50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston   

By this time, Summer, the out-of-doors becomes the palace of activity for many folks who want to be in the open, or have to be, for work purposes.  There is a special means of transport, too, where some may get out and prance.  I am writing for  those  who “spent” a good many years  buying, raising and working horses. You have heard the stories.  My wife’s brother, Rich, a retired farmer,  kept  a pair of  Standards. They were hitched to a buckboard  wagon,  a  barn discovery, wooden spoked wheels and all. The  team of Standards, Rich driving, moved in parades and other happenings in and around Dysart. On  that  family farm decades ago,  Babe and Tops did the work that needed doing. My Uncle Parker  owned  a  team,  kept but seldom used, named  Pete and  Fred.  On  one of  my  summer  visits  the tractor stuck  in a  muddy dip west of the barn. Harnesses were tightened on the two. They pulled with that “Hy-Yup” call from my uncle, freeing the big wheels. Deeper yet, my Grandad, Frank Grimes, a southern Iowa farmer, bought and sold work and riding horses  as a business, in the first decades of the last century.

Many of us in the 50+ years of our lives fondly recall these  teams  and  other horses.  They  made  us happy  as they led field farming, working the land, or were bought to ride. Please remain and  read poet  Henry Taylor’s poem.

Riding  A One-Eyed Horse

One side of his world is always missing.
You may give it a casual wave of the hand
or rub it with your shoulder as you pass,
but nothing on his blind side ever happens.
Hundreds of trees slip past him into darkness,
drifting into a hollow hemisphere
whose sounds you will have to try to explain.
Your legs will tell him not to be afraid
if you learn never to lie.
Do not forget  to turn his head
and let what comes come seen.
He will jump the fences he has to if you swing
toward them from the side that he can see
and hold his good eye straight.
The heavy dark will stay beside you always;
let him learn to lean against it.
It will steady him and see you safely through
diminished fields.

I rescued this poem from last pages of a book titled Poetry (second edition) with a first edition in 1975. I am so glad I moved through the 460+ pages to find it to pass along to you.

It is county fair time, and I urge you to get to one near you, for your kids and their friends to get those once-a-year treats and a carnival ride or two. These Fairs will be ongoing in July. Join me here then.