“Dad, is he really mine to keep?” I said when I was finally able to find some words.
“He’s all yours,” my father nodded. “But there’s one rule you must learn: the day you forget to feed him is the day he’ll go back where he came from.” I got the message loud and clear. I immediately fed him and began grooming him. That very night I decided to call him Ranger. I was so excited that, after I finally fell asleep that night, I dreamed of all the great adventures Ranger and I would have together.
As soon as dawn broke the next morning I jumped out of bed and ran down to the corral to feed Ranger. But my horse was gone! And the corrals were in shambles. I already mentioned that my dad had built corrals all around the property, and I mentioned that sometimes his little projects didn’t work out exactly as planned. Well, when he built those corrals—with the help of my older brother and a man named Adolph, who worked for us at the ranch—he ran into some problems. While digging holes for the posts they were only able to go about a foot-and-a-half before hitting solid clay. Southern California soil is perfect if you’re building an adobe house or a mission, but if you’re trying to dig a hole, it can be virtually impossible. Dad decided to shortcut the process by just sinking the posts in eighteen inches, laying in lots of concrete, and hoping for the best. To finish off the project, they laid the cross bars on the outside of the fence. That design looks great but is completely useless if you have any plans to keep horses or cattle inside. Sometime during the night, Ranger had simply walked through the crossbars and knocked over the posts.
Talk about extreme heartbreak. I was in tears and truly felt like my world had just ended. I think my father must have heard me because he suddenly appeared, putting his arm around my shoulder. “We’ll get him back,” Dad whispered. “He’s probably just run home to the ranch where we got him from.” A quick phone call confirmed that that’s exactly where he’d ended up. We got Ranger back that day, and my dad soon went to work repairing the corrals.
With Ranger back home, I was ready to ride. But there was just one problem: I didn’t have a saddle, bridle, halter, or even a blanket. This was a major obstacle, so I went to my dad and asked if there was anything else I could do to earn enough money for some basic tack.
“Let me see what I can come up with,” he replied. “Hang on a minute.” He disappeared into his tool shed. A few moments later he reappeared with a saddle, bridle, blanket, and a halter. “I figured since you worked hard for the horse,” he smiled, “I would look out for a good used saddle to help you get started.”
I ran down to the corral, put the halter on Ranger, and brought him up to the post to saddle him for the first time. My heart was beating fast. After all the wishing and dreaming, it was finally coming true: my own horse and saddle. All went well until I slipped the bridle over his head and went to put the bit in his mouth. That was the day I learned the term bit shy. Ranger did not want that bit in his mouth and was ready to fight me until the end. Of course, I called out to my father for help. “He’s your horse,” Dad shouted back. “Let him know you’re the boss!” A life lesson. I got that bit in Ranger’s mouth with patience I never knew I possessed. Finally, Ranger and I rode off into the unknown with only the fading words in my ears, “Be back before dark!”
Ranger was a good old boy and usually behaved himself. But there were more than a few unpleasant times when he would catch me off guard and throw me off his back. By the time he learned that trick, he already knew where his new home was. He would go tearing off for the house, followed by one mad seven-year-old, vowing to never let that happen again. Ranger also had moments of greatness. I entered local horse shows and rode in what was called a Western Gymkhana event. This was where Ranger shined. It was as if he knew he was in the spotlight and, even though he sometimes acted like the all-time demon horse on some of our trail rides, in the ring he became Champion, Gene Autry’s famed horse. He cantered around in perfect cadence, looking sharp and (pretty much) obeying all of my commands. Ranger and I took home some ribbons after those horse shows and, despite his sometimes-contrary nature, he remained my closest childhood pal.
