1989 ~ Chasing the DEA

It was in 1989 while Benjamin and Trey were in Pagosa so I was home all by myself.  When I arrived at work one morning, there was a big black Suburban in the parking lot.  It had totally black windows and looked very creepy.  When I looked in the windows all I could see where some vague black shapes.  When I asked about it, no one seemed to have any idea who it belonged to.  That seemed odd to me since it was so striking.  I wondered about it all day.  

When I left work, as I got in my car it pulled out so of course I followed it.  I mean, who wouldn't???  It led me on a merry chase all right.  We flew through Vernon then onto 387 and it kept picking up speed.  We got to Electra and then I had to give up.  I think by then we were going about 80 mph.  I knew if I got stopped I would lose it and probably end up in jail.  LOL.  Crestfallen, I returned home with my curiosity unabated.  

However, the next day, there it was again!  This time Dr. Pete Jacoby (one of my bosses) was in his office so I went and asked him about it.  He said "Well actually I'm glad you are asking.  The feeling is mutual apparently".  He told me to have a seat and then explained the story.  The Suburban belonged to the DEA and they were parking it at A&M and using an A&M official vehicle (with Pete in it) to stake out the crop dusting landing strip next door. Apparently drug dealers were landing at some of the small airports at night to distribute their drugs.  The day before they were headed to a small landing strip on the other side of Electra.  

And yes, of course, they saw me following them.  They were not happy because if I had been stopped it might have attracted attention.  They asked Pete if he knew who it was and he said of course, and promised to tell me to back off.  LOL.  So I was warned not to bother the DEA.  Usually, isn't the other way around?   

1990 The Train

In 1990, when we were living in Vernon, we were literally "on the other side of the tracks".  We lived on what we called Smith Hill.  There were only 4 families living there:  A Vietnam vet, Jay, who lived with his wife in a trailer right by the railroad crossing (who suffered from PTSD and when he got drunk on whiskey, would get his guns and shoot at the trains); my in-laws, Martha and Ben Smith; Trey, Benjamin, and me; and the Masons, which included Jean and her two daughters, Tammy and Tiffany.  Jean's ex-husband, John, lived in Lubbock and we had visited him a couple of times.  John was a great guy, the lift of the party, but he had an arrest warrant in Wilbarger County so couldn't come to town to see his daughters. Tammy Mason was a great singer and sang at almost every local event.  Her younger sister Tiffany occasionally babysat for Benjamin, who was about 3-1/2 at the time.

SMITH HILL
Red = Martha & Ben Smith // Aqua = Fay, Trey, & Benjamin Smith // Red = Jean Mason // Yellow = Jay

The coal trains would go by our house all the time, sometimes several times a day.  Our RR crossing had no lights or barriers, just a stop sign, and the engineer would blow the whistle from pretty far away.  Our dog, Critter, would howl every time she heard the whistle, which was really annoying.

On May 12, the day before Mother's Day, 1990, I was washing my hair in the kitchen sink.  I had all the windows open because it was hot.  Benjamin was playing somewhere.  There was an airport just north of us on the Oklahoma side and the Altus AFB was close as well, so we often heard plane noises, as well as trains.  I heard what sounded like a jet engine, very loud, not normal at all.  I shut off the faucet and listened and it was a horrible metallic screeching noise.  I ran to the back door which faced north because I thought a plane was crashing, but there was nothing.

I then ran to the front door and I saw a train moving slowly along the track.  I could only see the top half of he locomotive because the track dipped down after the crossing so it would be able to go under Hwy 287 a little further down.  There was what appeared to be a huge cloud of smoke above it.  I couldn't imagine what was going on, but I had a bad feeling.  I towel dried my hair and got Benjamin and we set off on foot down to the crossing.  By the time I got there, the train was stopped and was blocking the crossing.  There were several cars on the other side and there were emergency vehicles there as well, one in particular on the bluff above where the engine was.  As I got closer and came around the bend, I saw something lying on the ground near the track.  It was a little boy.

I picked up Benjamin and turned him away.  It was a little boy about Benjamin's size, wearing blue jeans, and a white shirt with a brown belt.  He was lying face down in the dirt.  Benjamin saw him, though, and kept asking me, "Why is he lying there Mommy?  Why is he lying there?"  By this time, I had a sense of what had happened.  I told Benjamin that the little boy was taking a nap because it was hot.  Benjamin, bless him, kept asking more questions,  "Why is he in the dirt?"

I walked further down the track and saw my worst nightmare.  There was a car in front of the locomotive.  At that point, a police officer called over to me to stop and not go any further, so I walked back to the crossing.  My head was buzzing.  I kept looking at that little boy.  He didn't seem real.

