we would wear her down and were able to get the bridle on her. Even though she was easily spooked, the kids insisted on riding her. We had a bridle but no saddle, and that seemed to be fine with the kids; they would ride her bareback. Several times the kids were dumped off her back, and fortunately they were not hurt. Except for one time when Brian and Joy were riding her along the main road going through Liberty. A car came along and she spooked and dumped both of them on the side of the rode in the gravel. They had scrapes and abrasions with a little gravel embedded in their bruises. That is when we decided to get rid of the horse, before someone really got hurt.
I told the kids about how, during the World War Two, horse meat was about the only kind of meat available, as most everything was rationed. My family lived in Spokane, Washington at the time. I was between eight and twelve years old. I remember that horse meat wasn’t that bad in mother’s good stew. The meat was stringy so it had to be prepared in small pieces. They probably would never allow a person to slaughter a horse in Utah. I have mentioned the idea to a few of my friends here in Utah and they looked at me as if I were a cannibal. If it would have been an option, we would have had our family horse in a family stew, right here in Utah, the capitol for horse breeding and horse lovers. They say there are more horses per capita in Utah than in any other state in the union.
Since that was not an option, I asked my good friend, Don Clark if he would like to have our horse as the Clark family horse. Don and Ruth Clark had six kids and they thought they would like to have a family horse. We, of course, were glad that they would like to have our family horse.
About that time I had purchased a little French car, a Renault. It was about a 1960 vintage. Renault is a very tiny car and it had a push button transmission. I bought it to save on gas, as it was during the oil embargo, and all fuel was very expensive. Cars, in general, were not very well engineered in that era, and this Renault was no exception. I drove it for a couple of months and had to have it serviced. There was a service station near the campus where I worked. While it was being serviced, the attendant had it up on his hydraulic lift and it was not balanced and so, unfortunately, it fell off of the back of the lift. It fell on its back end, against the large garage door. The station’s insurance company declared it totalled. I was awarded $300 dollars for damages. That is what I had paid for it, and they gave me the car too. It was still drivable and after driving it for a few weeks, I then sold it to, Yes! You are right! None other than my friend, Don Clark. His kids drove it all over Liberty and I do mean all over Liberty. Through the fields and vales and, according to Don, places that cars should never go. Until they rolled it over. At that time they retired it to a place up in their pasture, on a hill well above their house. This place was also the exact place that they had the family horse, in semi-retirement. In fact, if you believe in coincidences, the two had become as Siamese twins because they had been tied together. The horse, as they had found out, could not be trusted to wonder in an open pasture. So, she was tied to the front bumper of the old Renault.
One bright summer day, Ruth Clack, Don’s wife, happened to be washing dishes at her sink and happened to look up in the pasture. The pasture was on a hill directly behind their house. What she saw was a very horrifying site, as something had spooked the horse, and it took off running, down the hill, directly toward the house. Remember, the horse was tied to the car. Not only was the horse heading downhill toward their house, but so was the car. Ruth screamed bloody murder for Don, and he ran out of the house, waving his arms, to see if he could save their house from both the horse and the car coming ‘hellbent for election’ toward it. Fortunately, just before they both got to the house the horse, with the car on its heels, swerved to the west. The house was saved, but Ruth’s precious berry patch was not. Both the horse and the car came to a halt after essentially destroying her beautiful raspberry patch.
Don and Ruth remained some of our very best friends even today, over forty years later. Don has since passed away, but he and I enjoyed telling that story over and over again to our families.
These are the kind of true stories that make a family history come alive and the kind that are read over and over generation after generation.