<TITLE>02. Par 5-8</TITLE>L-5 So, I--I kind of like that name. So it reminded me of one time when... My father used to be quite a rider; he got hurt. He would break horses, and he'd ride the rodeos, and a very fancy rider, and a very good shot with the--with guns. And so he said... One day I remember, at home, I wanted to be like my dad. And I... We had an old plow horse. And a lot of you fellows around here is off the farm, aren't you? So you know what an old plow horse is. I plowed that old fellow; he's old to begin with. And I'd plow him way late in the evening, dad wanting me to take him out so I wouldn't hurt the old fellow. And I had a little old watering trough down there, a log hollowed out. Did you ever see one? Say, then I'm not the only country boy around here today, am I? An old watering trough and an old pump where you used to pump the water...
And I'd get all my little brothers and set them along on the side of the barnyard fence there. And I'd get this trough full of water, and after the old horse got a drink, dad would be back out working somewhere else. I'd go in and get his old saddle and get me a handful of cockleburs and push up under it, pull down the girth and climb up on this old horse.

L-6 Poor old fellow's so old he couldn't... and stiff and tired, he couldn't get his feet off the ground, so he just stand there and bawl, you know. And I'd take off my hat and swing back and forth; I said, "I'm a real cowboy," all my little brothers setting there, you know. I just seen too many movies, that was all.
When I was about nineteen I told mother I was going up here in Indiana to Boy Scout Reservation, Green's Mill to camp. I run off and went out west, went to Arizona. I thought, "I"m a real rider, I'm broke now, why not get me some--some real money." So I heard there's a rodeo. So I got me a pair of Levi's, and went out there and looked around. I found out where the corral was, where they was bringing out the horses. I looked, setting alongside that fence, and there was a whole bunch of disfigured cowboys, just bow-legged and all range worn, and I thought "Say, that's where I belong." I climbed up on the fence, set up there.

L-7 They had a horse they brought out; the caller went forth and told who he was, and how famous a bucking horse he was...?... Somebody was going to ride him. So they brought some famous rider out, and he had to catch-as-catch-can as he come through the--the bull chute. So when I was standing out there, and I seen this fellow drop off in the saddle, great big long-legged fellow, looked like would be a good rider. Just as he hit the saddle, boy, that horse made about two jumps, done a sunfish, and the rider, saddle and all went off, and when he did, when he come down the pick-ups got the horse and the ambulance come got the rider. The blood was running out of his ears, and his eyes, and nose, mouth. So this fellow come by all along the fence where all them cowboys, supposed to be riders, was all lined up. Said, "I will give any man fifty dollars," that was depression, "give any man fifty dollars who will ride him for thirty seconds."
Nobody could... Everybody kept still. He rode right down in front of me. "Sir, are you a rider?"
I said, "No, sir." I realized that wasn't my old plow horse. There's a difference in him.

L-8 When I used to go around, you know, and say I was a preacher, one day I was over at St. Louis, Missouri; there was a little Pentecostal preacher there named him Rev. Robert Daugherty. And that fellow was in a tent meeting, and he preached till he got plumb out of breath; he knees was buckled together; and he'd catch his breath. You could hear him a city block away, come back preaching. Somebody said, "You a preacher?"
I said, "No sir."


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