Get A Clue

Oh that hair...a lifelong struggle

It was reported recently that the game of Clue finally made the National Toy Hall of Fame. The game was joined by Wiffle Ball and none other than paper airplanes.

Clue has a special place in my heart. Sure, I played the game with friends throughout my childhood. But the game also had a key role in a vacation my sis Betsy and I took with my parents when I was around 14 years old (making Bets about 9).

Thinking back, our family didn't take many trips together. There were the lake trips - mostly on our way to collect our sisters from Camp Lake Hubert in Minnesota. We visited our cousins in Okoboji too. During two memorable summers, we traveled by car to sunny Saint Petersburg, Florida. Mom was at the wheel, Susi was co-pilot. Dad flew in later.

Mom and Dad made sure that the Bullock girls had summer fun, sending us to camp - first Bar-L-Ranch in Guthrie Center, then Camp Foster and other camps in Minnesota and Colorado. I traveled to Camp Cheley near Estes Park with my pal Sally.

Mom and Dad did not travel that much. I get it - he lived out of a suitcase all week long, thanks to his career as a women's clothing rep. Okay, he was a panty man for Lorraine Lingerie. Mom and Dad did take some trips with friends, leaving us behind to "rough it" with super sitter Lulabelle Herbert.

I'm not sure why Mom and Dad decided to take Bets and me along on the trip to Biloxi. I also remember visiting our grandparents and think it was the same trip - but could be making that part up. Their plan was to golf, leaving us to swim. One problem - it was cold!

Planning ahead (Mom), they took us to a toy store and we each got to buy something to keep us busy. I chose Clue! So poor Betsy was at my mercy in the golf course clubhouse as we played Clue while Mom and Dad knocked a little white ball around. I'm sure I dominated my little sis in the game. No, not really. Betsy always had a knack for being lucky/good at games.

We also went to a Sea World in Biloxi and later traveled to New Orleans where my big memory was my first pair of Adidas - Robert Haillets. So very cool! Betsy remembers the fancy restaurant we ate at where the men's restroom had urinals with crushed ice. I'm not sure why she got to see that...

I love my Clue memory with Mom and Dad. Congrats to the honor of being selected for the Hall of Fame, Clue. You were already in mine.

Atown friend

Don't you just love dreams? Leslie's dreamworld seems to project what is on my mind.  I dreamed Paul and I purchased a new home that had a huge room filled with Cadillacs - one for every year. I remember thinking - "I don't want these things...we need to sell them!" (and buy more stuff for the house, I think). I guess I've been watching too much HGTV.

And Paul figured it out where the car part came from - I was planning a visit to Atlantic's automotive king, Don Deter. My dad bought quite a few caddies from Dandy Don, and the rest of us purchased lots of other cars. My first car, a Chevy Monza was from Deter's. It was terrible in snow, didn't have air conditioning and the struts went out on it in like 5 years. But I loved that little piece of crap!

Paul and I bought a couple cars there too, before we moved away from southwest Iowa and began buying elsewhere. They always treated us right, fixing what needed to be fixed without too much hassle. It pays to have friends in the car biz.

Don is rehabbing after recent back surgery and is living at Edgewater, a Wesley Acres facility here in West Des Moines. Don is stuck there until a spot opens up in Atlantic.

Don and wife Jane were longtime friends of my parents. When I heard Don was in the area I was happy to stop by to see him. Edgewater is Southwest of our house - south of the Huston cemetery in the middle of the road.

Don was surprised to see me! It took me a while to track him down. Edgewater is a big place - a new retirement campus in the front with assisted living around back where Don was situated. I nearly didn't make it in as I had to figure out how to punch the code in to get access to the door. When they put me in one of those places....I'll never get out!

I enjoyed visited with Don. He relayed that he'd had a dream about Dad recently - he was all dressed up from traveling, but was playing golf. Such a fun boy! I told Don what Amy and Jud are up to - always love to brag up the kids. And that Paul and I now live in the big city. He was interested in my job - truly wanted to know about what I do. We even talked about the chickens and their flu.