Suddenly, I saw Trey looking through the railroad cars at me and waving and yelling.  I walked closer to the train and a police officer push him aside and asked me if I was okay and if I had seen what happened.  I told him that yes we were okay and no I didn't see what happened, but I heard it. He said they would come talk to me later.

I was able to talk to Trey and apparently, there was something on the radio about a train hitting a car at the Harrison Street crossing, that there was a small boy killed, and that it was a brown car.  One of Martha's friends heard it and immediately called Martha, who was in Colorado with Ben at the time. Martha  called Trey at his shop and told him to get home.  We lived on Harrison Street, I had a brown car, and Benjamin was a small boy.  Obviously, Martha and Ben were frantic.  Eventually, I passed Benjamin between the cars and Trey took him to the shop.  I wanted him away from the scene.  

I sat on the ground and stayed near the little boy.  Someone called to me and handed me a blanket through the cars and asked me to cover him up.  I didn't even know his name, but I couldn't help picturing that being Benjamin.  

Car (red) and Train (black) on Track

There was a lot of activity at the bluff. I walked down to my side and was able to see what was happening.  The car was crushed.  There was debris everywhere.  The paramedics had just run down the bluff to get to the car and they had set up ropes to get victims up to the road.  Eventually they brought up a little boy, older than the one on the ground, who wasn't moving.  Then they pulled up a woman who didn't appear to be badly hurt.  Two ambulances left for the hospital.  But there were still several paramedics at the car working on someone else.  Eventually, they stopped and other people went down and started trying to get parts of the car open.  At that point, they blocked off the car and I couldn't see anything anymore.  I still didn't know who these people were though.  Benjamin and I were the only people on our side of the track.  Martha and Ben, Jean Mason and her daughters, Jay and his wife, all seemed to be gone.

After some time, the engineer uncoupled the cars so the crossing was open, and I was able to drive across.  I went to the hospital, which was very close by.  As I pulled up, a medical helicopter was just taking off.  Someone said it was the bigger boy who had severe head injuries.  I asked if they knew who the people were and they wouldn't say.

I went home after that.  I was terribly shaken.  I think I was still in shock.  I stopped at the bluff and looked down.  The train was still there, of course.  But so was the car.  It was mangled so badly that it was almost unrecognizable.  There was just one part that wasn't, the back seat behind the driver.  I crossed over the track.  I wanted to walk down the track, but there were police guarding it so I went home.  I just kept walking around aimlessly.  I thought I knew who had been in the car, but I wasn't sure.  I kept seeing that little boy lying there, with those clean blue jeans and that clean white shirt, face down in that red dirt.

Eventually, we found out who was in that car.  This is what happened.  

The driver was Janna Hardage, who was a local school teacher.  She had gone to the Masons' house to pick up Tiffany to take her to a school concert.  In the car with her were were her 2 sons, Colby and Connor.  Tiffany's sister Tammy and her mother Jean had already left for the concert.  Janna picked up Tiffany and they crossed the track on their way to the school.  Then Tiffany realized she had forgotten her purse and begged Janna to go back and get it, as they were still very close to the Mason house.  Janna was not happy about it, but she turned around and drove quickly back.  She looked both ways at the crossing (per her statement) and the next thing she knew, there was a terrible impact and the car starting moving sideways.  When she looked back to see if Connor was okay, she realized he was gone!  The car seat was there but he was gone.  His window had been open because it was so hot.  She looked for her son Colby and saw him lying on the back seat.  Tiffany, in the passenger seat, looked unhurt but was not moving.  Janna herself didn't appear to be hurt.  She said that when the car stopped moving, she tried to get her door open to go look for Connor, but she couldn't.  She couldn't hear anything because of the screeching of the train pushing the car along the track.  As soon as the train stopped, the engineer was able to gt her out of the car.  By then, the first ambulance had arrived.  It just happened to be at the hospital about 2 miles away, and they heard the noise.  It was also called in by people working at Celanese, right beside the crossing.

The little boy on the track was Connor Hardage.  He was ejected from his carseat on impact, and throw out through the window.  He died of head trauma.  The boy who was airlifted was Colby Hardage.  He had severe head injuries.  Apparently he was flown to Dallas, where they performed some experimental surgery on him, successfully I think.  The person in the car was Tiffany, Benjamin's babysitter and our neighbor.   At impact, her aorta ruptured and she basically bled to death in the car.  She died before they could remove her from the car.

AFTERMATH

After I got home, I was in shock.  I couldn't sit down.  I couldn't do anything.  I called Trey and fell apart.  Trey called the police to see if anyone had notified John Mason in Lubbock that his daughter was dead.  Apparently the Police Chief had done so and had told him that as long as he stayed out of trouble, they wouldn't pursue the arrest warrant they had for him, they would turn a blind eye at the funeral as well.

