August 23, 2001

Fellow we visited one night on the Connecticut trip said under the original charter of the English colonies, the state's boundaries reached the Pacific Ocean. He asked if I knew of similar cases. Only one I was able to think of was the hard winter Goat Whiskers the Younger free ranged his steers over at the Switch in the railroad right of way. However, Whiskers got a rain before he drifted his cattle as far as the terminus of the rails down on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

My host was becoming uneasy over the overpopulation of his state of some 550 people per square mile. However, the morning before, one of my son's horse magazines claimed Connecticut had the largest horse numbers in the U.S., or 10 head to the square mile. As much of the land surface is in roads and forests, not to mention houses and driveways, might be a good time to make a claim on the Midwest. Sounded like they already had enough horses and people to stock the country from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.

Along with being the biggest horsemen in the nation, the advertisers are the most optimistic in the world, I think. Weaning colts by "Old Ferris Wheel" out of "Miss Corn Dodger" were priced at $3500. Been a long time since the Boss sold his weaning colts from registered stock, but using those asking prices, filly colts were up $3490 a head since we quit the business 35 years ago.

Mentioning horses was the only way to divert my son's attention from his new daughter. He is the boy I told you who bought the old Arizona saddle from Porter's Saddler off a feed store rack in New England. The one who awakens every morning and goes to bed every night homesick for the ranch. As a teaser to lure him home, I told him if he and his family would move back to the ranch, we could hire Frutuso Montemayor to build a brush arbor for his daughter to play under just like the one he had at the old ranch as a kid. While I was holding her on my shoulder later, I whispered in her ear to go along with her Mom and Dad until she was ready to come to Texas to live with her Grandpa. As high priced as horses are in Connecticut, considering her connections, we could make a pretty strong team green breaking colts to sell to her Yankee cousins.

For a Sunday outing, we loaded up the baby basket, car seat, and a diaper bag to go to a fair at Goshen, Connecticut. One percent of the population is left in agriculture. The size of the fairgrounds go back to the old days. Out of the 50 head of sheep on exhibition, I recognized one breed, the Suffolk. Right out the door from the swine show, a big food booth was selling barbecued spareribs fast as the ribs left the grill, showing what the pungent odor of meat and herbs smoking does to the city folks' movements. At the milk goat exhibit, I thought how deprived a people are who never taste kid goat roasted on mesquite coals the way Jose cooked cabrito at the ranch. Took my turn holding the baby so she could sense she'd never be hungry as long as her old Granddad had a trap to run a few Spanish nannies and enough strength in his hands to peel the backstrap from a whitetail deer.

Best part of the fair was taking her to see her first circus. Not many 30 day-old babies are offered such a treat as an old-time family circus of trained poodle dogs pushing baby carriages and daredevil high wire acts 10 feet off the ground. One improvement is that circus costumes seem modest now that women wear skimpy shorts and halters in public. In the days when dress collars hit an inch below milady's Adam's apple and hemlines fell 12 inches below her knees, a blonde headed trick rider in glittering gold tights made 15 year-old boys blush from ringside onto the midway. I'll have to remember to tell her when she's older that on circus days in Mertzon, the only ones in town who wanted us boys to join the circus more than the were the mothers. To this day, I still flinch at the sound of a screen door latch clicking shut behind me.

We were plenty tired after the fair. I am glad I didn't expand on Whisker's cattle ranging to the ocean. He'd of never passed Barnhart without the town dogs causing a stampede. Next move down here is going to be mailing an old saddle blanket to my son to transport a familiar smell from home. Indians talked in parables and signs. It's still a good way to reach us white eyes…

August 23, 2001