Too Crude For Track Work, A Heart Bar Shoe
There were no Blacks in Northern British Columbia; there might be a few now, I don’t really know. The first Blacks I ever saw were in Virginia during a trip to visit relatives. I must say, I was probably guilty of staring as a young teenager, it is hard to remember exactly. I remember being shocked at the sight of Black people; I had seen many natives, including my own mother, and a few orientals, but Blacks are truly unique to someone who has never seen them.
I loved their spicy foods and was always anxious to walk down to the barbecue joint in “colored town” as the local Whites called the area where Blacks lived. I was the only non-Black to walk around in “colored town” and the Blacks found me amusing, most of them were very outgoing and greeted me warmly. The restaurant owners and employees were always glad to see me and treated me as a special customer. I loved barbecue mutton on rye bread with huge slices of Bermuda onion and dill pickles, the barbecue chicken I miss to this day, and the ribs were fantastic.
I plan to go to a barbecue school when I retire to see if I can learn to recapture that flavor. I took some of the techniques and recipes back to the ranch and everyone loved my imitation Woolfolks Family Barbecue at least to the degree that I was able to reproduce it. The Woolfolks employed the whole family, from the grand parents down to little kids gathering kindling. White people would drive to Woolfolks and bring huge pots for meat or beans, but as far as I know I was the only non-Black to sit down at the bar and eat my meals. I wasn’t allowed to drive because I didn’t have a driver’s license, I was too young for civilized Virginia, but I already drove everything from tractors to semi-trucks back home, we all make concessions to live in civilized areas. So I walked to the Wollfolks Barbecue to eat barbecue, a fact that was a source of amazement in the nearby community where I stayed.
Whites asked me about walking through “colored town” and wondered if I was afraid. I always told them that once you have stared the Grizzly in the eye up close and seen his eyelids drop and the eyes go from brown to fiery black and live to talk about it, you have no need to fear anything for you are lucky to still be alive. I figured I was skating on borrowed time at 14, so what was there to be afraid of?
Unfortunately, everyone considered my bubble to be a few degrees off center, but that’s the way I have gone through life and I have outlived almost everyone I knew as a lad.
I later went to college in the US. I am not a social butterfly, but I was so countrified that most of the people in college considered me an oddity. Of course there were many Blacks at college, but I didn’t really fit in with the cosmopolitan kids that were there. Realistically, I should have gone to an agricultural college and had a social life.
My college days were interupted by a period of motorcycle travel and time in the military. In the military, I met Americans of Mexican heritage for the first time, most of whom could speak Spanish. My best friend in the service was an Apache from New Mexico, we traveled through Northern Mexico together and he taught me the basics of Spanish and of Mexican cuisine, skills that I still use.
After finishing up my college career, I made a living using the skills I used on the ranch, skills that I acquired as a young teenager before becoming educated, skills that I still use to make a living, 50 years later. I could shoe horses and hold my own, but my real skills were in doing teeth. There are many guys who can shoe horses and have them able to walk away without being lame after nailing on four shoes; however, there aren’t but a few that can do the dental work without restraint and a bottle of sedation and syringes. I have an unusual ability to put horses in a deep trance state and they allow me to grind, cut, and extract teeth. I know it sounds unusual, but I do it almost every day and I can do the same things on humans and have done it many times for cowboys who couldn’t afford to go see a human dentist. I’ve extracted tens of thousands of teeth, some are easier than others.
The fastest and easiest money was to be made on the race tracks. To work on the big tracks, you need a license to perform the different trades. I wasn’t allowed to have a dental license, unless I worked with a vet. Since I have been fiercely independent all my life, that didn’t really appeal to me. My other option was to get a horseshoer’s license and perform dentistry as a side line. There was one hitch, I had to pass the union exam and join the union. Thus I began my only union affiliation. I showed up for the winter meet at Oaklawn during the mid-seventies, back then they used Clydesdales to pull the starting gate around to the different starting positions. The owner of the track needed shoes on his beloved draft horses and none of the racetrack shoers or platers as they liked to be called, wanted anything to do with those big bruisers, most of them had never worked on draft horses. I had learned to shoe on big work horses so the owner wanted me to take the test so that I could hurry up and shoe his horses and the platers wanted me to pass the test so that I could shoe the big horses and they wouldn’t need to worry about a non-union horseshoer working on the track doing work that they didn’t want to do.
I stayed with a horseshoer, Melton Everson, we had met down in Louisiana a few years earlier; like me, he had never attended primary or high school, but unlike me he had never learned to read or write. Yet he had an unusual gift, he could play poker with high rollers all night while sipping a fifth of whiskey. He would often clean out the jockeys, agents, and trainers who were foolish enough to play against him, because the next morning he could tell you about every hand, the cards that were played, the sequence of cards, the cards that were still in the deck and the amounts of the individual bets. He was six foot three, always wore a western hat, chewed snuff, was a champion bronc rider, and he drove a one ton truck a long time before they were popular.
Melton usually traveled to Detroit Race Course for the summer and had been there for the race riots. Years later he would be asked to describe what happened when he became lost and drove through the middle of the race riots with his one ton pick up, wearing his Western hat. Using his accent rich and laconic way of speaking he woud describe driving through the chaos of burning cars and buildings and then he would say, “but those people are not so bad, they would hold up their fist in the air and look at me and I’d wave to them and they would just bust out laughing. I think everybody has got them figured all wrong.” Of course Melton’s naivete and slow manner of speaking was hilarious to the cynical race track gamblers and he would be asked to repeat the story several times a week; of course, he was trying to get them to think he was an ignorant country bumpkin so that they would all sit down to a high stakes poker game and he would slowly skin them alive.