The next day, Mother's Day, John came to see us.  I will never forget what it was like, seeing him standing in our yard, looking at the train, and crying.  It was  heart wrenching.  We all cried a lot that day.   It was while he was there that they moved the train.   

I called in sick on Monday because I wanted to go to the funeral home to see Connor.  In fact, I couldn't stay away.  I went 3 or 4 times on Monday.  On Tuesday I went back to work but all I did all day was draw diagrams of the crossing, where Connor had been lying, etc.  Dr. Gilmore, the Director of the Research Center came and talked to me and said that if I wanted to take some time off, it would be fine.  In fact, he recommended it.   But I didn't want to.  It would have made it even easier to obsess about it.

Example of Diagram Trying to Make Sense of It

Every day that week, when I left work I would go to the funeral home to visit Connor, then I would go home and walk along the track with Benjamin, both sides, over and over.  I found a lot of things.  I even found one of the wheels from the car that had rolled a long way down the track.  Every day I would take home anything I found, no matter how tiny, and put it in a pile under one of our mesquite trees.  I guess I was building a memorial in a way.

One day that week, I was interviewed by the police.  I showed them where I had been washing my hair, where we had walked down to the track, etc.  They kept asking me if I had heard the train whistle.  I had to tell them I couldn't remember.  When you hear it so often, you tend to block it out.  Plus, I was washing my hair at the time.  I just couldn't give them a yes or a no.  It wasn't until I had gone over it in my mind probably hundreds of time that I realized that I hadn't heard Critter howling, which would definitely had been audible even with the water running.  If Critter didn't howl, did that mean the whistle didn't blow?  It was important because there was a wrongful death lawsuit against Burlington Northern in the works.  I had to write a detailed statement.

The day after the accident, as I was coming home from town, I saw piles of flowers at the mailboxes at the crossing.  Every day, people came and left flowers.  They sometimes parked by the crossing.  Sometimes when I was combing the tracks, I would talk to them.  I understood, because I have done that myself at scenes of tragedies.  I just never expected to be living near one.  I put a notice in the Vernon Daily Record thanking everyone for the flowers and promised as long as they kept coming, I would take care of them.  After that, people started leaving flowers in vases and plants.  Every day, Benjamin and I would walk to the mailbox with water and take care of them.  It helped me, actually.

About a week after the accident, Benjamin starting having his Ugly Man nightmares.  That's also when his friend Shelfis arrived (see separate posts).  

I'd lie awake at night reconstructing the scene in my head, over and over.  When Janna was driving around Celanese, did she hear a whistle and decide she had time to cross?  She said she didn't hear a whistle.  But were the kids chattering and she didn't notice it?  Why would the engineer not blow it when he knew the train was a little hidden behind the Celanese buildings?  My gut feeling was that he had blown it, but there was the Critter thing....  The people at Celanese had the same problem I did, they tended not to hear it anymore.

A few weeks later, Benjamin and I were walking up and down the track when a pickup parked by the mailboxes.  A man got out and started walking toward us.  it was Mike.  He said he sometimes came and did the same thing I did, walk the track.  He told me that Colby was recovering slowly but they were optimistic he could have a normal life.  I told him about the 'memorial' I had of items I had recovered and asked if he wanted to see it.  He said yes so we got in his pickup and  went to the house.  I told him to take anything he wanted.  He found a keyring and took it; He said it had belonged to Colby.  My heart went out to him.   

Janna took a leave of absence from teaching for the 1990-91 school year.  I found out later that she and Mike were divorced a few years after the accident.  She had no visible scars but two children, one of them her own, had died in her car, and her other son was seriously injured.  She has scars.

Later, I heard that the engineer of the train had previously been involved in a death through no fault of his own.  After this happened, he retired.  He was suffering from PTSD, not surprisingly.

About a year later, Benjamin and I went to an EMS demonstration and talked to one of the paramedics who had responded to the scene and who had worked on Tiffany.  He said she was awake while they were working on her.  He could tell she had a very short time to live unless they could get her to surgery but she was pinned in the car.  He said they all knew she wasn't going to make it, and all they could do was reassure her.  It was a painless death, he said she just went to sleep.  He said it was so traumatizing that he took a 3-month leave of absence from EMS.  I am eternally grateful that she didn't know she was dying and that she wasn't in pain.   

Every time I saw a Burlington Northern train for years after that, I checked the number on the locomotive, just in case.  It was burned into my brain.  It actually did go by a couple of times and it gave me a chill.

