Riding Bullet 1995

In 1995 around the month of July, I had missed my horses and was determined to buy another. Kelvin always read the paper and he looked in the want ads under horses for sale and said there was one in Savannah about 10 miles to the north of us. Anytime there was money to spend he didn’t want to spend it unless it was something for himself. When I got back from
Savannah with a broad grin on my face he knew it happened. I had borrowed the money from the Credit Union, 1500.00 and used my credit card to buy tack at UPCO, a saddle, bridle, long lead and a halter. I also brought brushes and other accessories. I had made arrangements with a boarder in Savannah to keep him there. The cost was 75.00 a month, he would feed, take care of his hooves etc… All I had to do was call him the night before I was going to come down and ride and he would catch him and put him in his own stall, a stall just for him.
He was a big horse, about 15 hands, sorrel with a big blaze down his face reminding me of Stony. It had been so long since I had ridden I was a little nervous about the height. The man saddled up the two horses and away we went. We walked at first but I told him I liked to gallop so when we had gotten to an area that it would be safe along the country road, he said for me to give him a little kick and without much coaxing he picked up speed. I noticed the saddle was getting loose so we headed back to his place so he could tighten it. When I started to get off the saddle came with me. He helped me down, walked the big gelding around in a circle so he would have to breathe and not “blow out” his barrel to keep the saddle from tightening as horses will do. I rode along a little longer and the saddle started to loosen again. He said the man he had bought him from kept him as a pet for the kids. He could do tricks i.e. if you dropped your baseball cap on the ground in front of him he would pick it up and hand it to you! He was very smart and knew it too, which isn’t always good, he knew he was bigger and stronger than me and had the saddle thing down to a science.
The man who agreed to board the horse came with a trailer and I wondered how well he would go into a trailer. He walked right up in there without much protest and we were on our way to his place in the heart of Savannah.
A few times a week I would call and say I was coming to ride the next day, but the man was always so busy he was hard to get a hold of sometimes. When I did, I would go the ten miles north and park the car. The horse would be waiting in his stall for me. I had blankets and the saddle and all the tack stored in a small shed, along with the tack for other horses he boarded. I’d put the halter on and clip the lead to the halter and lead him out of the barn fastening the lead to the gate. There I would brush him clean and comb out his long red mane and tail. After the blankets were placed behind the withers and the saddle was on, I would walk him in a circle the way Ann Morrow had told me to do when I bought Terre before tightening the girth. I couldn’t believe I still remembered how to tie a cinch knot but it all came back to me as if no time had passed. I was on my way across the yard and down the steep hill to an old railroad track that had since grown up in weeds and became a great place to ride until the path turned to gravel. He had his shoes on and I tried to get as far off the path as possible to keep a stone from being lodged around the frog of the foot. We never had too much trouble. We’d walk and listen to the birds and hope one wouldn’t fly out of the bushes suddenly and spook the horse. The path would eventually turn into dirt and then I could gallop a little. The saddle would always come loose but now I had gotten back into the rhythm of horse ownership and the needs that come with it. I would get off after about five minutes and tighten the saddle. He stayed long and lean. I didn’t have too much trouble with the saddle as long as he stayed lean. I rode all the way to the end of the dirt path which led to a big dirt road. There I could gallop as much as I wanted always keeping an eye for trees or bushes or hills that might cause him to spook. I decided to name him Bullet. The boarding facility was surrounded by “hot wire”, an electric fence, and every time he heard a small crackle he would jump and almost turn completely around under the saddle. He usually did this when we were at the boarding site before we left for the old railroad tracks. I mentioned to Kelvin one day that he had “shot out from under me like a bullet”.

