Memories-horses and sulkies

We called the two wheeled things sulkies.

On the farm in Minnesota we had one made of buggy wheels with a board behind the shaft to sit on and I remember once coming home from the south eighty that either my sister Beverly or Vivian fell down between the shaft and ran like the dickens and then pulled herself up again into the seat. How did we every survive?

In Riverside, California, we also had horses and our Katie was really gentle and controllable.

We had gone to the police department and had purchased a small motorcyle the could not be used on the road and we built another sulky there.

Angela had recently returned from the hospital after suffering an aneuryson

and was just getting around so I gave her a ride on the sulky. Somehow or other, Katie got spooked and I couldn't rein her in and she crashed into a chain link fence with the shafts deeply imbeded in the fence. My uncle, Tommy Thompson was there and after Angela was removed from the sulky I held Katie's bridle and head and talked her down while Uncle Tommy undid the harness straps and freed the horse from the sulky and the fence.

Needless to say, the sulky used a little less often after that escapade.

Now the horses at Scottsdale were high steppers and classic and the sulkies were along with the horses out of this world- but my memories of outward sunshine and inward joy brought back the joys of a barefoot boy.