We moved to Denver about 5 months later, in October 1990.  I kept looking at trains, but never saw that locomotive again.  

About 18 months after the accident, I was interviewed over the phone by a lawyer involved in the lawsuit.  I also had to send them a written statement (see below).

This is my opinion of what happened.  Janna left the Mason house after picking up Tiffany.  She turned around in the Celanese parking lot after Tiffany said she forgot her purse.  Because there was arguing in the car about being late for the concert, Janna probably didn't think much about a train coming.  She wasn't used to the crossing like we were.  She left the parking lot driving as fast as she could and didn't look down the track like we always did, as she wasn't really tuned in to it the way we Smith Hill residents were, plus she was distracted.  She starting to cross the tracks at the same time the engineer realized she was there.  He probably didn't see her until she was almost at the crossing because of the Celanese buildings.  By the time he hit the brakes, it was too late to make any difference.  A train going 30 mph takes a long time to stop.  Whose fault was it?  I don't think Burlington Northern  and the engineer were at fault unless he did not blow his whistle.  Obviously, the driver was at fault for not stopping at the crossing and looking.

I found out later that the suit had been settled, with Burlington Northern accepting 25% responsibility and Janna being held 75% responsible.  That fits with what I think happened.

I still look at trains, even though I can't remember the numbers.  I think I forgot it on purpose.  But I always stop at every rail crossing.  

Ironically, the train track is even closer to me than it was in Vernon, and I have 2 crossings nearby.  Instead of upsetting me, it comforts me in a way.  I always stop at every crossing and look both ways.  If anything, I am over cautious.  But I have reason to be.


I also stopped celebrating Mothers Day.  I told Benjamin that if he wants to send a card or something to me, that's fine.  But for me, it just brings back very traumatic memories of John Mason crying over his daughter, and the screech of that car being pushed down the tracks.

1990 The Ugly Man

When he was about 3-1/2, for about 6 months, Benjamin had nightmares.  He would wake up screaming and crying.  Sometimes I brought him into our bed, and sometimes I stayed in his car bed with him.  He said in the dreams he was stolen by "an ugly man".  He couldn't really describe him, just that in various situations, the "ugly man" would grab him and run away with him.  

I talked to Uncle Carl (our family doctor) about it, and he said it was probably a reaction to the train accident.  A boy about his age was killed, and even though I didn't really talk to Benjamin about it, he saw it and he saw Colby lying there.  It affected me greatly, and I'm sure he heard me talking about it.  It's possible that because he couldn't really express his fear, the only way he could visualize it was that he was stolen, the way Colby was "stolen" from his family.  In that context, it makes sense.

That is probably also the origin of his imaginary friend, Shelfis.

After we moved to Denver in September 1990, he didn't dream about the "ugly man" anymore.

1985 River View Farm

The first time I saw "In Cold Blood" was when it first came out in 1967 and my parents, sister, and I were living in Bernardsville, NJ.  

Movie "In Cold Blood"

My sister Lydia and I went to see the movie by ourselves.  My parents dropped us off on the way to dinner with some friends.  The movie scared the bejesus out of me.  It was so bad I actually held onto my sister's arm (and I didn't touch her, ever).  Finally, I was so scared I went out in the lobby and called my parents to tell them to come get us right away.  

What had frightened me so badly was that the Clutters were totally innocent victims.  It made me realize I could be one too.  It showed me how vulnerable we all are.  Apparently, I had believed that as long as I didn't do anything bad, I would be safe.  Not so.  Our house was surrounded by trees, lots of them that used to make noise in the wind.  It was weeks before I wouldn't shiver when I heard them, even though I had a German Shepherd sleeping on my bed.

The Clutter Family

I also think I related to Nancy Clutter.  She was out riding her horse on the river that day.  She was not that much younger than I was.  And she was innocent.  And she was brutally killed.  At that time, I hadn't read the book, though my mother had.  After the movie, I decided to read it and decided it was considerably less frightening than the movie, but also in a way it was more so.

The next time I saw the movie was when I lived in New York, probably around 1970.  My husband David, Lydia, and I were supposed to drive to Boston for some reason I can't remember.  The weather was nasty and I decided not to go.  After they left, I saw that "In Cold Blood" was on TV..  I decided to watch it again to get rid of that awful fear from years before.  I left the lights on, and watched it with my 3 dogs.  It was scary, but this time I was ready.  Reading the book had also taken away some of the fear.

In 1985, I was living in Vernon, Texas, and was married to Trey.  His friend Gordon Haynes had had white German Shepherds for many years, and we decided to get a puppy.  I drove to Garden City, Kansas, to get our puppy.  