Melton was always lost because he couldn’t read road signs or maps and had to pull into places like Chicago and ask which road to take to get to New Orleans or Hot Springs. Needless to say, it always took him a few extra days to make a trip. He is still alive and heads up a large wholesale business with a young beautiful wife.
Melton was an officer in the Hot Spring Local and that is the only reason I went there to take the union test. In great secrecy, he told me there were problems because I was supposed to take my test in the area I was planning to work and that my home in Canada, no one had ever heard of BC or the Peace River Country, was closest to Chicago and that by union law, I should be taking my exam in Chicago. Melton was distressed over the issues that I thought were almost laughable. A few days later, he told me that the Chicago Local President was going to be there for my exam and that he thought everything could proceed normally. He said the Chicago President was really different, but that I would probably get along with him. While I wondered whether I had been insulted or complimented, he told me the Chicago President’s name was Slim Shady and I would know him when I saw him. That was all he planned to tell me and once Melton was done talking he was done; you might as well talk to a tree.
The race meet at Oak Lawn in Hot Springs is a winter meet, so as luck would have it there was a thunder storm the day I was supposed to take my union test. I only needed five Journeyman Horse Shoers to be on my board, but only a crazy man would try to shoe race horses during a thunderstorm; consequently, there were a bunch of them crowded into a tiny blacksmith shop to watch me take my examination. Six of them were playing poker at a table with several more including Melton watching the game. They knew his uncanny abilities and he was only allowed to observe and could be called upon for an accurate history of each hand, as far back as five years. There were several more standing around watching me and since the youngest ones were at least 20 years older than me, I was a little nervous.
It is traditional for the guy taking the test to bring a fifth of whiskey and I had asked Melton what kind of whiskey I should buy. Unfortunately, Melton gets words transposed, he had meant to say Crown Royal, but instead told me they liked Royal Crown. Back then they actually made Royal Crown whiskey and it only cost five dollars a fifth. That was all right with me, I had to be careful, setting up at a new race track was a gamble as to whether you would pick up new business or not. I was spending a lot of money on the exam and the initiation fee; so, I was glad not to be buying a twenty dollar bottle of whiskey.
The whiskey was in a brown paper sack on a small counter by the door; although, several of the platers looked at the bottle, they just put it back in the sack and walked away. I was feeling insulted and nervous. I had wondered why they liked such cheap whiskey and now they wouldn’t even drink it.
Most of these guys were locals right out of the hills of the Ozarks. They were salt of the earth and out of a different era with all the typical prejudices of that time and place. They were successful and made tremendous money from their trade; some of them held onto their money and parlayed it into estates like Melton and others tended to let their money slide through their fingers indulging in the three vices of horse shoers women, whiskey, and gambling. Most of them were hooked on all three.
In the mean time, I was expected to take my test with a small anvil that I could pick up with one hand and a bunch of hammers, tongs, and other equipment that I wasn’t familiar with. The forge was working well and I had my own coking coal so there would be not problem with soft, cheap coal with impurities that can ruin a weld.
I was expected to heat three bars of iron and pull them through a die while they were red hot and hammer a continuous groove in the metal on three different bars. One bar was to made into a bar shoe, one was to be made into a front racing shoe with a racing toe grab welded into place with copper, and the last one was to be made into a hind racing shoe with a turned heel caulk on one heel and a grass racing caulk on the other heel. The front and hind shoes were expected to be perfectly shaped, the bar shoe was expected to fit a pattern.
The president of the union local drew the pattern for the bar shoe on the wall from a used shoe and said, “there it is, make it match”. He was the only one in the room who was acting halfway friendly towards me, as I got started with the exam. I dropped my tools several times and was wondering if I was going to fail miserably. A Black man walked in the Blacksmith shop; he was well dressed in fancy city clothes, instead of the Western duds the rest of us were wearing. He also had a bowler hat and he seemed quite comfortable in the shop, despite his appearance. I was frustrated and was wondering who this new stranger was who just dropped in to watch me struggle.
He pulled the bottle out of the sack and slid it right back in and said, “He buys cheap whiskey.”
Right then, I figured this had to be Slim Shady. I dropped my tools a couple more times and the Black man said, “Maybe you should have a drink of whiskey.”
I walked over to the fifth of whiskey and drank about a quarter of the bottle. One of the old guys at the poker table said, “That’s the first time we ever had a guy drink his own whiskey.”
I thought to myself, to Hell with you, if you don’t want to drink my whiskey, I will. Walking back to the anvil and forge I could feel the whiskey’s warm glow giving me power and confidence. I pulled out a red hot bar of iron and rubbed it back and forth in the swedge block to heat up the die and the put the iron bar back in the fire. I then rubbed a ball of bees’ wax over the block. The wax melted and burned leaving a waxy coating over the die. It allows the hot iron to slide through without sticking.
One of the poker players said, “What’s he doing over there.” Melton said in his slow, quiet rodeo cowboy voice, “Maybe you should watch and learn something.” There were two things that I knew at the time and later confirmed, no one ever challenged Melton or Slim Shady and they were the only two guys in the room who seemed to be on my side.
I started swedging the next red hot bar and was swinging the hammer from way above my head. Each time the hammer hit it stretched and grooved three inches of bar stock at a time. The hammer hits were so powerful that the swedges on the bars looked like they had been cut by a machine. I heard one of the poker players say, “if he misses that swedging block, a piece of that old anvil will be coming over here”. I laughed to myself, there was no way I was going to miss today.
