DHJ:: The Days Before Yesterday

25 Years Ago
Late Summer/Early Autumn 1978
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Autumn 2003

Three popes in less than three months! Generally things move at a stately pace in the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church. Not 25 years ago. On August 6, 1978, the man who had served as Pope Paul VI since 1963, died of a heart attack. He was 80 years old at the time..

So the College of Cardinals was convened to select a successor. They chose the Patriarch of Venice, who took the name of John Paul I, to be the 263rd pontiff of the church. He lived for only about five weeks after his elevation to the papacy, before he was also stricken by a heart attack. He was a couple of months shy of being 66 years of age, and his five week reign was the second shortest in the history of the church. Stephen II had died two days after his election in 752, hardly time enough to learn the ropes.

So the cardinals were right back in business. This time they broke precedent completely and elected the first non-Italian to the papacy in over four hundred years. The new pope was a Pole, the Archbishop of Krakow, and he is still on the job. He was 58 at the time he became the pope in the fall of 1978, so he must be about 83 now. He goes by the name of John Paul II. The last non-Italian to serve as pope prior to Pope John Paul II was Hadrian VI, a Dutchman who died in 1523.

Another turning point. Our government statisticians told us that in July of that year manufactured goods and machinery had overtaken oil as our chief imports. Was this big news? I think so, for this was the land of great mechanics like Henry Ford, brilliant inventors like Thomas Edison, and the cradle of the assembly line. As one of our presidents in the ‘20s reminded us, “The business of America is business.” And here we were (are) buying all this stuff from other people. Were we becoming a different kind of country? Had we exported a whole bunch of jobs in the process? How many people can make a living at being consultants? More questions than answers. Nothing much new about that.

In any period, the world has always had some hot spots that won’t go away. Two such places 25 years ago were Nicaragua and Iran. Nicaragua had a president who felt that elections were a foolish waste of time. In other words, he was a dictator. And wherever there are dictators, they are likely to be rebels. And the rebels were doing quite well in Nicaragua 25 years ago. The Carter administration was not as forgiving to Somoza as preceding administrations–so Carter urged mediation. He didn’t get very far with it. General (President/Your Excellency/Dictator /Whatever) Somoza was as bullheaded as most egomaniacs.

The tension in Iran was of a little different sort. It was more along the lines of Moslem verses Western and religious leadership versus the Shah and the modernism he espoused. It wasn’t the relatively uncomplicated communism versus capitalism or the us and them of the U.S.A. versus the U.S.S.R. that you found in many places.

A third hot spot was practically the whole continent of Africa. Most of Africa was made up of former European colonies, the majority of which had been woefully unprepared for self-government. So when colonialism backed off, it left a void that was filled with the pent-up hatred of the white overlords.

All the troubles in the world didn’t have their roots in religion, politics, race, trade or drugs. It just seemed that way because they made for better headlines. There was another source of big trouble that we had fallen heir to–one that didn’t make a lot of noise. It was chemicals. In the post WW II period, chemicals were put to use doing some marvelous things in medicine, agriculture and manufacturing. By and large they were given a free pass for years. Like kids at Christmas time, we accepted their expanded (and frequently) silent role in our lives as an unalloyed blessing. Just another bonus for belonging to a species that was so doggone smart.

Then in 1962, Rachel Carson, a biologist who had worked quietly in the federal bureau of Fisheries, came out with a book called Silent Spring. She described pesticides as “the sinister and little realized partners of radiation” in damaging nature. She planted doubt in a sea of blind faith. Naturally, the chemical industry trashed her. She was labeled an alarmist and worse. But she, and the book, prevailed–not the spin doctors and PR types who worked for industry.

Eventually a different public attitude took hold–an attitude of accountability and some degree of caution. Rachel Carson died on April 13, 1964 (that was her Silent Spring). Why am I dragging that both much abused and greatly praised woman out of the grave and into 1978?

Fair question. In August of 1978, the first residents of the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York, were forced to leave their homes. Dangerous chemicals had been leaching into their lives for years from a nearby abandoned dump. This was considered the cause of high rates of birth defects and miscarriages in the residents of Love Canal. For anyone who is concerned about chemical pollutants and their far reaching effects–Love Canal is an old story.

1. On August 19, three guys in a balloon made the first transatlantic crossing in that sort of contraption. They called it the Double Eagle. Was that an offhand tribute to Lindbergh–”The Lone Eagle” of some fifty years earlier? I don’t know. Like Lindbergh, they landed in Paris. Their crossing took much longer than his–138 hours and six minutes.

2. On September 25, a much unhappier story involving air transportation happened in the skies over San Diego, California. A commercial jetliner carrying 135 people collided with a light single engine plane over the city. It crashed into a residential neighborhood. There were some 150 deaths. So how did it happen? The pilot of the light plane was a student who was practicing instrument landings. The theory is that he was wearing a hood to simulate foul weather conditions with zero visibility. That is just a little like talking on a cell phone as you proceed through a busy intersection.