When I arrived in Garden City, I saw a sign that said Holcomb 7 miles.  Holcomb, Kansas.  Wasn't that where the Clutters' farm was, River View Farm?  I decided to go before I went to see the puppy.

I found the house right away.  That long driveway with the trees was still there.  It had been close to 20 years since I first was so terrified by that movie, but it all came back.  It affected me more than I had expected, but I'll never forget it.

1986 Challenger Baby Shower

My son Benjamin was due to arrive on February 1, 1986.  At the time, I was working at the Texas A&M Research Center outside of Vernon, Texas.  My mother had come from Maine to stay for the birth, and had been there about a week.  This particular day she was at my Grandmother Mary's, as they were both going to come to TAMU for my baby shower, and she had spent the night there.  

Texas A&M Research & Extension Center

I wasn't allowed to help with the decorations, which drove me crazy.  I had to sit at my desk and I could hear all the whispering and giggling was going on in the conference room.  The shower was supposed to start at noon.

At around 8:45 am, my phone rang.  I answered the way I always did and heard a strange, choking sound.  I couldn't figure out what it was until I heard my mother's voice saying "Oh my God, it blew up! It blew up!"  I had no idea what she meant so I kept saying, "What?  What blew up?  What are you talking about?"  Finally she was able to say "The Space Shuttle, it blew up!".  I laid the phone down on my desk and ran into the conference room and told someone to turn on the TV in there.  Of course, the news was on every station.  It was true.

Space Shuttle Challenger January 28, 1986

After that, the girls kept decorating, but the joy had gone out of it.  My mother and grandmother arrived around 11:45 and they were both in tears.  So were we.  We tried hard to have a great time at the shower, but after the lunch and cake were eaten and the presents were opened, the somber mood returned and we just watched TV off and on for the rest of the day.  It seemed too awful to be real.

Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion

In an odd coincidence, on February 1, 2003, almost 17 years later to the day, the space Shuttle Columbia exploded on Benjamin's birthday.  At the time, I was having DishNetwork installed on our TV and the first picture I ever saw with Dish was the Columbia disaster.   

Space Shuttle Columbia February 1, 2003

Benjamin has always felt as though he jinxed the shuttle program somehow, the Challenger on his shower day and the Columbia on his birthday, but it was just a sad coincidence.

Space Shuttle Columbia Explosion

1981 January 20

On the day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, I was living in Vernon, Texas.  We had our TV upstairs in the art studio, so we were settled in for the day.  While we were watching all the subsequent events, the news came that the Iranian hostages had been released.  It was incredible!  We were glued to the TV.

Ronald Reagan taking the oath of office

Then we heard explosions...  Couldn't imagine what it was, no sirens, no smoke outside, nothing.  I went downstairs and I soon figured out what had happened.  I had put eggs on to boil to make egg salad for dinner, and they had all exploded!  

Oops

All the water had boiled away and the eggs just blew up, all over the kitchen and the ceiling.  I couldn't help but laugh.  It was a good day!

Hostages at Andrews AFB on 1/27/1981

On Jan. 20, 1981, Iran released 52 Americans who had been held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. The hostages were placed on a plane in Tehran as Reagan delivered his inaugural address.

The New York Times said that Reagan’s address “made no reference at all to the long-awaited release of the hostages” as he was “apparently following a self-imposed restraint of not saying anything until the Americans had left Iranian air space.”

Reagan announced the release of the hostages later in the afternoon at a Congressional luncheon. “The news seemed to turn the inauguration celebration, normally a highly festive occasion, into an event of unbridled joy for Mr. Reagan and his supporters,” The Times wrote.

The Iran Hostage Crisis had begun on Nov. 4, 1979, when a group of several hundred militant Islamic students broke into the United States embassy in Tehran and took its occupants hostage. The students initially intended to hold the hostages for only a short time, but changed their plans when their act garnered widespread praise in Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the country’s supreme leader, was among the supporters.

In response, President Carter imposed economic sanctions on Iran. In April 1980, he authorized a rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, conducted by the U.S. military. The mission failed badly, as two U.S. aircraft collided, killing eight military personnel. The prolonged crisis came to reflect poorly on Mr. Carter, who was seen as weak for failing to secure the hostages’ release. Ronald Reagan’s defeat of President Carter in the 1980 presidential election happened to fall on the one-year anniversary of the hostage-taking.

Mr. Carter continued to negotiate for the hostages’ release until the end of his term of office. Finally, on Jan. 19, 1981, Algerian-mediated talks between the U.S. and Iran produced an agreement to end the crisis.

