Remember “Mr. Ed’s” theme song?
After we moved to the country in 1967, Kari became envious of her new friend Leslie’s horsemanship. She began a campaign to own her own horse. We owned one acre, certainly not enough space for such but Paul talked to Warren Bass, who owned the undeveloped land next to our property. Mr. Bass was most agreeable that we could build a horse barn on his property, citing it would have to be temporary, because on a someday basis, he would be developing residential lots on the acreage.
Paul was willing, but our budget wasn’t. He found out Madison was developing a new golf course (Yahara Golf Course) on some farmland on the east side of Madison, a few miles west of us. On the farm stood a small machine shed that was destined for demolishment. Paul worked out an agreement that he’d tear it down, salvage the rafters and siding, and clean up the site.
This became an all-family project, including my task of pulling nails. Paul and Kari worked weekends, hauling and stacking the salvaged materials for the building phase of the project.
So, on a chilly fall Saturday they headed out to load the remaining debris in our vintage homemade trailer Paul inherited from his dad pulling it behind our ’65 Ford coupe. They needed to get to the Cottage Grove landfill before it closed. The route to the landfill, eight miles away was to travel five miles east on Highway 18, then head north on County N to the site.
Typical of Paul, he overloaded the trailer, hoping to avoid a second trip to the landfill. He’d barely gotten onto the highway when the inevitable siren blared. He pulled over, the State Patrol officer looked into the car to view what he no doubt thought was a hippie guy (at 35 he still had a full head of hair) and his cute blue-eyed blond girlfriend The hippie guy was unable to produce a billfold in order to show his driver’s license, but tried to explain that he could access the information, as we lived just a short distance away.
Mercifully the officer agreed to follow him to our house. But when Paul drove into the driveway, the officer would not allow him out of the car.
Kari ran into the house, telling me “Dad was in big trouble, and I needed to bring his billfold out to the crime scene.”
Got my jacket on, grabbed his billfold, and ran outside. Oh my gosh, what a sight! How did he ever think he wouldn’t get stopped? It was totally overloaded, and after their days work both father and daughter needed a shower.
But Paul handed his driver’s license to the officer, who then spent an inordinate amount of time “calling it in,” only to come back to the fugitive and announced he had an invalid driver’s license. Well, I knew that couldn’t be true, because I’d renewed his license just weeks before.
However, when I renewed it, I put my birth year, instead of his in the proper spot. (I have a reputation for reversing numbers.)
The patrolman just shook his head at the crazy situation, most likely trying to ascertain how this guy could live in such a nice house, drive a nice car, yet haul rotten wood on a major highway on a decrepit trailer. He didn’t ticket Paul, and in leaving probably was suffering a raging headache.
P.S. The horse barn did get built by Kari and Paul. Jumping Jack Flash joined the family menagerie. Several years later Mr. Bass sold lots and Kari (who was about to graduate from high school) had to sell her horse. So, Paul constructed a new foundation at the foot of our hill and with the help of Mr. Bass and his big tractor, moved the barn downhill. In its new role the barn, still stands, and serves as a utility garage for a garden tractor, snowblower and such.