I'm glad Don's back is better. Perhaps I'll get to see him again before he moves back to A-town. It's nice to talk to people who know your people. You know what I mean?

My folks

Put me back to sleep...Jack

I still have the hat...and just bought some more cowboy boots

Poco Hijack - the horse, that is. Last night I woke up dreaming I was trying to fix a PowerPoint. Because - you guessed it - that's what I needed to do at work today. Unfortunately, once awake, I began obsessing (just a little bit) about it.

So in order to put myself back to sleep - I needed to think of something else. Something calming. Thanks to Jennifer Deter's recent Facebook post about aging cowgirls, where a bunch of former Atlantic cowgirls reminisced about riding horses around town, I've had my horse Jack on my mind recently. I decided to think about a day in my life, taking care of Jack.

His full name was Poco Hijack - out of Poco Bueno and High Life Beauty. He was a Registered Quarter Horse. I was proud of that fact, and loved looking at his papers. I got him as a three-year old, when I traded in my mare Frosty in for him. I bet you didn't know you can trade horses in like cars. The people I bought her from in Yale, Iowa (with Wayne Rodger's help) wanted her back - so they offered Jack to me (plus we had to pay some cash, since he was registered an all). That winter we took him to Les Walker, a horse trainer in Bondurant, which wasn't contiguous with DSM back then.

A group of people in Atlantic were pretty forward thinking - they decided to build a condominium for horses. Mostly it was Wayne Rodgers and Ron Guttenfelder it was on his land) - but they rounded up some more investors, who included Leroy Nelson and me. I'm drawing a blank on others. I received a bit of cash when my mom's parents passed away so I used that money.

The place is a steel building with an small indoor arena. It has eleven stalls - six with outdoor runs - a place for the ponies to step outside, and five indoor only. There is a wide center aisle that I think was asphalted. Wayne hooked old leather straps to wooden posts on each side of the aisle so one could hook a horse up to groom him. There is a small tack room next to a hallway to the arena and the saddle room. Above the stalls there is a storage area for small bales of sweet smelling of alfalfa hay. Above the walkway, a hinged door was built so you can drop the bales through to the floor. In my day, one of the stalls held oats and bags of Bright Eyes feed from Walnut Grove, where Wayne was the General Manager.

Before I could drive myself, my mom or my sis Cindo used to drop me off at "the barn" as we called the condo. Even if I didn't have time to hang out with my fave guy, Jacko, I had to feed him each night - 1 flake of hay and a quarter of a coffee can of oats. There was a guy named Dean (yeah - that's another owner) who fed in the mornings. I paid him $.25 a day. That was my first experience with a checkbook and at being responsible to pay for something.

Working with Jack was so relaxing. Even cleaning the stall. Little did I know that I was recycling back then - using sawdust as bedding, and dumping the dirty stuff into a spreader for Ron's fields. We got an electric waterer - heated so it wouldn't freeze up. It still needed to be cleaned periodically. The best part was grooming. I was thinking about my tools - the wide flat leather brush, the aluminum mane and tail comp, and that thing we used when they were shedding - a long serrated blade with leather handles. It was perfect to scrape off his dead winter coat. And the hoof pick, to clean the crap out of his feet - taking care not to damage the frog - that's the tender part in the middle.

As I said, Jack was a youngster when I first got him. I was a bit scared of him! After his trip to Les Walker's, he was much better behaved. And once he and I settled in - we were fast friends. He was quite a character. One time at a horse show in Audubon he not only ate ice cubes, but a french fry! I liked to take him carrots and apples. Outside the barn there was a "loafing" area where I could turn Jack out while I totally cleaned his stall. Sometimes I would just lay on his back with my head on his butt, thinking teenaged thoughts while Jack grazed.

I didn't even start to think about riding Jack last night, when I fell asleep. What a joy it was to have a horse like Jack. I have been blessed in my life with many wonderful people who helped me - my parents who supported me in my desire to have a horse, my grandparents who made it financially possible and Wayne and others at the barn who helped me care for the horse. That big animal taught me a great deal.