It only took three or four heats to swedge each shoe. I turned the shoes with a wooden mallet by wrapping one side at a time at a diagonal around the little horn of the anvil. In this red hot condition the shoes were really soft like cooked pasta. I turned the heels for the hind shoe and sweated in a spring steel toe grab with copper and borax. I tossed it on the floor and let it smoke a bit as it burned the plywood floor. The front shoe received a toe grab and the I cut the heels with a “V” shaped ‘hardy’ so that the ends were tapered in a uniform manner. I decided to make a heart bar, the most difficult of the three different bar shoes. I walked over to the whiskey and had another good drink, Slim Shady smiled and said, “All right, my kind of man”.
I turned the heels up and shaped them like the frog of a hoof. I put a welding compound between the two heels and the poured borax over the area to be welded. I heated up this shoe a little hotter than the others, until the heel area was sparking and starting to burn.
I pulled the shoe out of the fire and got ready to hit it with the hammer to weld it when I noticed that all the weld splatter and flux would fly all over Slim Shady and his fancy clothes if I hit it straight ahead, so I angled it toward the poker table a smacked it hard, the white hot splatter flew all over the table and players. They were cursing and jumping around to put out the little fires in their clothing. Slim Shady started chuckling, in the six years that I knew him as a friend, it was to be the only time I ever saw him laugh.
Normally, when a guy makes a bar shoe he checks it with the pattern to make sure it is the right shape or fit, because you can adjust the shoe a bit if you are off. Race horse shoes have a tolerance of a sixteenth of an inch so it is important that they fit well or you can cause a wreck out on the track. I threw it on the floor and walked over for another drink of whiskey. I was already drunk and had lost interest in the test.
The Hot Springs President looked at me like I had lost my marbles, he bent a heavy piece of wire and picked up the shoe to cool it in the quench bucket. He then put it against the drawing on the wall and said, “It fits perfectly.”
Now the poker players crowded around to look at the shoe and the pattern as if they didn’t believe him, I glanced over and sure enough it was exactly the same size. Some times you just luck out.
Slim asked me if I was going to Chicago to work. I told him I had work waiting for me, once I got there. He asked me to step outside for a conference.
We walked into the shed row of the closest barn. He explained that I should have taken my exam in Chicago. These guys just wanted to get the cost of the exam for their local. He assured me that everything would be OK because he was the President of the Chicago Local and he understood the situation. He said he couldn’t do anything about the cost of the test, but he was going to get my initiation fee for the Chicago Local. It was all news to me, I had no idea how these things worked. Slim said if anything came up, I was to come see him and to consider mysef a member of the Chicago Local and not the Hot Springs Local, because Canada is a lot closer to Chicago than it is to Hot Springs. He shook my hand with a strength that belied his fancy clothes and a hat that looked vaguely like an upside down chamber pot. He said he would get me some horses to work on and not to trust these guys too much. I told him I had known Melton for years and I was staying with him. He said that’s a good situation, at least, until I had built up a business. We walked over to the club house and had a couple of drinks, I could tell by the reactions of some of the local bettors that I was crossing a line, but I didn’t really care, bettors are stricken with a weakness of the spirit and they weren’t going to intimidate me because I had a new friend that dressed a little fancy.
After my first race meet was over, I drove down to see Slim at his winter home in New Orleans. He gave me some work at the Fair Grounds (the New Orleans Race Track) and introduced me to his life in New Orleans. I think the best way to describe Slim’s life In New Orleans is to say that he was a Hedonist. His girl friends literally timed their arrivals and departures according to the bus schedules. After entertaining all night, he would drop into the race track to start work at the crack of noon. He would shoe six or eight horses and rush back to his house to meet the onslaught of determined admirers.
I would be exhausted after shoeing 8 to 10 horses and doing dental work on that many again and go back to Slim’s house to pass out, only to be awakened over and over by the all night parties and the sound of the front door and other noises I wont mention. After a couple of weeks, I told Slim I needed to go to Keeneland and Churchill to do some dentistry work and that I would see him in Chicago at Hawthorn, but the real reason I wanted to leave was that I was exhausted and needed to rest.
He shook my hand and told me that I was a true gentleman and that he was anxious to see me in Chicago. I’ve always questioned that remark, I knew that officers were deemed gentlemen, but some of them weren’t. I had never been called a gentleman, but I appreciated the compliment.
I met Slim Shady at Hawthorn and he invited me to share his blacksmith shop. Judging from the tight knit group of Chicago platers and their reactions to me, I figured t was a good thing to have Slim Shady as an ally. The platers in Hot Springs were not overly friendly, but they were not gossipy types like these Chicago platers, a very feminine like trait in my opinion, they made sure to make me feel unwelcome in apposition to Slim’s offer of welcome. There was only one other Black plater in Chicago and he tended to range between Detroit, Chicago, and Kentucky. His name was Sylvester and the two men were in stark contrast. Sylvester was a tan color and Slim was as black as coking coal. Sylvester was without muscles and Slim was built like one of the Greco/Roman statues portraying the perfect masculine form. In this day and age we have athletes who work out to build musculature and we have body builders who try to build huge muscles, I personally think all this work out stuff is vastly inferior to the muscles brought on by hard work.