1978 Laundry Day

When I lived in Vernon, Texas, our house was next door to a laundromat.  Our goats would escape on almost a daily basis and go there to hang out.  The learned really quickly that there were kids there (homan ones) and that human kids usually had things to eat.  They also had lots of trash.  Goats love paper.  People think they eat tin cans, but they don't; they eat the labels off the cans.  There was a vending machine at the laundromat, so there were a lot of wrappers lying around.  The owners didn't do much cleaning either.  It was goat heaven.

Occasionally I would get a knock on the door asking if those were my goats next door, but usually people tolerated them or just chased them away.   They rarely went out onto Wilbarger St, which was a main road through town.

Goat eating clothes

One day, I went and rounded them up, only to find that Vincent van Goat had a large piece of denim hanging out of his mouth.  When I went to the laundry to find out what damage Vincent had done, someone told me that Vincent had grabbed a pair of jeans out of her laundry basket and run off with it.  When she finally got it back from him, there was a large piece missing.  I offered to pay for the jeans but she thought it was so funny she wouldn't let me.  She said she could cut off the other leg and wear them short. 

Goats are browsers, not grazers.  They damage grass.  But they are great at trimming trees.  We had several beautiful honey locust trees in our lot.  The goats would stand on their back feet and eat up as far as they could reach.  As a result, all the trees were nicely trimmed to an even level. 

1980 Polioencephalmalcia

One Sunday morning I woke up and heard Wings screaming.  At first I thought she wanted to get on Tug, but when I looked out the window, she was standing in the middle of the lot, screaming and staggering around.  Tug was by the fence looking very anxious.   It was barely light, but I could tell that there was definitely something wrong with Wings.  She was in a panic.  She would start to run then stop because she couldn't see.  Even when I got in front of her, she couldn't see me.

I ran in the house and yelled at Jim that I was taking her to the vet and for him to call them.  I drove through town with Wings on my lap screaming.  She was little but she was really strong.  She had one leg through the steering wheel and I couldn't turn it.  Fortunately it was a straight shot down Wilbarger to the Vernon Vet Clinic.  I went through 2 red lights.   Doug (Matthews) was not there yet when I arrived but it didn't take him long.

He said he didn't know much about goats, but he had worked in sheep country for years and he would just assume they were the same.  He told me it was probably inflammation of the lining of the brain due to a vitamin B deficiency, not uncommon in sheep.  He gave her some injections and gave me some to take home.  I had to give her a vitamin B shot every day for I don't remember how long.  He said she might not survive, or she might might be permanently blind.  She had about a 50/50 chance of a full recovery.

Then began my daily chore of giving her a shot.  I hadn't realize that goat skin is about the same thickness as elephant hide.  I gave up trying to be gentle and just came at her with the syringe like it was a harpoon.  She got used to it, and was actually pretty good about it.  Gradually, her panic subsided and her vision appeared to come back.  She went on to make what appeared to be a full recovery.  She was a lot tamer too, I imagine the handling (or manhandling) played a part in that.

1980 Orphan

Then there was Orphan.

One day we got a call from the Vernon Police Department asking if we were missing a goat.  This happened regularly; they would go right over the chain link and through the hot wire at the top.  But that particular day, everyone was accounted for.  

"Well", the dispatcher said, "There's a goat tied to a stop sign downtown and if it's not yours, whose is it?  Will you take it until we find its owner?"

Of course we would.  Not long after the conversation, a trailer pulled up and out walked Orphan.  He was not a Pygmy, not at all.  He was a Nubian!  He was adorable.  He was much bigger than our goats.  He had long ears like an Afghan Hound or a Lop rabbit.  He was very tame, like a big dog.  It was love at first sight.  He immediately fit into our family.

He was so docile  that he and Jim marched in the Santa Rosa Roundup parade that year.  They were a float!  Jim was dressed up like Buffalo Bill (of course) with chaps and a big floppy cowboy hat, leading Orphan.  When everyone lining the street saw Orphan, they threw him all kinds of candy and other things, which he loved.  But then Orphan spotted something he didn't like.  He got away from Jim and started to chase this person down the street.  It just happened to be the publisher of the local newspaper.  He chased him for almost an entire block.  I never laughed so hard in my life.

1980 The Goats

We (Jim and I) started with 2 goats, Annie Goatley and Vincent van Goat.  We got them at the McGregor Ranch in Scotland, Texas.

Like Vincent van Goat

Annie was fairly docile, though she wasn't what I would call tame.  She was solid black.  Vincent was an obnoxious chocolate brown billy goat with white stripes on his head.  He had a voice that could cut glass.  He was extremely wild.  His favorite thing was to wait until you weren't looking, then sneak up behind you and butt you in the back of the knees, watching you fall.  Other times, you could see him take aim at you and just come running.  He had yellow devil's eyes.   And oh my goodness he stunk to high heaven.  We loved them, though, and they were great company for my horse, Sugar.

