Oral History Program Keeth Kennington Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Tanner Flinders 26 May 2016 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Keeth Kennington Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Tanner Flinders 26 May 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honors men and women whose lives exemplify the independence and resilience of the people who settled Utah, and includes artists, champions, entertainers, musicians, ranchers, writers, and those persons, past and present, who have promoted the Western way of life. Each year, the inductees are interviewed about their lives and experiences living the Western way of life. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Kennington, Keeth, an oral history by Lorrie Rands & Tanner Flinders, 26 May 2016, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Keeth Kennington May 26, 2016 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Keeth Kennington, conducted May 26, 2016, by Lorrie Rands and Tanner Flinders. Kennington discusses his father, Don Kennington, and his life. Also present is Keeth’s wife, Laurel Kennington. LR It is May 26, 2016, we are in the home of Keeth Kennington in Syracuse. We are interviewing him about his father, Donald Kennington, who has been inducted into the Utah Cowboy Hall of Fame. It’s about 6:30 PM, my name is Lorrie Rands and Tanner Flinders is with me. Ok, so Keeth, we’ll just kind of jump right in. We’re going to talk about your dad but I might ask a few personal questions for you but for the most part I really want to know about your dad. So, when and where was he born? KK: Star Valley, Wyoming. August, I think 23rd, you’ll have to ask mom for sure the date, 1933. Born in a cabin about ten miles outside of town, outside of Star Valley. I think the doctor came out, we drove past that house every time we go to Star Valley, every time we go to the ranch anyway. It’s still there. It’s up Crow Creek on the way between Afton and Montpelier if you kind of go through the mountains, and grandpa had a ranch, was homesteading a ranch and that’s where they were living. No, they wouldn’t have homesteaded then, yeah, I think they did too. But they were living up in Elk Valley in a log cabin, there was an older brother a year ahead of dad and then dad and then another younger 2 brother a year under dad and then there was quite a distance, probably ten years, between the next three kids. LR: Wow. KK: So my youngest aunt is only four or five years older than I am. LR: That’s always fun. KK: Yes. LR: So his parents, the ranch they lived on, how long had they been there before your dad was born? KK: Grandpa was a rancher, his parents settled Star Valley and they went there because of polygamy. My great, great grandpa married his friends’ wife. They made a pact with each other, and they were living in Tooele. If something happened to one, the other would take care of his family. He did that, his friend died in a logging accident and for a year or so he tried to take care of the two families. After a while it was just easier to marry them and then when the polygamy act came they moved to Bear Lake area and eventually settled in Star Valley. My great grandpa was one of their kids and grandpa, Harv, dad called him Harv too. Harv and Virginia. Must have been what they called each other because the boys, all the kids called each other by their first names. Never mom or dad, it was Harv or Virginia. So Harv met Virginia when she was sixteen, he was seventeen, eighteen something like that and wanted to homestead a ranch. They had 6500 acres which they bought from her dad, at least part of it. I can’t remember for sure how they got it, but it was too little to provide for everything, so in the summers he 3 would herd cattle for the BLM up on the BLM land, that’s where Elk Valley was. That’s where they stayed all summer and then in the winter they would ride down to Fairview and stay in a house down there with grandma and grandpa, with dads grandma and grandpa for the school year and then in the summer they’d go back up. Dad was born in a log cabin probably half way between Elk Valley and Fairview. So roughly ten miles out of town. LR: Did he ever talk about what it was like growing up on a ranch like that? KK: Oh yeah. He must’ve been the gullible one. His two brothers teased him, he would tell us stories. They would have him sit on a rock underneath the cliff with his hand held over his head like this for hours waiting for that hawk to land on his head so that he could grab it and then they could go up and get the babies. For hours they would have him do this, he was so gullible. LR: That’s crazy. He was the youngest of that group right? KK: He was the middle of the three. LR: Ok. KK: Phil and then Don and then Lavell. Phil’s still living, Lavell died close to twenty years ago of a heart attack and dad passed away last year. LR: So he obviously had a lot of fun growing up on the ranch. KK: Yes, hard work. LR: Right. Did he get any formal schooling? KK: In the winters they’d go down and stay in town. “In town,” was Fairview and they would go to school in Afton, well Fairview I suppose had a school, I think it did. Then they went to high school at Star Valley High and graduated there and he 4 was a boxer. He even boxed professionally for I suppose five to six years. He was the Intermountain Welterweight champion and mom’s got a picture, a painting, by I don’t know who she was except she painted that painting of him when he was boxing and it’s pretty amazing. LR: Do you know why he did boxing? KK: I think to find who he wanted to be, because his brothers were both bigger than he was and he was the gullible one. He was kind of too little to play much football, he played football