By W. Harvey Cappel PE
I was raised on a small farm. We had 3 or 4 cows, a dozen or so chickens, a pig, a few geese and 140 rabbits. Yes, rabbits are as easy to grow as weeds. Two of the cows were milk cows requiring milking twice a day. At about 11 years old I asked my dad to teach me how to milk cows. At about 12 years old I asked my mom to tell my dad I was too young to be milking cows. First request worked, the second didn’t, so I milked cows till I left home at 18 and got married. Recon this was my dad’s master plan?
My dad worked shift work so we traded cow milking mornings or afternoons. So, on some days he would get up at about 5:00/am to milk the cows before going to work. This story is about one of those cold mornings. The set-up is this: My 3-year-old brother had one of those hobby horses’ that was about three feet high suspended on four corners by springs. Our house had a back porch with about three steps to the ground. My dad was kind of small and in good health. Typically, he would be in a rush and heading out to the barn he would leap from the porch over the steps running toward the barn. Also, you need to know that to milk a cow you first have to wash the teats; this is done with a milk bucket full of hot water that you splashed on the teats.
Picture this. My brother left his hobby horse about 3 feet from the back door. In the dark my dad went flying out the back door with two 3-gallon buckets full of near boiling water, one in each hand. Now I didn’t see this but I did hear many of the four-letter words from my bedroom window. I think his first foot landed on top of the spring-loaded horse. After that, according to him the horse bucked, kicked and trampled him. The water buckets got in the picture with the horse and soaked him and wet the ground so that when the horse let him off, he slipped on the wet cold ground. To this day I know that if that horse had been mine, he would have killed me. Back then, as I remember, it wasn’t really against the law to dispatch a bad kid; after all you could make a new one in just nine months. Just kidding; don’t write no letters.
To this day I can’t think about that hobby horse ride my dad took that morning without laughing to myself. Sorry dad but funny is funny; wherever you are don’t leap again without looking.