Like Annie Goatley

Eventually, as such things happen, Cookie had kids.  She had three, which apparently is the norm for Pygmy goats.  They were all what's known as gray agouti.   One was a boy and two were girls.  They were adorable.  We named one of the girls Cookie and the other Wings, because she had a white patch on either side that looked like wings.

The Vernon Daily Records wrote an article about them, as a matter of fact.

Eventually, we found a home for Annie Goatley and Vincent van Goat where they had more land, and we also gave away the little boy as soon as possible.  That left us with the two little girls.  And Orphan.

1980 Wings

One of our baby goats had interesting markings.  Like the other two, she was a pretty gray color (actually a tweedy blend of black and white called gray agouti) but she had two white markings on either side that looked like wings.   In fact, that became her name.  She was very cute.  She had a black muzzle and black legs, but most everything else was gray.  And of course, she had those wings.

Wings

Wings was the smaller of the two girls.  She was a little wilder, too.  She really loved my horse, Tug (we had sold Sugar by then and bought Tug).  When Tug would lie down in the sun, Wings would jump on his back and go to sleep.  I had put a big cable spool in the middle of our lot because Tug was very tall and I couldn't get on him without a saddle.  The spool was the only way to climb up on his back.  Wings soon discovered this.  I would hear her screaming and when I looked out the window, she would be standing on the spool yelling at Tug to come over so she could get on his back.  Usually, he did just that.  I was tempted to rename him America, so I could have Wings over America.

1980 Goats and Dancing Dervish

When I lived in Vernon, Texas, husband #2, Jim, and I decided we wanted to get some goats to keep my horse Sugar company.  He contacted Carter McGregor, a rancher who had bought some of his paintings.  Carter was a very well known horseman.  He said he had herds of goats, and of course we could have as many as we wanted.  


Not long after that, we went to the McGregor Ranch.  He took us out to the pasture where there were literally hundreds of goats roaming around, and told us to pick a couple.  We decided on a black nanny goat and a chocolate brown billy goat.  A couple of Carter's hands caught them and loaded them into the back of the pickup and the deal was done.  They were put in our horse trailer and we were taken on a tour of the ranch house.

It was amazing.  But the thing that really captivated me was a painting of the great Thoroughbred, Native Dancer.  When I asked Carter about it, he said he had something to show me.  We went out to the barn and he took me to a stall where a beautiful white horse was munching hay.  "That's Dancing Dervish", he said, "Native Dancer is his dad"  I was in awe, I got goosebumps, and I actually petted him.  I petted a son of Native Dancer.  When we went back to the house, Beth McGregor and Jim talked about art and paintings, but Carter and I talked about horses.  

Many years later, around 2007, I went to the local eye doctor in Aberdeen, Washington and for some reason, we started talking about horses.  He told me had a couple of racehorses and asked if I ever went to Emerald Downs, the track about 60 miles away.  I said that yes, I had gone many times.  Then I told him about the beautiful white race horse I had met so many years ago, Dancing Dervish.  He stared at me and said "Could you repeat that?"  I told him again that many years ago in Texas, I had met a beautiful white racehorse, a son of Native Dancer, named Dancing Dervish.  He shook his head and said, "It always amazes me what a small world it is.  I have a horse who is the grandson of Dancing Dervish".

1986 Sunny and the Snake

When Benjamin was just a baby, we were outside in our fence yard one nice day.  Suddenly, Critter started barking at one of the fence poles.  When I went over to investigate, I found several tiny baby rabbits in a little hole by the pole.  But what Critter was barking at wasn’t the little hairless rabbits; it was the huge snake about to grab them.  

I picked B up and took him in the house and into the playpen.  Then I grabbed our 9 mm Smith & Wesson, put on my boots, and went back out.  That snake was not going to eat those rabbits if I had a say.  Besides, I heard it rattle!  I had to kill it, as much as I hated to.  When I went back, the snake was gone (but the rabbits were still there).  I figured now I had an angry snake on my hands.  The snake was nowhere to be seen. 

Smith & Wesson 9 mm

Our trailer sat on the edge of my father-in-law Ben’s alfalfa field.  I knew I would never be able to find that snake out there.  I went back in the house and got my car keys (Shelby).  Then I took the gun and started driving in the direction I thought it would be headed, hanging out the window as I drove.  After a few feet I saw what looked like alfalfa moving so I followed it.  Then I just started shooting in the general area.  I shot as many times as I had bullets (18).  I thought at least if I hadn’t killed it, maybe I had scared it.  Finding a snake in alfalfa is not easy.