but boxing he could be matched up against someone his own size. LR: So you think it was his way of figuring out who he was? KK: Yes. LR: I really like that idea. Did he ever spar with his brothers? KK: Oh yeah, and he could beat his brothers boxing. He would take us around the young men’s activities, mutual activities when we were kids, in fact Kendall and I, I have a twin brother, and he would take us up to boxing exhibitions. Mostly he was refereeing by then and he brought us out here to Syracuse one time and I used to have a trophy and a big red fire truck that I won for boxing this kid, little kid named Ricky Thurgood that since passed away but we connected forty years after. We boxed when we were seven years old and found some scrapbook, “Keeth Kennington vs. Ricky Thurgood,” and he would come out and exhibition box somebody, mostly referee, for whoever was boxing out here, must have been a lot bigger. LR: So it was something he continued to do, at least have a foot in? 5 KK: Yes. He helped start the boys club in Washington Terrace, he and Lowell Hayman. I don’t know that Lowell was ever a boxer but they started it and it’s still going today, as far as I know. When he was ten years old, I can’t imagine this, grandpa hired him out for the summer, some relative or friend or somebody needed help, so he put him on his horse, gave him a sack lunch, and drew a trail in the dirt. He told him to go over this ridge or that ridge, or wherever it was, and it was ten miles to this other ranch. His dad just sent him off in the morning and didn’t hear anything from him all summer. Didn’t know if he got there, they just didn’t… totally different than what it is now, and he was ten years old. Ten years old is when he started shoeing his own horse. If you’re ten years old you’re big enough to shoe your own horse and all the brothers, I’m sure, did that. LR: Is that where he learned the basics of shoeing? KK: Yes. That’s where he learned how to shoe and I remember when I was a kid, I was about five when we moved from Washington Terrace to Harrisville and that’s about when he started shoeing horses. He had a green truck with a horseshoe on it, “Don’s Horseshoeing. Don Kennington Horseshoeing.” He would shoe all night. He worked at Hill Field all day, would get there probably at six. He used to say, “Five o’clock comes mighty early,” when we were up, teenagers making noise. He’d go in and go to bed and then he would work there until probably 3:30 and then go from there to shoeing horses wherever he had appointments and he would shoe until dark and then come home. We always said he came home at dark-thirty, whatever time dark-thirty was. In the winter that’d be 5:30, in the summer that’d be 10:30. It was hard sometimes when he came home. I can see 6 that as a parent because we didn’t have our chores done or something, he’d get a little mad, but he was a great dad. He taught us what he figured needed to be taught. This is kind of fun actually, maybe not funny but fun. Across the street from us lived Bill Shurtleff, who was the dentist and he had horses. Bill’s office was in South Ogden and dad and Bill would trade horseshoeing for dentistry. For us kids that meant in the morning, whatever morning mom said, you went to the dentist office and you rode with the dentist. You rode clear from Harrisville to the dentist and he’d take care of you and then mom would come pick us up whenever he got done. I was afraid of needles so I never got the shots and he never pushed it. But he made a lot of trades like that. We had a horse, sometimes a couple horses, had a cow for a while, and a lamb. We had some chickens when we were little kids, not for very long though. The day we slaughtered them was pretty exciting for little kids. Dad just got a block of wood, chopped their head off and let them go and they’d hop around squirting blood everywhere, and a seven year old kid loves that. I remember scalding them and plucking feathers and stuff, it was terrible. That wasn’t very fun. We also had rabbits. He always had his own horse, always had an animal to take care of and he tried to teach us that. LR: Why do you think he always had an animal? KK: It’s just who he was. When they finally moved to Farr West, to the mobile home park and he didn’t have anything, it was hard on him. He had a way with animals and horses. He just kind of knew who they were and they would trust him. 7 LR: You know, let’s go back a bit. KK: Sorry. I’m talking more about me instead of him, sorry. LR: No. Please don’t apologize. This is the whole point, we’re getting your memories of your dad so we’re getting your stories. So there’s no reason to apologize. What I’m curious about is, he grew up in Star Valley. When did he come to Utah? KK: He came to Utah when he was nineteen, when he and mom got married. There’s an interesting story. Mom’s best friend was Alice, dads best friend was Keith, Alice Turner and Keith Pope. Well they both started dating each other and dad and Keith lived in Star Valley and mom lived in Cokeville which is about an hour away in our driving. We probably go faster than what they did then. I remember stories of them being out so late and being so tired that Keith and dad would drive one light pole to the next and then take turns because they were so tired. Now light poles, I imagine were a lot farther away than they are now but they were so tired driving home. So when dad married mom, Arlene and Keith married, Alice and that will go in the story a little later, but when he got married they came down here and he started working at Hill Field cause he used to say, when he got married she wanted to eat three times a day even in the winter so he needed to get a good job. LK: He said that a lot. She wanted to eat three meals a day. KK: Three times a day even in the winter. He didn’t like steaks or roasts very much, he liked hamburger, cause that’s all they had was steak and roast, mostly roast when he grew up. They didn’t have hamburger, but he liked a good hamburger. LR: Funny. 