07/29/05 Granddad`s team

When my Granddad was a young man most transportation was the four-legged equine kind. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back to tell you about some of Granddad's transportation. Granddad's generation saw the automobile become the convenient mode of transportation, but a lot of horses were used before and during the transition period. Granddad's ability to ride wilder, tougher horses and train skittish work teams came out of necessity and a certain recklessness in his character. If a horse didn't buck when he first got on in the morning, he went to the unbroken bunch and picked a new one. One neighbor tells how he left his place riding a kind of broke four or five- year-old and leading another. The neighbor lost sight of him crossing a brushy canyon and when he came out the other side, he was riding the one he had been leading and leading the one he had been riding. Later on he explained-- the new horse wouldn't lead but he knew the one he was riding would, so he just switched. Granddad heard of a horse in Oregon that was hard to ride so he took the trip to try him. The story is he rode the horse but his nose and ears were bleeding when the commotion was overthat sounds like real fun. A contract Granddad had with the Army called for him to ride two un-ridden horses a day and ride two he had ridden once the day before ten miles each--that might get a little interesting. Work teams had to be trained also and when another neighbor saw Granddad coming down a steep road pretty fast with a new team he asked if that was a little fast for the hill, but Granddad just answered it's a dang poor team that can't outrun a wagon. I'm Jeff Keane.