25 Years Ago
Winter/Early Spring 1982
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Spring 2007
(From the general news of the day and The
Draft Horse Journal and breed publications of the time.)
This information was
gleaned from the pages of our first designated "Brood
Mare" issue. I don't know why it took us eighteen years
to figure out that the Spring issue arrived in our readers'
mail boxes about the same time foals were showing up in their
barns. I suppose we can plead busy-ness. That is the usual
excuse–and a very serviceable one, too. So–on with
the show.
Although tardy in getting into the Brood Mare issue business,
we could not have launched this annual series from a better
platform. I chose, as our first brood mare stop, a family in
western Pennsylvania. It was entitled "Orndorff, A Name
To Reckon With In Belgians."
This also provided me with an excuse to visit the Pennsylvania
Farm Show at Harrisburg. I rationalized that the slickest way
to skin this cat was to go out to the Farm Show and hang-out
with the Orndorff clan since they were sure to be showing.
It proved to be a good plan. I have never worked with a family
that was more forthcoming, interesting and helpful than the
Orndorffs were in providing me with the material for that article.
|
|
Charley Orndorff with two of
his grandchildren, Christina and Corbly and Orndorff's
Highland
Dream, 1st prize 3-year-old,
Senior and Reserve Grand Champion mare, and Orndorff's
Con Ginger, the yearling who was Junior and Grand Champion
mare at Harrisburg in '82. Both were daughters of Congolaise
and out of Conqueror's Rosette and Orndorff's Highland
Lassie … both former Grand Champions at Harrisburg. |
I don't think Lynn has any of those Spring '82 Journals left
to sell, but if I were a Belgian breeder, I'd want one. Rather
than rehash that article, I'm going to do it mostly with pictures;
Orndorffs had a great picture file. Turning to the next article was a case of going from the
sublime to the ridiculous and the main cog in that story is
another one of my favorite people–Ed Belzer from Nova
Scotia, Canada. The title of the second article was "Yamaha-ha,
The Day The Ferris Wheel Stood Still." I like this whimsical
thing so much that I'm going to reprint it in its entirety.
I think that is the only way to recapture my friend Ed Belzer's
day in the sun–when he and Alonzo made the ferris wheel
stand still. Such power! Such majesty!
For the balance of this 25 Years Ago, I'm going to repeat
another short article about our "Carry-All," which
was built by the late Cliff Sours from Nashua, Iowa, about
27 or 28 years ago. We were raising, shocking and feeding quite
a bit of sorghum cane at the time and moving a few Oxford sheep
from one place to another. So we had this idea for a low gravity
vehicle that nobody was making. Cliff was one of those people
who could build anything. We laid out the specs for Cliff and
he built it–and it worked for our purposes beautifully.
We are no longer very ambitious so the carry-all (also great
for cleaning up downed tree limbs, etc.) now resides with our
daughter and her husband, Jay Franzen, down at Indianola. And
the carry-all carries on.
With three reprints from that issue, I'd say that national
and world news got crowded out. If you missed anything real
big on the national political scene or some war broke out someplace
or another, we may include it in the next installment of 25
Years Ago. But I figure these three articles were worth repeating.
See you next issue with a more normal 25 Years Ago. –MT
|