When I was eight, I joined the California Rangers, a group for boys in Rancho Santa Fe that was started by one of my early riding instructors, Jess McMillen, and a younger guy named Bruce Oxley. We would meet every Saturday morning in the summer for a day of riding, working with our horses, and basically just having a great time with each other. There were only about four or five guys in the Rangers that summer, but we got to take two multiday trips in the back country between the towns of Escondido and Rancho Santa Fe. Those experiences were incredible. In the late afternoons, we would unsaddle, brush our horses, tie them, and settle in for the evening. Sure, we could only carry so much food, so sometimes a Ford or Chevy station wagon would come lumbering up a dirt road with someone’s mom behind the wheel with additional provisions, but it was fun to pretend we were in the middle of nowhere. Cooking our own food and lying in our sleeping bags looking up at the stars were picture-perfect moments. As the evening grew later, you couldn’t hear anything but the horses and whatever wild critters were out and about. It was pure heaven for a horse-loving kid.
Of course, when it wasn’t summer I had to go school, but would you believe that we kids could actually ride our horses to our little three-room school house and tie them up in the back? Not many kids did that on a regular basis, but you’d see it occasionally. I know I did it a few times. With that tiny school building and those horses, you could almost imagine you were attending class at the turn of the century. There were only two teachers, Mrs. Trethaway and Mrs. Ross, each of whom covered three grades. It was a very different experience for me than what happens now. The public school system in California in the early ’50s worked very well. There was discipline when needed, and the teachers and parents took a collaborative role in raising a child. If you got in trouble in school, rest assured, your folks would get the phone call from the teacher and then all hell would break out at home. We were taught responsibility and a sense of morality and values. It was the same way our parents—the “greatest generation”—had been raised. Sadly, I don’t think it’s like that anymore.
CHAPTER TWO
THE COWBOY WAY
Mrs. Trethaway became my first teacher when I started school in first grade. She taught me to read, to write properly, and to respect and embrace life and all it had to offer. Most kids from my generation had similar grade school experiences: Our mothers sent us out every morning with a sack lunch; we sat through class with forced resignation; and we played baseball, football, dodgeball, and all manner of sports. We got into fights, which were never fun, and we suffered being bullied. Sometimes, at least in my case, we experienced getting chosen near the very end of the process when teammates were selected for a game on the playground. But we persevered, and we learned important lessons about dealing with both acceptance and rejection.
As I alluded to, this was a time when parents, teachers, and students had more of a familial relationship, which heightened the overall educational experience. I remember playing outside with my friends at one of my birthday parties when Mrs. Trethaway showed up. Not only did she make an appearance, but she brought me the most amazing present—a genuine Hopalong Cassidy hat!
Like so many guys my age, I loved the cowboys who rode on the big screen and began showing up in our living room when television was still in its infancy. My dad bought a TV in 1950 or 1951, and we may have been the only family on our street to own one at the time. There were maybe three or four channels at best, with all the shows originating out of Los Angeles and, later, a few from San Diego. It was standard fare for the time period to have cartoons, live wrestling matches, movies, and—later into the mid-1950s—soap operas and game shows. I used to love the old movie serials that Channel 5 showed every weekend. They were part of the movie theater experience in the ’30s and ’40s: a newsreel, a chapter of a serial, a cartoon, and then the main feature. I watched Flash Gordon, Don Winsl
ow of the Navy, Ace Drummond, and Tim Tyler’s Luck about a boy searching for his lost father in Africa. But my very favorite were the cowboys. These guys were true heroes in every sense of the word, and they stayed true to character both on and off screen. I loved Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter and one of my favorites, Col. Tim McCoy, who was a former World War I cavalry officer. They filled my days with adventure.
My all-time favorite cowboy was Hopalong Cassidy, whose real name was William Boyd. He dressed all in black, rode a white horse, wore two guns, and took care of any trouble that came along. Hoppy was different from the other gunslingers; he seemed to light up the scene with his smile and, even at such a young age, I knew that Hoppy would never fail. He was tough, but also gentle and kind. That’s why I was so thrilled when Ms. Threthaway brought me that Hoppy hat for my birthday.