Almost every night, Slim and I would meet in the blacksmith shop to make tools and shoes. Slim was an artist and a musician with a hammer over an anvil or a stall jack. He could also carry rhythm while driving the nails through a shoe and the hoof. He would place leather or styrofoam under his anvil to get different ringing tones and no matter what he was making, rhythm was employed. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but I enjoy listening to good rhythm and Slim was the best. Sylvester also had a talent for music with a hammer and it was fun to listen to the two of them shoeing in the same area and responding to each other’s music with the same rhythm or a complimenting rhythm.
It’s funny that the platers in Chicago were almost all Irish and lived life in a glum sulk, resenting everyone, but taking great pride in their Irish heritage. In a few years, I would be taking several trips a year to Ireland and found the Irish people in Ireland to be the warmest, happiest people on earth. Yet, at the time these guys were all wrapped up in the Northern Irish problems and although none of them had been to Ireland, they all assumed a great injustice was being committed in Belfast and Northern Ireland, which is a very small section of Ireland. There were large jars in the bars that had signs that said give a dollar to buy a bullet to kill an English soldier. I didn’t contribute, but years later I heard that most of the funds just gave the bar owners and jar men an extra source of tax free income, yet the hatred was encouraged and allowed to fester.
One of the Irish platers came up to me one afternoon and insisted on knowing what my heritage was. I told him my first relative in the new world came over on the Mayflower as an orphan and indentured serving boy. That was 375 years earlier and since then there had been thousands of antecedents in my blood line, but I didn’t get a chance to explain. He backed off in anger and said, “I should have known you were English.”
I thought to myself, damn that pesky relative of mine tainting my blood stream with his unworthy DNA almost 4 centuries ago, how dare he! Although, my dad had this early man’s family bible, he was one of maybe ten thousand who donated to my DNA that were alive at that time, but he was more than enough to mark me as an evil seed of England.
Slim and I enjoyed our time together, he made a custom driving hammer for me and I asked Melton to do the same thing in 88. Eventually, Slim’s hammer developed a crack and I had to retire it, but Melton’s hammer is still usable, but I will never wear it out at this late stage of m life. I hope to give the hammers to one of my boys along with a written history.
We liked making tools and instruments from used tool and spring steel from cars and trucks. First we would anneal or soften the steel by letting it cool slowly from a red heat while sitting buried in a large bucket of sand. The next evening we would shape the instrument over the anvil while red hot and then we would temper the steel with a controlled quench in water or oil when the steel cooled to the straw color.
I was making shoes one evening and tossing them into a sand box to cool: Slim was sitting at the table drinking Crown Royal. Beaudro the Tout walked in and feigned interest in the shoes I was making. A tout is considered the lowest life form of the low life’s on the track. Despised by hard working types, the tout has no shame. They mingle with the crowds and claim to have inside information and they will give you a sure winner if you will bet for them or share your winnings with them. If they can find enough saps for each race, one of the horses is bound to win and they can make money. It’s a sad way to plod through life, but there are touts at every race track.
He picked up a shoe and instantly threw it back in the sand. He acted as if nothing happened and stood there hoping to get information for tomorrow’s racing from Slim or me. I looked up from the anvil and asked, “What’s the matter, was it hot?”
He looked me in the eye and said, “No, no, it just doesn’t take long to look at a horseshoe.” It was all I could do to keep a straight face. He asked us a few questions and then moved on, realizing that Slim and I planned on taking secrets and inside information to the grave.
Usually when Americans find out a politician isn’t what he was supposed to be, they vote him out of office and consider it a lesson well learned. The process of determining a man’s level of incompetence usually takes years or nearly the length of office; there are exceptions, Jimmy Carter displayed his incompetency and weak willed indecisiveness early on and America had to suffer interminably through his presidency. Obama has also been a hot horseshoe for America; his view of America as just another nation without its shining beacon of freedom that has held promise for generations to people from all over the world, but more of a average country that sits ready to be judged and directed by a corrupt UN does not sit well with Americans except for Marxist Ideologues and their Useful Idiots.
As Obama’s contempt for America and his desire to see America struggling and weak in the face of aggression and terrorism, we can see his distaste and disdain for the America of history, much like the distaste Slim Shady and I felt toward the tout who lived by perpetuating a continuous confidence game to make a living and get by without working. To us he was despicable and unworthy of consideration or conversation. Did we engage in prejudicial behavior? Your damn right we did!
Slim and I took chances every day to work on the fastest, most dangerous horses in the world. We had marketable skills and people were anxious to contract us to provide those skills to keep their expensive racing horses in top shape. Although Beaudro lived by his wits, he had no marketable skills and was a parasite that cheapened the race track experience for the innocent race fan. Thus he was not worthy of us and was beneath our contempt, later on we laughed at the burns he must have received from the hot horseshoe. In the world of Political Correctness, a phrase borrowed from the worst years of Sino-Soviet Communist purges when hundreds of millions were being either killed or reeducated to become Politically Correct, this phrase was implanted into our national consciousness by the Socialist left to be acceptted without question like the student goons of Mao during the Cultural Revolution; Slim and I would be considered politically incorrect for having revulsion at the sight of this low life and not warning him of the potential danger of hot horseshoes and not giving him inside information that he could take into the stands to be even more of a cultural wonder for the rubes in the stands.
