Part 10 (1/2)

But it was another day that Old Ribbon impressed me It was aly to take Papa his dinner As usual, I was in the seat with Marub box was in the floor at our feet It was covered with a clean white cloth to keep the flies and dust away

Noe hadn't gone more than a hundred yards from our house when Old Ribbon had to do what comes natural for all horses to do

But this tias

Either one without the other wouldn't have been so bad But both together e enough It caught what it could; Maht ht its share-but it wasn't white any more In your eyes, it burned, in your nose, it smelled terrible, and in your mouth, it tasted a lot like what it really was

No question about it, there was just one thing to do, go back hoe the cloth over the dinner, hope it didn't go through onto the biscuits, get going again and take Papa a late dinner Ho hum, dull life on the farry by the tiot his dinner to him and he may have been worried and weary He may have been upset and Mamabad They didn't allow any sort of rough language in our faentle horse for Ma horses he used to in And in the rush cotton picking season, we kids and Mama picked alinned and then sold it

There were many days when Papa would leave ho with a load of cotton, wait his turn at the gin and not get ho was slow in those days Soet hoin ahead of just one other far the cotton harvest season

I never heard Papa tell of trying to go around another farin But I have heard hi up to beat another man to a crossroads in order to be ahead of him when they both turned the last corner toward town And I have heard hi to pass him on the road But I never heard of one who succeeded Papa drove big horses with a lot of endurance, and on a three-mile stretch of level road, they usually held their own

Despite all the e had to do, we kids played a lot and had a lot of fun When it rained at the Exu area by our front yard, and continued on down a road toward the blacksmith shop

It had just co a little So we took shovels and damned up the road where it was deepest and not spread out sointo our small lake almost as fast as we could build the da area by our front yard By the ti the dae as two or three city lots

I don't re he kept it nor whether he built it especially for that occasion But I do knoent riding in his boat just outside our front yard They even took Kodak pictures of us in the boat on our little lake

In two or three days the dam had to be destroyed and the lake drained so we could use the road again and so we could get in and out of our front yard

The years passed quickly and during the period fro fast in our part of the country Ha up In the fall of the years, they had their fairs, with their carnivals, large hot-air balloons,over our country and everyone anted to work could get a job

Frank took his horse and buggy and carried the mail at times, as a substitute carrier But for some reason unknown to ave it up

Papa bought our first auto in 1916 It was a 1914car-the cost, 800 We drove it until 1922, then junked it

That Reo car had a feature I have never seen on any other car The left pedal was a clutch pedal the first half-way down The reht pedal was an eency brake Both had ratchet-type bars underneath which held them down to the desired place

Handy? You bet! Many car owners wished their cars had the clutch and brake under one foot It was especially handy when starting a car headed uphill, because it left the right foot free to work the gas feed

The old Reo didn't have a lot of power to brag about-ed donkeys I re up the Cap Rock, it just couldn't make it alone The road was steep and rocky The Buick, which we bought later, would go up the hill with all of us still in the car But the Reo was different

We not only had to get out and walk up, we had to push the Reo up too There were about four or five of us pushi+ng, and two of us were carrying rocks to put behind the wheels when it stopped Then the driver would ”rev” up the ether, ould ain, rocks behind the wheels-quickly

That kind of life gave people soton for handouts It also gave a man pride in ownershi+p, especially if the car he oould outdo the car his neighbor owned

Bragging on your car was a way of life in early carhood days If a hbors couldn't do, that was so about No two cars were alike

But now, 60 years later, we find that auto- all cars alike Notoday, you have nothing to brag about Today's cars all have at least four things in co, too powerful, too costly and burn too asoline