MEMOIRS PART 5 - THE MAYORAL ELECTION

In 1927, Dad ran for mayor of Grantsville, and was elected. He served for the 1928 calendar year. I don't know who if anyone was his opponent, nor do I know anything about his year of service. However, it seemed to give him confidence in his ability to get elected, and in 1932 he ran for County Commissioner as a Republican. His opponent was Billy Judd, a Democrat. Of course, 1932 was a bad year for Republicans, and Dad lost by a small margin.

He told me that he was profoundly hurt, as it appeared that many of the people he thought of as friends had turned against him. To the best of my knowledge, the only time he ran for elective office after that was for re-election to the school board, to which he was appointed when his father died in 1932.

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When I was 5 or 6, Dad got me a pony. Its mother was a black full-blooded Shetland, and its father was a mean, lazy, stubborn grey work horse. Both of the pony's parents belonged to my grandfather. The mating was no doubt unintentional, and happened when the work horse (named Hod) was about two years old.
The pony, whose name I don't remember, took after his father, and I just couldn't handle him. After a few months, Dad gave up on me,. and traded him to Bob Cook (whose kids were a lot tougher than I was). In return, Dad got a buckskin pony, a small horse, not a Shetland. Her name was Topsy and she was the sweetest, gentlest, most obedient horse I ever knew.

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This was before I was old enough to work in the fields, and Topsy loved to run. One place I remember taking her was Fishing Creek, an area of about 600 acres about 3 miles northeast of Grantsville. It was a swampy area fed by a large spring, interspersed with meadows of wild grass, which was harvested for use as winter cattle feed.
At haying time on Fishing Creek, while the grown-ups were laboriously cutting, raking, loading, and stacking the hay, Topsy and I chased coyotes. There were many there at the time, and we would ride around until we scared one up, then chase it until it eluded us by going through a fence. After the first one, Topsy knew exactly what to do. She would follow as they swerved and dodged, up and down small hills, until it was all I could do to stay aboard. Once, in fact, she tried to make a tight turn on slippery ground and slipped on her side. I found myself with my left foot on the ground and my right leg over her back. She soon righted herself and away we went.