3. Muhammad Ali won back the heavyweight boxing title of the world for the third time. Ali was probably the best public relations person in the U.S. for the Moslem world. Anyone who can “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” can’t be all bad.

That may be about enough “so-called news” from 25 years ago, before we turn to the horses.

Here is Ted Wiggins, Niles, Michigan, driving his 7 and 8 year old geldings, purchased from Dick Hennen, Shakopee, Minnesota, at the 1978 Waverly Spring Sale, in the St. Joe-Benton Harbor Spring Blossom Parade. Ted had this team in several parades that year and showed them five times, winning the pair class in 3 out of 5.

Mr. E.W. Rock, manager of the State Fair of West Virginia, Lewisburg, West Virginia, sent in this photo taken at their pulling contest. The backside of the picture has “R.K. Duffield” on it–we presumed he was the driver. Not only was it a good picture of the team–but a good illustration of the public interest in pulling. Just take a look at that grandstand crowd.

Writing in the Percheron Notes, Arnold Hexom, sale manager, Percheron breeder and hitch owner, said “1978 was a year most draft horse people will like to remember and one that will be talked about for years to come.”

He was right. Here it is 25 years later and we are sure enough talking about it.

In the Clydesdale News of that period, Barry Castagnasso, son of Don and grandson of Harry, had a moving tribute to his grandfather, Harry. This bonding of the generations and the whole family involvement was very evident in all three of the breed publications. Far more so than in any other species. It is that sort of thing that brought the breeds through the hard times following WW II. It sure wasn’t economics!

The cover picture of our Autumn issue was yet another illustration of this. It shows a young Dave Stalhiem from Amery, Wisconsin, coming through the corn stalks (instead of the heather) with a team of Clydes. Dave’s father, Kenton, was a great horseman. Now Dave is a great horseman. For those of you with a 2003 Clydesdale News, I refer you to pages 60 and 61 where David and Linda Stalhiem carry a two page ad–Proud Of Our Past–Excited About Our Future. The first page is a backward glance to 25 years ago when “the Stalhiem Clydes once again swept the hitch classes at the National Clyde Show” with pictures of Dave and his father, Kenton, and the “geldings of 1978.” The facing page is dedicated to the coming generation.

Enough for that cover and one of our Clydesdale dynasties. Now let’s take a look at the other 99 pages.

The fall sale scene wasn’t as active as it is now, but there seemed to be a new sale or two every fall as the calendar got more crowded. The good news was that there were plenty of buyers for the horses. I’m going to run three pictures of six mares that sold for a total of $33,300 in two days at the Waverly Sale. The prices of the very top horses were not as high as today, but I believe the demand was much broader.

Our first feature-length article in that issue is something that wasn’t even written for publication. One of our good friends at that time was John Hahn from Hay Springs, Nebraska. John used a lot of horsepower on his farm and had written a little book entitled Wanderings of a Country Boy. I was trying to help him sell a few of those books at that time.

John and Bonnie now live at P.O. Box 459, Chadron, Nebraska 69337 and are exploring the prospect of bringing the book out again in paperback. Probably in January.

Due to the “oddness” of his operation, John was getting a lot of 4-H tours stopping by to see his drafters, Fox Trotters and the equipment that goes with them. Not to mention this unusual person who insisted on doing it “his way.”

Anyhow, it doesn’t take long in a situation like that, before you get tired of answering the same questions over and over. Jeannine and I were asked countless times, “How come you have those big horses?” And it never once occurred to the questioner that we had just as much license to ask them, “How come you have a riding mower for a yard no bigger than a small dance hall?” (And, by the way, have you noticed that you are overweight?)

That is what brought this piece entitled “4-H Tour” to be set. We will go ahead and set it again and I hope Lynn finds a page for it at the end of this segment.

The market was good and every once in a while lightning would strike–like at Gordyville last spring. Well, not quite that much lightning, but a good-sized bolt hit Ray Bast, Percheron breeder from Wisconsin. He sold a 2 year old stallion for export to Japan–the ticket, $17,000. Ray was so happy he ran a picture of himself with the sire of the colt he had just exported. He was keeping a full brother to the exported colt as his next herd sire.

Another article with a dozen photographs was a Percheron Report From France by Benno Selcke, a subscriber who was living in Munchen, Germany, at the time. Ben’s comments and photos have since appeared many times in the Journal. Ben was immensely helpful to us on our first trip to France in 1972 and in two subsequent trips. He now lives in Alabama and keeps in touch with Percheron affairs on both sides of the water.

Also in that issue is a lengthy article bringing us up-to-date on the heavy horse scene in Great Britain by Patrick O’Sheel. Good copy, great pictures. Just between Pat O’Sheel and Ben Selcke on that continent, it made us feel like the New York Times of horsedom with our foreign correspondents. Interestingly enough, both Ben and Pat were Americans who had worked for decades for our state department. And both became afflicted with Draft Horseitis.

I’m going to reproduce five of the photos Pat sent that were used in that issue.