Emulating cowboys and having horses around were just a couple of the ways I was gaining an appreciation for rural living. Another was learning about life from the people I would meet in our community. Our neighbors directly north of us were two interesting guys, Bill Costello and Suell Bradley. Bill took care of Suell, who we all knew had some issues. Suell was a nice man but very shy. Looking back, he reminds me of Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird. Bill was paid by the Bradley family to care for Suell. There was a family that lived in the small guesthouse on the Bradley property named the Trujillos. Mrs. Trujillo cooked for the boys, and Mr. Trujillo was the property manager. When I was small, I would often ride my little bike with training wheels over to visit Mr. Trujillo. I called him Gardener because he tended to the grounds. I think he missed having a young kid around, as his son Malcolm was pretty much grown up by then. We instantly formed a bond and I became like Gardner’s adopted son by following him around on the property. I remember that he would often build a small fire and roast fresh corn over the flames. And he always had RC Cola in the old bottles with the camel and the pyramid on the outside. Together, we would share this magnificent feast. Every so often, Gardener would catch scorpions (which were in abundance), pinch their tails off, and toss them into the fire for the strange joy of watching them dance in the flames. “Son,” he would say, “don’t ever touch these scorpions. They bite you bad, and they can kill you.” My conversations with Gardener around the fire were my first lessons in surviving the wilderness.
But just because I was learning didn’t mean I was totally prepared for a real-life threat. Most of our house’s exterior doors had a one-to two-inch gap above the sill, and we would occasionally have unannounced visitors find their way inside. My mother, who was from tough Texas stock, was never bothered by the snakes, spiders, or scorpions that occasionally appeared indoors. I think I was around seven when the first snake came to visit. He was stretched out on the floor next to an extension cord when I saw him, and I must have jumped three feet in the air! My brother came into the room and, at that point, we both scrambled up on the dining room table and began squealing as if were about to die. My mother walked in with her broom and casually swept the snake out the door, telling him, “Okay, mister, this isn’t your house, so time to get moving.” Once he was gone, she strolled past the table where we were still cowering and quipped, “My two brave sons rescuing their poor mother from the awful, dreadful snake.” We never shied away from any critter after that.
Speaking of critters, my brother joined the 4-H Club when he was eleven. He raised two hogs, which he named Benny and Mike. We also had a chicken coop, complete with actual chickens. I remember my mom gathering their eggs every day when I was around four or five, but the chickens didn’t last too long. The local coyotes and an occasional bobcat managed to wipe them out pretty quickly. As for Benny and Mike, their fates weren’t much better. I remember hiding in the laundry room and watching through a crack in the door as my father and his friend Pete Hernandez were fighting to get those hogs into Pete’s truck to take them to the market to be butchered. I think Benny and Mike knew their fate. They were screaming their heads off and eliminating every foul substance you can think of from their bodies. What a sight! I know I picked up some particularly colorful language from my dad that day while he was wrestling those pigs. After all that trauma, most of the meat was contaminated, with the exception of a small supply of bacon that was quite tasty. Unless my Grandma Hillman was visiting from the city, there was never any mention of the word kosher around our household.
The animals that made the greatest impression were the various family dogs. The first of many that I remember was a dalmatian named Patch. He would chase cars, which were usually few and far between on our road. Of course, lots of dogs do that, but Patch would actually try to leap up to the driver’s window. The one time he succeeded, he hung on with his paws and managed to bite the driver on the arm. Unfortunately, that driver was Sheriff Albin Pelco, a nice older fella hired by the Rancho Santa Fe Association to patrol the town. Patch had to go away after that, but I want to believe he was given to another family that lived way far away from any roads.
Barney was the next dog to live with us. He was a very sweet and lovable beagle, so that’s why I felt a little guilty after I lodged that BB in his hind end. Like all beagles, Barney loved to roam. Sometimes he would be gone for hours, and we could often hear a faint howl in the distance as he was on the “chase.” As Barney grew older, he rarely strayed far from home, but the coyotes would taunt him and try to lure him out. As a young fella, he knew better than to heed the coyotes’ cry, but they did manage to coax him out one night in his later years. He didn’t show up until the next morning, badly beaten and chewed up by the pack. We rushed him to the vet. Barney, who was a member of the family, died later that night. It was the first time I had ever seen my mother cry.
