Soapweed
Well-known member
Lately we have been going through "stuff" that has accumulated through the years. One old steel ammunition box was opened early yesterday morning, and it was like a time capsule into my past. While going through some of this old memorabilia, I mentioned to Peach, "It feels like I've been bucked off and hit the ground hard, because my life has been flashing before my very eyes." I only kept a diary for one year of my life, and this would have been in the year 1968, when I was a sophomore attending Merriman High School in the last year it was a high school. This diary filled several notebooks, and I think my dad bribed me at the time with a financial incentive if it was kept for an entire year. It's been fun reading what life was like 46 years ago.
Here is the introduction to my diary, written before starting on January 1, 1968:
As you have probably gathered, my name is Steve Moreland. I am 16 and a sophomore in "good old Merriman High." My sole ambition is to become a successful rancher.
1967, as well as the preceding years of my short career, has treated my real well. I made a trade with Dad, getting another Princeton heifer [a Hereford, as they were all Herefords on our ranch in those days] to go with my other four (all five are half-sisters and will be three next spring). I also got a purebred heifer calf in this trade. If this little herd "makes it through to grass," and each cow has a healthy calf at her side, I'll be headed down the right road to ranching and be a pretty happy boy at that.
In another trade with Dad, I got a two-year-old sorrel gelding, two old fencing wagons, a greasy kerosene lantern, and all of the harness he owned except for one set that he reserved the right to keep. In the late fall, Dad helped me to break this sorrel colt and a bay two-year-old mare that I already claimed. With these two green-broke colts and my four-year-old Quarter Horse mare, Sassy [not her real name, but more politically correct], I am pretty well mounted.
My cousins of the same age, Ken Moreland and John Fairhead, and I have gone on two over-night camping trips on horseback. A friend from Martin [SD], Davy Jones, went with us on the first one and Mr. Tarsitano, a teacher from Merriman, went with us on the second one. A packhorse, carrying grub and bedrolls, accompanied us on both trips.
In early spring Dad purchased the "Leach place," twenty miles south of Merriman. This has really kept us busy, changing fences, putting in windmills, watching the cattle, etc., but it has been fun, too. A few "antiques" were found there and now adorn the ranch premises, much to everyone's dismay.
Brandings, cattle drives, a 4-H exchange trip to Minnesota, and general all-around ranch work highlighted the year. This pretty well sums up 1967, which I hope will prepare you from my writings along the Diary line.
Here is the introduction to my diary, written before starting on January 1, 1968:
As you have probably gathered, my name is Steve Moreland. I am 16 and a sophomore in "good old Merriman High." My sole ambition is to become a successful rancher.
1967, as well as the preceding years of my short career, has treated my real well. I made a trade with Dad, getting another Princeton heifer [a Hereford, as they were all Herefords on our ranch in those days] to go with my other four (all five are half-sisters and will be three next spring). I also got a purebred heifer calf in this trade. If this little herd "makes it through to grass," and each cow has a healthy calf at her side, I'll be headed down the right road to ranching and be a pretty happy boy at that.
In another trade with Dad, I got a two-year-old sorrel gelding, two old fencing wagons, a greasy kerosene lantern, and all of the harness he owned except for one set that he reserved the right to keep. In the late fall, Dad helped me to break this sorrel colt and a bay two-year-old mare that I already claimed. With these two green-broke colts and my four-year-old Quarter Horse mare, Sassy [not her real name, but more politically correct], I am pretty well mounted.
My cousins of the same age, Ken Moreland and John Fairhead, and I have gone on two over-night camping trips on horseback. A friend from Martin [SD], Davy Jones, went with us on the first one and Mr. Tarsitano, a teacher from Merriman, went with us on the second one. A packhorse, carrying grub and bedrolls, accompanied us on both trips.
In early spring Dad purchased the "Leach place," twenty miles south of Merriman. This has really kept us busy, changing fences, putting in windmills, watching the cattle, etc., but it has been fun, too. A few "antiques" were found there and now adorn the ranch premises, much to everyone's dismay.
Brandings, cattle drives, a 4-H exchange trip to Minnesota, and general all-around ranch work highlighted the year. This pretty well sums up 1967, which I hope will prepare you from my writings along the Diary line.