Dakota is Born 1994

The next few months my cute little figure ballooned into disproportionate shapes and I couldn’t believe I was going through this again! Every morning at 3 am Kelvin would wake up and start pushing and manipulating my huge abdomen trying to wake the baby. He succeeded most times; unfortunately, he woke me in the process as well. I tried to explain to him through gritted teeth that if the baby got used to being awakened at that time he would do so after birth. I would have to get up with him since I had the food. I had always breast fed Jennifer and Chuck and planned on doing the same with little Dakota. One night a little foot came crashing through my upper right side and the outline could be visualized without difficulty. Kelvin was amazed and this encouraged his nightly routine.
The other nurses had a lottery of sorts going to determine when the little bundle would arrive. I was trying to push a heavy medicine cart around the halls of the ward when I thought my back would literally break. My face was swollen and my feet were swollen along with fingers and hands. I just wanted the day to come when I could go back to being my old skinny self. During a Doctor’s appointment I asked how much longer he thought it would be and if he thought I could be induced. He said if nothing had happened by the 21st of October to come in on that day and he’d see about inducing me. He said he thought I was “ripe enough”. I called the girls at work and gave them my news, happy, relieved, and scared all at once.
My best friend Genelle won the “lottery”as she had guessed that particular day but was in Maryland visiting her sister. Everyone thought we had planned it that way. I had no idea what day anyone had picked. I made arrangements with the Director of Nursing to be off for the 6 weeks of maternity leave. I made a bag to take with me and sat in my “nest” and waited.
On October 21st, Friday, I went to the hospital to start the procedure. The rules were lax and Kelvin was able to stay in the room with me the whole time. It was a pretty bedroom, not called a birthing room at that time but I think that is what they call it nowadays. Jennifer was allowed to stay there too and they laughed and talked while I screamed. Then just when you thought it was all over and the baby was taken to be “cleaned” and weighed, came the sawing feeling of thread through cardboard as the Doctor worked his magic at episiotomy.Then the afterbirth pains, which were as bad if not worse than the real thing. His cousin Janet, who played the part of new grandmother as Kelvin’s mother couldn’t be there, video taped the whole process. Dakota weighed 7 lbs 15 ½ oz and was 18 inches long. His head was, of course, cone shaped and huge. His shoulders were wide with a long torso and short legs like his father. He was pink and wrinkly as most newborns were. I asked if I could hold him, afterall I had just gone through “hell” bringing him into this world and everyone had already had a turn. He was warm and soft and I expressed that sentiment through the familiar chattering of teeth so often accompanying childbirth. I asked for a blanket and they brought me a nice warm one. It was about noon when all was said and done. Floy Mae and Mary Ann came to honor the occasion and to hold the baby as well.
A nurse came in and said I needed to go to 2nd fl Centre where I worked, to the “bridge” where a baby shower was prepared for me but she didn’t want me to go, I had just had a baby not more than 2 hours ago and she didn’t think I should leave my bed just yet. I knew if they had prepared a baby shower for me and I didn’t show up there would be Hell to pay later when I went back to work for real. It was scheduled for 2 o’clock. Knowing the hectic schedule they had on the day shift I knew that would be the only time between feeding lunch and supper, med passes, treatments etc so I had to go. I finally got the nurse to take me down in a wheel chair. I was bloated and tired, embarrassed of how I looked but knew they should understand giving the circumstances. They had a huge sheet cake with little blue bootie decorations, bells and such, and presents. I was so tired. I tried to be up beat and smile and tell them how much I appreciated the thought and knew it was time consuming. They seemed to be bored with it all by the time I got there and said they had to leave to do other “chores” before it was 3 o’clock when they were to give report to the next shift and go home. They seemed to think I should have been more delighted and enthusiastic about their wonderful jester. I really was in awe that they would think of me since Shelby’s Grandmother was the one who had been the main instigator of the shower, I just didn’t have the energy.