While some matters of prejudice seem natural, others are based on faulty logic. In Chicago and Hot Springs, I was considered an outsider and there to rob the local tradesmen of their potential for money and business. Except for Melton and Shady, I would have been lonely and depressed with the rude and derisive treatment I received. I am classified as White because of the color of my hide, but up close, when you examine my features and the coarse texture of my hair and the strange green color of my eyes, it is easy to see I am not the Lilly from pure Northern European stock you might have expected. If I wanted to translate that rejection into a bigger issue because of my mixed race status, in our modern society we would have a serious conflict; if we blame the rejection on my foreign sounding accent it doesn’t seem so serious; perhaps, if we say that the Irish platers disliked me because I wasn’t Irish and the Ozark platers disliked me because I was the wrong type of hillbilly, it becomes even less serious.
I was left with two choices, I could complain, piss, and moan to people who could care less or do my work and consider the Irish platers to be a bunch of jerks. I chose the latter and worked in Chicago for almost six years before opting out for semi-retirement in British Columbia. During this period of my life, Slim Shady was my only friend among the platers.
In this life, we have fears, some are real and based on fact, others are imagined and may not even be real, based purely on vivid imaginations. I consider crossing wild rivers to be a reasonable fear; although, like Grizzlies you don’t need to fear them, but you damn well better know what they can do and respect them and their unique abilities. Walking down through “colored town” was an unnatural fear that wasn’t based in fact, nor was the fear of sitting at the counter and eating barbecue. I must say that while walking through “colored town” and eating at Woolfolks, I was shown the most respect and kindness by strangers that I have ever known.
Epilogue: Two years after I left Chicago, the wife of a Black trainer, (the business that I had waiting for me in Chicago that I had told Slim Shady about) wrote and informed me that her husband had just recently died of a heart attack and that Slim Shady also died of a disease that took him very quickly, while he was in a charity ward of the hospital. She said he had turned almost white at the end with white hair as he lay wasting away to nothing. She told me how proud her husband was to have a “White” dentist and plater that treated him with respect. She said that he told all their friends about me and loved to tell the story of the first horse I did for him at Churchill Downs, a horse that the other guys wouldn’t touch because he liked to “Jump Around”. I was profoundly saddened by the loss of two friends.
i really love reading your posts. they almost take you to the place and time you are describing. there is always a point that comes a t the end and i love how it sneaks up on you. i also never knew it took all that to shoe a horse, i thought you bought horse shoes like we do. thank you for the knowledge you share.
That was another great post, Skookum. You’ve sure done a lot of stuff. I’ve floated horses’ teeth before, but sure as hell not without Rompun.
Luva, there are pre-sized shoes, most of them are factory made these days, but you still need to fit them, trim the hoof and nail them on, after that they need to walk away sound and not come back from a race all cut up because they were out of balance like your car. Of course they can get a bad ride or be bumped in a race, a cagey track plater will check out the previous day’s race films before he talks to his customers and accepts blame that isn’t his. It’s a tricky business that is very dangerous, you can take a kick to the head or chest and never know when you left this life.
I’ve been very lucky, the horses like me and don’t give me the same problems that plague other platers and dentists. Glad you like the story, there are hundreds more coming up, the more I write, the more I remember. This article could have been a book all by itself, there were so many things that popped up on my mind’s screen concerning Slim and Melton, some of them funny, some of them tragic.
Glad you liked the story JC. I think starting to work on horses in the days when there was no sedation except for Ace was a big help. I always said, “if Ace worked you probably could have done it with nothing”. I had a great deal of luck doing ranch horses with just an innocent outlook that everyone started bringing their dental work to me when I was just a boy. Luckily, I was able to make many of the instruments I needed in the fire. I later started an instrument company and then sold it after it became boring.
I’ve really only had a few occupations, hunting and trapping were probably my favorites. Ranch work was a lot of hard work and you might lose money when it was all said and done. Horse shoeing was nice, but very hard on the body. Dentistry has taken me all around the world and put a bunch of kids through University. After a hundred thousand horses or so, it is becoming monotonous, but I’m good for another ten or fifteen years maybe longer. The horses are fairly predictable if you study the eyes, the ear formations, and the cow licks, but the people are why I have never needed color TV. The entertainment walks on two legs not four.
Skookum–
Where should I send my deposit on your first book? As a service to humanity, you really, really, should put your stories together in a book. How are the young folks ever going to learn what it’s like to be a man – from MTV? I think not. Hell, you’re a better writer than Louis L’Amour!
I recently bought Thomas Sowell’s “Dismantling America” in hard cover. It was a great read even though it was just a compilation of his online articles. I paid $30 for it. Something to consider.
GotDamn Skookum, another wonderful tale
SKOOKUM; HI,another page of your book, or 3 for this one, very interesting,
to read and learn of that skill that just not the reguler person could do ; THIS is a master skill for talented only,
LIKE THE SKILL TO BE A PRESIDENT OF THIS SUPER POWER ,TAKES MORE THAN GOOD LOOK AND SOME SMILES AND THE WILL TO KICK AMERICANS ‘S BUTTS BECAUSE THEY DONT AGGREE WITH YOUR WAY OF SPENDING LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW.
NO IT TAKE A SKILL THA IS UNIQUELY BALANCE IN MIND AND HEARTH AND LOVE FOR AMERICA AND THE INTELLIGENCE AND A SURE JUDGEMENT TO REACT WISLY TO ANY SITUATIONS THAT PUT THIS AMERICA IN DANGEROUS SITUATIONS,AND ONLY A SPECIAL PERSON CAN EARN THE CONFIDENCE OF AMERICANS WHICH HAVE THE GOODWILL AND TOLERANCE AND GENEROSITY THAT NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD CAN EVER MATCH;
YES, IT TAKES A GRAND PERSON TO SERVE THIS FREEDOM LOVING SUPER POWER,
THAT NO ONE WILL DIMINISH ,BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS RISE TO FIGHT FOR INJUSTICE DONE TO THEM AND THEIR BROTHERS, THEY ARE THE PROTECTOR AND OWNER
AND RULERS OVER THEIR GOVERNMENT WHO SHALL NEVER FORGET THAT
BYE
LOL! Another great read, Skookum.
