February 1, 2022 – West Bend, WI – Books! I owned Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew series, bought in order only please, The Clue of the Broken Locket, Mystery of the Toiling Bell, etc. and Walter Farley’s Mystery of the Black Stallion, Island Stallion books.
Mom bought them at Lauerman’s Department Store, in Marinette, 30 miles east on Highway 180. Two small shelves of books for sale on the second floor, right behind the couches and lamps and stereos. No Barnes and Noble or local Little Professor Book Store, just a few shelves of books.
Book hunger salvation especially in the summer when the school library closed, was the travelling Marinette County Library Bookmobile, a dull metallic green van, parked weekly under the trees by St. Augustine’s school. Lining up to enter, as inside space was very limited, climbing the narrow metal steps and smelling the well-read books while the driver restricted borrowers like me to the 30 or so ‘age-appropriate bookshelf’ was HEAVEN.
In between Bookmobile visits, Uncle Mart was always good for a Zane Grey book, like Riders of the Purple Sage, and Marty had a box of comic books because Mike hated to read and for 10-cents each, Mike was tricked into reading.
HORSES!!! Falicka … Part Arabian and part unknown, I inherited Falicka from Marilyn when she married my brother. I was 12 and Falicka was 14 or 16. Even then, Falicka was a pinto explosion of power, legs tucked, straining cinches and lurching saddle when I leaned forward over the saddle horn. I loved the pure exhilaration of her speed.
Falicka was agile, useful when she and I occasionally herded cows for Dad. Dad occasionally bought what he called a “wild herd” of cattle, that would simply vanish from our Lower Field into the unfenced swamp. Besides a loss of income, wild cattle were dangerous, running at, not away from, people. An angry neighbor called one day, yelling at Dad to come and get 4 or 5 wild looking cattle that emerged at dusk, ate his hay and disappeared back into the swamp. Finally, Dad’s latest missing “wild herd.”
Dad looked at me and said something like..
“Lynn, go saddle Falicka. Ride down to Jermack’s Road about 5 miles and wait. I am going across the swamp and drive that herd east. When they jump out of the swamp, you and Falicka chase them down the road into Jermack’s yard. I’ll bring the truck and we will take them directly to Packerland Meat Packing Plant.”
So, I did. I sat on Falicka and waited. I didn’t have any plan how Falicka and I were going to herd 4 angry running cattle down a gravel road for a mile or so and into a fenced in yard. I just knew Dad thought she and I could do it.
Mom didn’t object that Dad was going to get me killed.
Falicka’s cinches were tight, and I could ride. Well, we never did find those ugly cattle and I was spared one wild cowboy ride. Probably a good thing. Obstinate, with “hard mouth,” Falicka could be dangerous. When she “took the bit into her mouth” and ran full out, I would stand up on my stirrups, firmly pull her head into her chest, jerk the reins to “saw her bit” til she expelled her air, and responded.
Falicka loved me and Marilyn, but showed her dislike of men, like my dad and Marty, with her teeth, an occasional quick kick and more than once, running away with any male rider. Marty disliked Falicka and horses in general. Obviously, she felt the same the two times she tried to decapitate him.
I rode Falicka into town that day and convinced Marty, who at 14 wasn’t thinking clearly, to ride Falicka around in his back yard. The minute Marty threw his leg over Falicka’s back, she exploded at a dead run around his house with Mike, Aunt Mary and me screaming, “Hold on! Grab the reins! Don’t fall off.”
Across Highway C Falicka bolted, with Marty hanging on the horn, stirrups flapping. It would have been a 5-mile run back to my farm and Marty would have fallen off well before then. Falicka veered, still at a dead run, straight for Grandpa Babe’s garage. His single car garage was wooden, with such low entry, Grandpa Babe would bend his head down to enter. Falicka saw a stall-like opening and took dead aim between the car and the garage wall.
I thought, “I just killed Marty” as the horse could barely fit, without a rider. Marty must have thought the same. God knows what Aunt Mary thought as everyone was yelling and running at the same time. At the last minute, Marty let go of the horn and threw his upper body backyards over the saddle. Sides heaving and eyes rolling white, Falicka skidded to a halt, stuck between car and wall.
You think both Marty and I would have learned.
The next time I convinced Marty to ride Falicka we were behind the barns. Up goes Marty and Falicka springs forward, straight toward the pole barn door. Having learned, this time Marty dropped the reins, grabbed Falicka’s neck and just hung on until she skidded on the cement floor into her pen.
I loved that obstinate horse. No matter Falicka loved to stomp her hoof onto my shoe, look away, refusing to budge, or by leaning, squeeze me between her body and a barn wall. Ears flicking to catch my voice, Falicka was solid listening comfort when I became an “only child.”
In 1974, Mom and Dad sold our farm to Dr. Lee, from the Philippines, who allowed Falicka to live out her days on the farm. When Falicka died at age 29 in 1974, Dad hired a backhoe and buried Falicka where she fell. Unfortunately, Falicka died in the Year of the Horse, which was, as Dr. Lee told Dad every time she saw him, a very bad luck omen.
For me, Falicka was many things, but never a “bad omen.”
Falicka was an escape companion along back roads, into woods, across streams for hours. We jumped logs and chased deer together. Falicka was freedom!
When I became a mom, I asked my mom how she ever let me go riding alone on Falicka, before iPhone or pagers or seat belts and car seats became “Keep your Child Safe” norms.
Mom looked me straight in the eye, and said, “because I knew you could handle her”. And that was another gift Mom and Falicka gave me, a belief in myself. Thanks Mom and Falicka.
Falicka, 18, Mary Lynn, age 16, on Orlando Farm in Wausaukee, WI. 1966
Mary Lynn Bennett is a longtime West Bend resident and strong advocate in the Hispanic community.