Hello Dakota! Goodbye Cheyenne Hope 1994

The rest of 1993 went by without incident except at Christmas time, Kelvin had went to the new Walmart on North Belt highway and put a faux leopard jacket on layaway for me. He had it down to 10.00 left to pay and got antsy and didn't want to wait until I got paid on Thursday, December 1st so I could give him the 10.00 to pay it off. Another friend in the trailer park had a boyfriend who was visiting her there that day while I was at work. They were talking about Christmas trees and how he, the friend, was wanting one but didn't want to pay the high prices they were charging at the grocery store on Mitchell. Kelvin mentioned that when he was younger he used to steal Christmas trees from the parking lots of stores and sell them for 10.00. He also mentioned he needed 10.00 to get my jacket out of layaway and didn't want to wait for me to give him the money for my own gift. The guy said he'd give Kelvin the 10.00 he needed if he could "obtain" a tree from the store. Kelvin agreed and had the tree in the Geo, took it to the guy's apartment, took the 10.00 and went to Walmart to get my jacket. Unbeknownst to Kelvin there was another guy in a yellow station wagon who was at the store at the time of the theft and saw him leave with the tree. He followed him to the trailer park to get the address of where we lived, and waited for Kelvin to come back to inform the police. By coming home first he led them right to our door. When I got home from work after 11:30 that night, Kelvin called me from the police station and told me what had happened and that he had been arrested. I was to call a friend, Mudbone, as he was called, to get the 75.00 he would need to bail him out. I was so furious I told him to stay there and rot as far I was concerned. Mudbone or another "friend" went to the station to get him out. I understood why he did it, I guess, but I was not in the mood to listen, since he was still on parole and I was not about to watch him go back to prison. The judge actually laughed about the incident and let him off with a small fine and even mentioned a time or two when he was younger himself, "walking off" with a few Christmas trees. Nothing more was said about it but I found it hard to wear the jacket I had loved when I had seen it in the store and mentioned to him that was what I had wanted for Christmas. I didn't want it that way. I had been living such a sheltered life for the first 40 years, albeit an honest one.
In January of 1994 Kelvin talked about his two girls, his oldest daughter Vallie who was eight years old and his youngest daughter Shelby who would be three years old in May. His brother who lived in Hawaii, working for his uncle who owned a big construction company on the island of Oahu, Keith, had two boys. He had always wanted a boy and found it unmasculine not to have one, wondered if I could still bear a child at the age of 40. I would be 41 in April and had thought I was through with all of that when Charles had his vasectomy after Chuck was born. I thought of how cute and cuddly a newborn would be, afterall my baby was 14 years old and would be 15 in October. My darling baby girl had graduated from highschool in 1991 and would be 21 in February. I was starting over with a new life, new husband, and living in a new place far from the farm and Kansas. I decided I would like to have a baby but I couldn't gaurantee him a boy, after all that was for his sperm to decide. I stopped taking "the Pill" and by March my menstrual cycle had stopped. I knew I was pregnant because I had always been regular, and when I had decided to have Jennifer and Chuck, those pregnancies started out the same way. I bought a pregnancy test and hurried home to take it. It took forever for the results but when they finally came they seemed opaque and illegible. I showed the stick to Jennifer and she thought it was unreadable and negative. I knew what I knew and that was that. I threw the test in the trash, disappointed and certain of the results no matter what it said. A couple of hours later, I dug it out and looked at it again. Lo and behold a pink line was visible and I indeed had the proof I needed. I called Jennifer and gave her the news which she promptly said " Oh, My God!!" it was more of a gutteral sound of dread and " What have you done!" at your age! Chuck was happy and always wanted a little brother. I had two names picked out, after going through all the objections of my spouse and family, Dakota and Cheyenne Hope. He, of course wanted the middle name to be Ray after his biological father who had died in a car accident in 1967 on Mother's day, I wanted the middle name to be Rain. Cheyenne Hope I thought was pretty for a girl and the Hope part came after my favorite character on Day's of Our Lives which I had been watching since 1983. I had a crush on Alan Thicke, even though his late night talk show, Thicke of the Night, was a horrible show, I thought Alan thicke was the most handsome man since Paul Mccartney and watched anyway. He had mentioned his wife, then, Gloria Loring, was on a soap opera called Days of Our Lives. Unfortunately it came on at noon at the same time All My Children came on, but I was getting tired of waiting for Jenny and Greg to get together on that show so I thought I would check out the competition on Days. She, Gloria Loring, Liz on the show, was very pretty and could sing like a bird. I was totally facinated, gave up Children and have not missed an episode of Days since. Gloria Loring and Alan Thicke parted ways shortly after his show died, and on Days she went to prison, never to be seen again.
Due to the fact that he had produced two girl children I had little hope of producing a boy so concentrated on little Cheyenne Hope. We had both boy and girl clothes and I was reminded daily of the promise of a boy. When I had my sonogram sometime in the summer of that year, I was lying on a gurney between Kelvin and the lady doing the sonogram, she asked us if we would like to know the sex of the child and we eagerly said, "Yes!" I have not understood the "waiting to be surprised" theory a lot of husbands and wives take on the subject. If you find out now, before the baby is born, you'll know what colors to buy and what name to call "it" and you can stop calling "it" an "it" and use the terms He or She.
I held my breath and when she said it was certainly a boy and quite obviously so, I thought Kelvin was going to jump over me and impregnate her! I'd never seen a man so happy, except when Chuck was born and we had to be surprised because they didn't do sonograms then, Charles almost passed out but that was another time and place. I, on the other hand felt as if Cheyenne Hope had died, even though there had never really been a Cheyenne Hope except in my mind. I laughed and reveled in his happiness. We went to Walmart and picked out a onesey that read, "Daddy's Boy" across the front. He immediately called his Mom in California and his brother in Hawaii to tell them the news.