With the approach of the New Year I like to drive to the Muscoda boat landing and stop for a bit to watch the Wisconsin River flow along.
Many years there is floating ice on the river and it’s easy to relate with those cold chunks and wonder where they started and how long will they flow along before they become solid ice? It’s easy to relate with the ice and wonder about my future, especially as the years flow along.
My dad enjoyed writing poetry and following is a short sample he penned in his later years. He did not give it a title.
“For those of us who’ve reached the age of thinning hair and gray – It matters little what the hands of clocks and watches say.
The thing that really matters – nearing four score years and ten – is that calendars are showing that a year has passed again.
An hour or two of daylight is a trifle after all, compared with spring and summer and with winter time and fall.”
I enjoy the Christmas music. But I have to smile just a bit when a group of New Yorkers on the TV screen are singing about enjoying a ride on a “one-horse open sleigh.” I suspect most of them have never seen such a sleigh – but their music is enjoyable.
Once again I will go back in history. The late John Duffey penned a newspaper piece about horses and sleighs in this community. It follows here.
“When a snow storm came, from early morning until dark there would be a steady stream of horses, bobsleds and an occasional cutter that would come or go. There would also be eight or 10 teams tied under a shelter and Peter Victora’s livery barn would be filled.
The drivers would scurry about, getting the necessary things their wives needed to see the family through the time they would be snowbound.
As varied as the conveyances were, so were the teams and drivers. Some bobsleds would have hayracks, some would have regular wagon boxes with one, two or three sideboards on the boxes.
The teams were usually matched to the drivers and the sleds. A well cared-for team, all curried and brushed, wearing a well cared-for harness, usually was pulling a fine sled. Some farmers were very particular how their horses looked. At the top of the horse’s head there might be a gaily-colored plume. Attached to the harness would be a string of old brass sleigh bells – a string for each horse.
Of course the breed of the horses was important. Lowell Potter’s team of black Morgan horses, all dressed in their finery, would put all the others to shame. The Paffenrath’s big grey percherons were not built for show but rather for slow, steady hard work. Their wagon, especially with its three board sideboards, never left town without being full from front to back, with animal feed, sugar, flour, sugar and coffee and all of it in big sacks.”
With all that, I really don’t know if the kids of that time liked dashing through the snow, like it shows on Christmas cards, and sang about it in songs of the season. I hope so, they are what makes the pictures perfect.
Many years there is floating ice on the river and it’s easy to relate with those cold chunks and wonder where they started and how long will they flow along before they become solid ice? It’s easy to relate with the ice and wonder about my future, especially as the years flow along.
My dad enjoyed writing poetry and following is a short sample he penned in his later years. He did not give it a title.
“For those of us who’ve reached the age of thinning hair and gray – It matters little what the hands of clocks and watches say.
The thing that really matters – nearing four score years and ten – is that calendars are showing that a year has passed again.
An hour or two of daylight is a trifle after all, compared with spring and summer and with winter time and fall.”
I enjoy the Christmas music. But I have to smile just a bit when a group of New Yorkers on the TV screen are singing about enjoying a ride on a “one-horse open sleigh.” I suspect most of them have never seen such a sleigh – but their music is enjoyable.
Once again I will go back in history. The late John Duffey penned a newspaper piece about horses and sleighs in this community. It follows here.
“When a snow storm came, from early morning until dark there would be a steady stream of horses, bobsleds and an occasional cutter that would come or go. There would also be eight or 10 teams tied under a shelter and Peter Victora’s livery barn would be filled.
The drivers would scurry about, getting the necessary things their wives needed to see the family through the time they would be snowbound.
As varied as the conveyances were, so were the teams and drivers. Some bobsleds would have hayracks, some would have regular wagon boxes with one, two or three sideboards on the boxes.
The teams were usually matched to the drivers and the sleds. A well cared-for team, all curried and brushed, wearing a well cared-for harness, usually was pulling a fine sled. Some farmers were very particular how their horses looked. At the top of the horse’s head there might be a gaily-colored plume. Attached to the harness would be a string of old brass sleigh bells – a string for each horse.
Of course the breed of the horses was important. Lowell Potter’s team of black Morgan horses, all dressed in their finery, would put all the others to shame. The Paffenrath’s big grey percherons were not built for show but rather for slow, steady hard work. Their wagon, especially with its three board sideboards, never left town without being full from front to back, with animal feed, sugar, flour, sugar and coffee and all of it in big sacks.”
With all that, I really don’t know if the kids of that time liked dashing through the snow, like it shows on Christmas cards, and sang about it in songs of the season. I hope so, they are what makes the pictures perfect.