I like the comparison of Obozo to a tout. That rambling, tortured reply to a question about North Korea proved he’s no intellect. After two years on the job and countless advisors this is the best he can do? His keepers shouldn’t turn him loose without TOTUS by his side.
With any luck, the voters will toss him out like a hot horseshoe in 2012.
Skookum when you say that you are related to that boy who came over on the Mayflower in 1620 was that really true?
And those mennonites that vote for the Dems, are they to be despised as useful idiots ?
was that Woolfolk’s down on Mechaicsville Pike ?
Love learning about another piece of your life Skookum! My dad was a blacksmith all of his working life starting off with horses on the farm and later for many years worked in a factory forging things like Catapillar links. His hammer was over two stories high, he would have to pick up the steel out of a furnace with long tongs and put it into a die and the big hammer would drop. He had scars all over his body from pieces of red hot steel that flew out of the hammer, he often had shavings hit him in his eyes, they had a nurse on duty at all times that would fish them out, lucky to never have any embed in his eyes. A few years before he retired he smashed his hand and they couldn’t save his little finger, very close call.
He usually dressed at the shop, worked all day then showered and dressed for home, the company supplied and laundered uniforms for the employees. I don’t remember why, but one summer he had to bring his uniforms home to be laundered. First time we saw his work shirts, they were in a pile down by the washer, they were navy blue, the insides of the shirts were almost white from the salt from his body. During summer they started at 4 am and would often work less hours because the heat was intolerable. He was another man among men that did what he had to do for all of us.
Hah, met some of these folks too, in-laws. Although they were wealthy people, they were envious and resentful of most everyone and anyone, hubby’s three sisters are still living that life secluded in their fancy homes, sad. Hubby and his brother somehow managed to escape that behavior, thank goodness!
And, I see our resident “tout” has appeared, or maybe he belongs in the ranks of the “glum sulk.”
Skookum,
I am really enjoying your posts as to your past life with horses. I cut my teeth in the industry in Chicago, being stabled in Barn D at Sportsmans and Barn 35 at Arlington (this was back in the late “60′s/early “70′s) and I know the backside at Hawthorne well. So many memories come flooding back as I read this post. Our blacksmith ( I worked for a gentleman named F.B Lantz, my old man as I lovingly call him) was a man named Wally. A great guy and well liked by all. He usually did the Chicago/Florida circuit. I guess I’m getting old because for the life of me i can’t remember who we used to float our horse’s teeth. Still, names like Salvino, Posey, Kenny Hoffman, Jack Van Berg, Jimmy DeVito and others jump into mind, all trainers who were and some still are around the Chicago area. Oh well.
Whatever the case and memories aside, your stories are great. I refer them to all of my friends and I to would love to see your stuff in a book.
No JR, some parts of a story are just a story. My main male line ancestor crossed the Southern border with his family in a wagon, he was a high up officer in Pancho Villa’s army and once the General’s madness became obvious he deserted. Villa killed all deserters and anyone else that aggravated him. My relative hid at Fort Bliss in mortal fear. He changed the family name and moved North keeping a low profile until the assassination of Villa in Baja California; although, the family was still scared fifty years later and only mentioned the facts in hushed tones.
In the future, I will publish under my original family name. At some point, I plan to adopt the original family name, my father and grandfather were still afraid of reprisals from Villa henchmen and refused to consider the change. To me, the name sounds beautiful and nostalgic, Casa del Lobos, it means House of the Wolves.
The Old Mennonites are Pacifists and apolitical, I doubt that they take a stand one way or the other. The Mennonite Brethern are more modern, but most of them are not political or civic minded. They tend to live within the group and maintain a simple existence before G-d. I fell from grace a long time ago, but I respect those people and their simple uncomplicated lives. They may have become active politically, I don’t know one way or the other, but it seems unlikely. I haven’t spoken to any of them in 35 years and I doubt if they really want to speak to me.
Woolfolks was not the correct name of the barbecue pit. The original barbecue pit is probably still in business and I didn’t want to cause them grief if the situation has changed, I assume it has. All the names mentioned that portray the living have been altered intentionally.
Mechaicsville Pike? The name Mechanicsville rings a bell, but my sojourn in Virginia was over 50 years ago. In the 80′s and 90′s I worked from Falls Church to Middleberg/Upperville to Charlottesville and on down to Southern Pines, so it is possible that I drove on this road many times. I can’t tell you for certain.
Joetote, your note made me laugh while reading all those names from my past. We probably walked by each other many times. I had forgotten most of those names. How funny! Thanks for the memories! I wondered if someone would read this had actually been there or worked there. I don’t remember “Wally” but there were a lot of platers that came up from Florida for Arlington, they were a lively bunch. I have forgotten so much. Thanks again.
Missy, we seem to have many parallels in our lives. The story of your grandfather was very interesting. I had a grandfather that was a blacksmith and a machinist in the Navy on a battleship. That was the official story and he had the tattoos to prove it. He didn’t talk much, he mainly drank, but he helped me get started in the fire and made a beautiful Damascus knife for me once. He spent most of his time in the shop throwing stuff at me when he became frustrated, too much beer will lead to that kind of behavior, so be careful. None the less, I stuck it out, while trying to learn all I could.