Alfalfa field

I drove back to the house and by then I was shaking.  What if that snake had come into the yard?  It could have bitten the dogs, or god forbid, B or me.  What a relief it was gone.

When I was sure the yard was safe, I put Benjamin in his walker in the grass, then took Critter with me to find the snake.  It was pretty easy to see where the incident occurred, the alfalfa was flattened.  And sure enough, I killed it.  Critter found it and dragged it back to the house.  It was pretty big actually.

At that point, I called Trey at the shop and told him what had happened, and that I’d saved us from a huge rattlesnake.  He said that was funny, because apparently Ben had called him because he noticed something was amiss with the alfalfa next to our house.  It looked like it had been trampled by a herd of moose.  Oh dear.

When Trey got home, he didn’t want to look at the snake, he hated snakes, but by then I had realized this was not a rattlesnake, it was a friendly bull snake.  But the word was out.  The story of the alfalfa field attack became legendary among my father-in-law’s cohorts.  I wish I could have seen it, actually, me driving my car through the alfalfa, leaning out the window shooting.

Texas bullsnake

The funniest thing part of this was that the next day, Critter was lying outside the yard under a tree admiring her snake.  Then Sunny, who was perhaps 3 or 4 months old at the time, slyly wiggled his way over to her.  He casually grabbed the snake by the tail and proceeded to drag it away.  Trey and I both were aghast!  You didn’t do that kind of thing to Critter, and Sunny had never been her favorite (she loved Shadow though).  Sunny eventually dragged the snake far enough away and had it laid out in a straight line.  Then he laid down beside it, and from then on, it was Sunny’s snake.  

Never saw anything like it.  He should have been dead.

1989 Sunny on the Tracks

When he was about 3 years old, my son Benjamin had a Wolfhound named Sunny.  I had an adult named Shadow, and I had decided Benjamin needed his own puppy.  He loved Sunny, they went roaming around together.  We lived in a trailer house on my in-laws' land and there was plenty of space.  We had a fenced yard as well, where the dogs could stay.  But sometimes we liked to let them out and take them "out back" where the land dropped down to fields and then the Pease River.

Smith Hill

Not too far away from our trailer was the railroad track.  The trains went by pretty regularly.One day, I went outside and didn't see the three dogs, Sunny, Shadow, and our white German Shepherd, Critter.  Then I found a hole dug under the fence.  I started running up our towards the track and the street because that was I feared the most.  As I did, I saw Shadow and Critter come running towards me.  Critter kept going to the house, but Shadow was visibly upset.  I went with him up the embankment to where the train track was, and then I saw him, a pile of fur a little way down the track.  He didn't appear to be moving.

I ran all the way back to the house to get my car, which was a little Dodge Colt Premier Turbo.  I put Critter and Shadow in the yard and grabbed a couple of blankets.  Then I called our vet, Dr. Roger Lacy, and told them I was coming, and took off to the track.
When I got there, I left the back door of the car open.

Then I climbed up the embankment to where Sunny was lying.  He wasn't moving, but he seemed to be breathing.  He had a long singe mark all the way down his side from his shoulder to his flank.  I wasn't sure what to do, what if he had a broken back?  But I couldn't leave him lying on the track, knowing more trains would be coming.  I spread out one of the blankets and dragged him onto it.  He made some movements, so I know it must have hurt, but he didn't try to bite me.  After I got him on the blanket, I managed to get him down the embankment to the car.  He weighed about 80 lbs, I would imagine.  Somehow I got him onto the back seat, shut the door and took off to the vet.

Lacy Vet Clnic

When I got there, they took him in and told me to wait.  It was a long wait.  When Dr Lacy came out to get me, he told me Sunny was lucky that he was still alive.  He didn't appear to have any broken bones, but, he had a severe concussion and his responses were not good.  Roger thought he might have been hit a glancing blow on the head and landed between the 2 rails.  That would account for the singeing of his coat, from the heat of the metal wheels going by him.  It was close to a miracle that he actually only had the concussion.

Sunny stayed at the vet for about a week.  When he came home, he was subdued and lethargic.  I didn't think he would ever be back to normal.  But he remembered Benjamin, and Benjamin remembered him.  That was the important thing.  Shadow was extremely protective of him, but Critter never had liked him since he stole a snake from her as a puppy.

Sunny recovered to be almost completely his old self.  He retained the singe marks down his side for a couple of months, but otherwise, he was okay.  Dr. Lacy later told me "I wouldn't have given that dog a 30% chance of surviving, much less being back to normal".

I was just grateful I found him so quickly.  If he had been there when another train came by, we would not have been so fortunate.