Somehow, on farms and ranches, a new dog always manages to come along. One night, while we were having dinner, we detected a quiet whimper at the side door. My dad opened it and, sitting outside, was a frightened and wounded female boxer. It appeared her ear had been damaged, as she was bleeding pretty badly. We gave her some food, but she wasn’t ready to come inside yet. My mom and brother cleaned her ear up and, for the next few nights, she would show up at the door for food. She finally trusted us enough to come inside and let us all pet her. We named her Gretchen, and she happily joined our family. My father thought somebody had shot her ear with a 0.22 round because she cowered when hearing any gunshots.
It didn’t take long for Gretchen to get comfortable at the ranch. There was a family named the Fleetwoods who lived next door, and Gretchen thought chasing their poodle was an especially exciting challenge. Not surprisingly, this resulted in some problems with the neighbors. After many complaints about Gretchen from Mr. Fleetwood, my father came up with one of his more bizarre schemes. It was decided that Dad would wait until midnight and then hide in the Fleetwoods’ bushes in full disguise, including a trench coat and hat. He had a pistol with him and figured that when Gretchen came by to mess with the poodle he’d fire a couple of rounds in the air to scare her off. Right on time, Gretchen came over, ready to do battle with the poodle. When my father jumped out of the bushes and fired off a few shots, Gretchen took off running toward home. The plan worked! Well, almost. Mr. Fleetwood, a man who enjoyed his libations, had completely forgotten about the undercover operation. The local sheriff was called, but “the case of the mysterious armed man in the trench coat” was quickly closed after an awkward but simple explanation from my father.
As long as there weren’t any gunshots, Gretchen was a bold and protective dog. One late night we suddenly heard a loud commotion outside. Gretchen was savagely barking, and a man was frantically yelling in Spanish. She had pinned this poor guy against the side of the house and was on full attack mode. Here was this poor fella who had obviously just crossed the border—lost, hungry, and scared out of his mind—with a large angry dog pinning him with her front paws, ready to take him down. My mother and father pulled Gretchen off the man and calmed him down. Mom fed him and gave him some sandwiches
to take for later. Dad slipped some money into his palm. That night I learned what true kindness is. The love and respect I felt for my parents only grew in that moment.
There were other dogs I remember fondly, but one of the more unique family pets was a burro named Chiquita. He was given to us by the Dunn family, our dear friends who so graciously helped the family way back when we had our house fire. I remember the Dunn boys, Tommy and George, walking five or six miles from their house, leading Chiquita while Mr. Dunn followed in his pickup truck. Chiquita was actually our first guest in my father’s corrals, though she managed not to wreak havoc as Ranger did on his first night with us. Cathy, my younger sister, who was now around six or seven, was the only one small enough to ride Chiquita. That little burro became a true member of the Hillman family, just like the dogs. Whenever we drove home, she would start braying and would sometimes unlatch the corral gate and walk over to the front door. It was a divided door, where the top would open separately from the bottom. Chiquita would push the top section open and stick her head in the house to finish her greeting.
Every year in Rancho Santa Fe, we had a “pet parade,” but for the life of me, I can’t recall if it was linked to some special holiday or feast day or something. Every year, like clockwork, all the kids brought out their pets and paraded them through the center of town. There were mostly dogs, cats, and birds. One year there was even a coyote pup in a little cage that someone had caught in their backyard. There were also horses, ponies, even a raccoon or a possum. Chiquita made the parade one year. There was always a dog pulling a wagon and, to me, that was the best part of the pet parade—a dog pulling a wagon with another animal or a doll riding behind. This classic annual event was right out of William Inge’s play, Picnic, which captured the small-town Americana way of life so well.
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