I had steel flakes and slag land in my eyes a few times, thank goodness for modern medicine, that pain was beyond description.
Good to hear from you.
LOL! It’s really amazing how things come flooding back. I used to sit by the old Hawthorne shedrow behind the “beautiful Village of Stickney” water plant with Noel Salvino. People would be sitting there with “22′s” shooting the rats. I was a young snotty kid of 17 when I first got there. Man, what a great bunch of people race trackers were and are! And I do indeed know of what you speak as to the “fraternity for want of a better word” as to the various professions. Wally retired not long after 70 and for the life of me, I just can’t remember who did our shoeing after that. It will probably come back to me in some sort of acid flashback! BTW: Remeber that little donut shop right on the other side of the railroad tracks on Laramie Ave.? Lot of the real charactoers hung out there and they di have some of the greatest donuts!
Skooks, it was not my grandfather, it was my dad. He worked that job for many, many years after he recovered from polio. Had he not lost the farms due to the medical bills our family would have had the benefit of staying in Wisconsin farming those two little farms. Never know where life can take you.
You popped into my mind while reading this, even doctors are getting into the mood. Three quarters down the page…Thanks For Visiting:
http://doctors.50interviews.com/
Joe, I remember the donut shop quite well. I was required to tell bear and wolf stories and tales of tremendous cold until I could tell them in my sleep.
Do you still work with race horses? I have worked at a few tracks in Canada and Ireland over the past thirty years, but mainly I have worked in the Olympic disciplines. They don’t have near the excitement of racing and the horses are sometimes spoiled to the point of being dangerous.
I like shooting rats, that is the sport I was designed for. I have a great rat shooting story. I went hunting with a Texas Congressman and his family all dressed in formal attire and and pretty well liquored up. Everyone had a rifle (Geeez). The rats were fairly safe; actually the hunters were in more danger than the rats, but we scared the hell out of them. Thank Goodness it was a bloodless affair. I’m glad the game warden didn’t come by, I didn’t have a non-resident hunting license.
That’s Texas! My kind of place.
Missy, sorry about the mistake. Sometimes I try to pretend I am a speed reader/writer like my daughter and make mistakes. Working as a blacksmith after recovering from polio. Now that’s a man to be proud of, for generations.
There are blacksmith shops set up with working blacksmiths, in Calgary they have a shop at Heritage Park. Be sure and take your grandkids to some of these places so that they can understand what a man can do if he is a man with determination. That was a great heart warming story.
Thanks for the link. It is a big jump for me. I know and understand horses, the publishing world is a big gamble that I will be jumping into like Old Trooper soon enough. I must be sure i can pay the bills for a few months in case I fall down the outhouse hole. If I do, I hope to eventually come out smelling like a rose. That’s why I must cover my bases.
Joe: I still partake of health foods.
Joe you might have been too young, but I used to go to a bar named the Pine something in Cicero. It was only a few blocks from Hawthorn and Sportsmans Park. A guy named Ears owned it and ran the place. I was introduced to a lot of Mafia types in there. They were a hard core bunch. There was many an offer to be turned down there. My friend Shady would have never dreamed of walking in there. It took me months to figure out why. I can be really slow at times, but discrimination wasn’t just in the South. It was funny that the race track, one of the most open racial places in the world was separated by a fence from Cicero one of the most closed racial places in the world. Blacks had certain streets to drive on and were not permitted to stray. I had forgotten that part also. Real horsemen know that horsemen come in all sizes and colors, nature just throws the dice now and then and a horseman is born. Nature doesn’t care who gets the horse savvy, it just happens. Glad to know you are out there Joe.
I know the bar you’re talking about. I think it was like 2 blocks straight up Central Ave. You walked outside the stable gate at Sportsmans and went straight. Another flashback. remember that gray station wagon that sold hotdogs adf tamales right outside the gate after the races? I’m 60 next week and remember clearly the “attitude” of the people in Cicero especially.
And how true your last statement! Born horsemen are indeed rare and when one is blessed as such it is a special thing! Take care my friend!
I’ve been on the track in some capacity my entire life, but not as much with the horses themselves as I would have liked. We lost our last horse in the very early 70′s after we decided to stay in Florida when Calder opened. I was lucky enough one of our owners knew someone at a dog track and I ended up working in mutuels. A year later I was offered a job with a tote company for which I worked for 29 years. For the last six years I have been running the wagering hub for Las Vegas and Nevada. Keeps me in touch with the industry I love the most at least in some capacity.
If I was in a position to do so, I would be back on the Backside in a flash .However, it’s all about the grandkids now and I want to make sure the best I can their future is secure. LOL!
Thank you Skookum for another great story. I always learn from you and I love the lessons that you weave into your stories, as well as the connections to the politics of today. I too look forward to any books that you will publish, but in the meantime I love to be able to read your short stories!!
Skook,
Well done, . . . just think what you’d do if 100% of your time was dedicated to writing, . . . you’d probably feel like you were in paradise.
Meanwhile, before jumping into that pool head-first, there are alternatives. I like what these guys have done, . . . SmashWords. Their payout to writers varies from 60% to 80% depending on the channel through which the sale is made (assuming you Self Publish.) There are others out there, but this company was launched for the right reasons and seems to have stuck to their objectives.
You can then print some limited runs of the book yourself. I don’t mean through the self publish crowd, but literally, through a printer.
