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Bronco Busting

After Dad got back on his feet from his heart attack, he went to the horse barn and bought horses, two of which were off the range. They had never been broken. One day he hired a bronco rider to break one of the horses. We cleared everything out of the yard to give the horse plenty of room to buck. After that, the rider mounted, and the horse began to buck. Then we realized that we had not taken down the clothesline. Nothing bad happened.

I asked Dad if I could break the other horse. Dad said no. I was 15, and he did not want me to get hurt. I kept asking him. One day there was two feet of snow in the yard. He said I could break him. We held him while I saddled him. I got on him, and he began to buck. He had a hard time because of the two feet of snow. I kept whipping him to keep him going. Finally he was sweating so much that he was very tired and then quit bucking. I rode him for a while and then took him to the barn. I was very pleased with myself for having broken him.

I had a female Dalmatian dog whose name was Sally. I thought she had run away. It just occurred to me that a hawk or an owl had gotten her. Because I thought she had run away, I took my horse to go look for her. I saddled and mounted him. He did not buck. I walked him out of the yard to the road where I got him to trot. I was very pleased, so I got him into a lope and then into a run. Suddenly the horse stopped. I did not stop. I flew over his head and landed hard. They horse went back to the barn. I walked home embarrassed. My father was amused.

One time my father was taking several horses to the horse barn to sell. The horse barn was a separate part of the stockyards. We had no truck, so I was leading them behind a wagon that he was driving. My mother was in the wagon leading the horses to be sold. It must have been Sunday evening, because L St. was lined up for miles with trucks full of cattle headed for the stockyards. L St. was an east-west street. The trucks were headed east to the Omaha stockyards. They were coming from central Nebraska.

Dad was approaching L St. from the south. Apparently, he would have to get in line with the trucks. Ken may have been a year old. A car came up behind the wagon and honked its horn. This scared the horses being let, who ran up alongside the right side of the wagon and then beside the team. This spooked the team into a run and then into a runaway. Dad could not control the team. It was on a dead run headed for the line of trucks. Dad told Mom to jump, which she did, but she jumped facing the wagon, thinking she’d be able to land running. Somehow the runaway team got through the line of trucks. Mom ended up with stitches in her head.

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