Talking about horses in old-time Phoenix


As someone who takes great pride in knowing things nowadays that are out of date, like how to drive a stick-shift car, it's been making me think about how some people in old-time Phoenix must have felt about their expertise with horses, which became obsolete very quickly. Automobiles (horseless carriages) replaced horses so quickly that even basic knowledge of horses must have become rare with the younger generation, who became fascinated with carburetors, and that sort of thing. Let's time-travel and take a look. I, of course, know nothing about horses, so this story will show my ignorance. These old-timers would realize that!

"Well, will you look at that! Can you believe how sloppy that harness is tied! Must belong to the younger generation! And that roan isn't even tied to larboard, my grandpappy would have had a fit at seeing a team like that. And what kind of knot is that?

In my day, folks knew what to do, what type of carriage to set to, how to tie. I don't believe the younger generation could even saddle a mare without help from one of them-thar mail-order books. Ha!

My grandpappy, and his grandpappy, and his grandpappy, were all good horsemen. Most of them could shoe, and handle a team by the time they were knee-high to a grasshopper. Now I don't expect you could find a young person who knows how to plow with a team, or or what to do if a shoe is thrown. Don't know what this world is coming to! I saw one of them "horseless carriages" just the other day here in Phoenix, you wouldn't get me anywhere near one of those things!

Here Clem, watch this - I'm-a-gonna sneak up on that team parked there by the church and retie that square with a slip knot. Won't that be a laugh when they try to ride off? And they won't pay no never mind as to how to fix it, I reckon!"

Image at the top of this post: Horses outside of the Central Methodist Church in 1904, southwest corner of Central and Monroe, Phoenix, Arizona.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more