Unless you have a “name” which the public clamours to hear from, . . . in the millions, there’s not much point going through a publisher. All publishers are controlled by a handful of parent companies, primarily in Europe. If you’re lucky they’ll contract you to 8%, but never send you a check – expenses materialize magically to exceed your royalties, even when you sell a reasonable number of books.
E-Books is probably the least stressful road to follow initially. Wouldn’t you love to see your latest tome being read by someone on their iPad as you make your way through an airport, and on to your pre-boarding massage? It’ll put a smile on your face. . . . Just sayin’
The hits keep on comin’. Thanks Skookum for another great read. As I have said before, you have a way with the pen, my friend.
anticsrocks; you are very good yourself, bye
@ilovebees – Thank you for the compliment.
JR, thank you. I will be checking out SmashWords. I consider your advice to be extremely helpful. The information about publishers is enlightening and not all that surprising. Kind of sounds like the horse business, especially buying expensive horses.
Just checked them out. I am on my way. I just need to get Microsoft Word and I can rock and roll.
Skook,
That’s the beauty of it, . . . they don’t discombobulate you with obscure software like some others do such as SearchSight, & Amazon. As you say, you just need MS Word and you’re done.
I’ve just written a couple of books and used Adobe InDesign CS3 on the Mac, which enables exact positioning of elements, etc, but damn it’s a bear. It’s fantastic software, but I had to dedicate time to “learning” that App. Most Adobe Apps are that way. MS Word will serve your needs just fine, and you can convert to a PDF document easily from there as well.
“…… Kind of sounds like the horse business, especially buying expensive horses.” . . . Got that right. Just like all other endeavours – humans just being human, falling into the 80/20 law of the human universe.
As you well know, if you want it done right, no one can do it better than you can. All best wishes on this great project.
I stubbled upon this and really enjoyed the post…Knotty Pine is the tavern and Tastee Donuts. I spent most of my days and nights thier just listening to all the race trackers….(memories)
The Knotty Pine and Tastee Donuts, thanks for the refresher Don, 35 years is a long time to remember back. There was a family of horsemen named Salvino, are you part of that clan?
While at the Knotty Pine one night, a couple of Italian owners invited me to dinner for Italian food after they had cashed a big gamble on a horse I had helped. They staked me several hundred dollars so I had to go. They drove me deep into an Italian neighborhood and pulled up in front of this little Ma and Pa Italian place. I kind of expected a big fancy place, these guys were high rollers, but since I was in my work clothes, I’d be more comfortable in a smaller place.
We walked in and there were several open tables, these guys were saying hello to people and I was looking for a place to sit down; they turned to me when the waiter was going to seat me and said, “Oh no, we are going to eat in the back.” At that point, I became a little apprehensive. We walked through a door in the back and there was a long table with gray haired guys with big bellies and a few guys my age, 20′s.
They introduced me to each guy and listed his occupation with a cute name, like late night entertainment for prostitution and automotive requisition service for auto theft. There were close to twenty guys who represented every crime and vice I had ever heard of; needless to say, I began wishing I was somewhere else.
It was a great meal and the men were friendly towards me. They wanted to hear about my life and work like I was a visitor from another planet; but after they had a few glasses of red wine, they began taking about dropping bodies in Lake Michigan, which judges they owned, and their favorite cops. If I was an informant, I could have solved a lot of crimes from the last 50 years, but I just wanted to get out of there.
It was a long night. I was never asked to harm a horse or to do anything underhanded or I would have left Chicago right away. So the potential problems were all in my head. Now that I look back on that night, it was one of the unique evenings of my life.
Thanks for the memories, Don.
Don Salvino,
Can I assume you’re related to Noel? I know Neil is here in Vegas. I was around back in the late 60′s on with the F. B. Lantz stables. The Knotty Pine and Tasty Donuts. Man, what great memories. I also remeber the track kitchen at Sportsmans having the best cheese danishes. LOL!
Joe
Yes you are correct, thats what started me reading this when you mentioned shooting rats with him. Neal jr lives in Vegas.. Hope all is well and I would enjoy chatting about all those track days…Do you happen to remember a groom who came in the donout shop.: had a lazy eye and groomed a mare named Dancing River…
Don’t remember the horse, but I vaguely remember the groom. Back when I was there, I hung around with Jerry Podlinski. Neil’s latest restaurant is down by the airport I think. As to Noel, he was a great guy. Lent me his driver’s license one night so I could go out and hopefully get laid. Great memories. I’d love to chat. I believe Neil still has my email address. I haven’t seen him in a while as we moved our office and he moved to a new business.
CURT, hi, I use to like the abreviations of comments on the side ,I used it as a reference to switch to another post from there, IT SEEMS EASYER THAT WAY BEFORE,
HOPE TOU PUT THEM BACK.
BYE THANK YOU
anticsrocks
hi,
haven’t seen you around lately, are you back here in 2010?
get yourself here 2012 MAY 6TH, YOUR ABSENCE IS NOTICE
BY YOUR READERS,
HOPE ALL IS WELL, CHECK THE UMONGOUST MOON,
SHE ‘S SMILING AT YOU, ONLY THIS NIGHT IS SHE SO CLOSE
BYE
@ilovebeeswarzone: Hey Beezy. I’m still here. Just recharging my batteries for the upcoming fight we have on our hands.
Thanks for the concern, you are an amazing person and I admire the energy and passion in your posts.
anticsrocks
thank’s for keeping in touch,
best to you
SKOOKUM
YES THIS BOOK WOULD BE THE NO1 TO BEGIN WITH,
GET IT FLYING AND WE’LL PICK IT UP,
ONE AT THE TIME