Grandpa

Today would have been my maternal grandfather's birthday. He was such a good man.....

Kind, gentle, generous, and funny. I wish we had recorded his stories. They were many and amazing......and long, and rambling, but good. 

By the time we knew him, he was older and not in the spring of his wild youth. However, I have always loved the story he told of riding a wild horse for a relative who was something of a horse dealer.

The horse was unbroken and large and generally unrideable, but he got on, wrapped his long, thin legs around and pointed him out of the yard. It was Powder River, let 'her buck from there for nearly four miles, cross country. Any country. All country.

The stable was in Johnstown, but the horse jumped fences and forged creeks all the way to Sammonsville.

 Grandpa's eyes still lit up when he told the story many decades later. 

Guess the nag was tired enough at the end to return home in a more docile manner too. I'll bet they called him broke after that. Must have been fun.

Grandpa also grew rhubarb, the best I've ever enjoyed. I still have some plants he gave me that I have moved from house to house for forty years. He was a grandpa to be loved and fought over with the other grandkids and generally depended on for anything anyone needed. 

I miss him. July second will never be the same without him.