8 KK: So I have two older sisters, we’re all K’s, Kristine, Karlene, Keeth, Kendall, Kalene, and Kory. Kendall and I are twins and we’re the oldest boys and he wanted to name me after Keith Turner, his best friend, but Keith and Alice were separated at the time. They’ve reconciled and made fifty, sixty years until Keith passed away, and Alice is still living. So dad said, “I want to name him Keith” and mom said, “No.” He said, “Yes,” she said, “No,” so finally the compromise was she worked out the spelling so I have two E’s, K-E-E-T-H instead of the I. LK: She didn’t really like him. Mom didn’t. KK: Well I think she did after a while. LR: Interesting. LK: Mom wanted Kelly. KK: Kyle. LK: Oh. I thought it was Kelly. KK: Mom wanted me to be Kyle. Tanner would have been good, huh? TF: Yeah. It’s a good name. LR: Ok, so he’s moved down here… KK: Oh, he started working at Hill Field and was still boxing at the time. LR: Where did he live? KK: They lived downtown Ogden to start with when we were born, 1956, so somewhere around that time they bought a home in Washington Terrace. Those homes were the old military homes that they’d moved up there and I vaguely remember the home there a little bit. Then they moved to Harrisville because he wanted some land and Harrisville had, I don’t know if it was an acre but it was 9 probably close to an acre. More than a half-acre anyway, so we had a couple corrals and a shed and had a cow. He got tired of the cow pretty quick I think because they got to be milked twice a day no matter what. He was used to that in Star Valley but not down here where he’s horseshoeing and boxing and working and everything else. LR: What did he do at Hill Field? KK: He was a machinist, he was a very good machinist. In fact he made, I don’t have any idea where they are, those knives, want to get them? He made a set, a whole wall full of knives from scrap parts at Hill Field that were just all different. Scimitars, daggers, big swords and little tiny ones and all sorts of stuff that he would make. He was very precise to get it very exact, I think I got some of that from him. It’s got to be about like OCD, to get that just right where it is and I don’t like to end a job in the middle. Sometimes it drives Laurel, my wife, crazy because if I’m mowing the lawn or if I’m weed eating or something or cleaning, doing something. LK: This is what those guys in the Ogden Parade. LR: So this is what… KK: These are some that he made. The handles are not as pretty as they used to be. LR: Your dad made these? KK: Yes. How would you like to meet some guy with that? LR: But they’re not sharp? KK: Well, they used to be. LR: Then they might have been initially. 10 KK: Yes, this one I don’t think he finished. TF: DK? His initials? LR: Look at that. I see it. I had to actually look for it. That is really cool. KK: I haven’t seen those for years. LR: This is like a letter opener almost. A really sharp letter opener. KK: That’ll go right through you, wouldn’t it? But you’d cut your hand. I wouldn’t want to use that. LR: I wouldn’t either. KK: Slice your hand right off. LR: That’s really cool. Do you think that learning how to horseshoe at such a young age kind of influenced what he did, being a machinist? KK: Yes. I think he never did like being a machinist, never liked working at Hill Field because he liked being out on the ranch or out in the open, not in a building. But he also learned how to make things do, how to make do with things on the ranch. I don’t know if they made their own horseshoe, I’m sure at times they made their own horseshoes, even if they bought them when they could there’d be times, cause years later he made his own when he needed them for a specialty shoe. LR: Just make his own. KK: He liked horseshoeing best and he always told us as kids, “You get your talent from your mother,” and we were pretty talented. We had a band and we weren’t afraid to get up and perform or speak or whatever but when we look back at the old home movies now and you can see that sense of humor in him back then, we believed him, we got our talent from mom. We got a lot of talent from mom but 11 we got a lot from dad. He just had that little knack that he could make a joke out of something, see something funny, or when he was doing his poetry he’d have you laughing one minute and crying the next and then laughing again. Just fantastic. LR: When did he start with his poetry? KK: When I was a kid, we were pretty active in the LDS church and used to have Sunday school and priesthood meeting in the morning and then come home and eat lunch and do whatever and go back in at nine. I remember one snowy day he was looking out on the fence post between our house and Jim Whetton, who was the neighbor. There was probably six inches of snow there and there was a robin flying around wanting to land on that post and he said, this is the first poem I ever remember of his own, he said, “Little robin red-breast sitting on the fence, don’t know where to land cause the snow’s too deep.” I said, “What?” He said that was his first, doesn’t rhyme doesn’t, but it was something to remember. I don’t know where he ever got these poems. When we were kids the only vacation we took was to Star Valley or to Cokeville. I remember when I was in high school we went to southern Utah once but that’s the only time. We went up to help hay and went up to help mom’s parents. Dad had a construction company and we’d go up there, especially the twin boys, go up there for a couple weeks all summer. Going up he would teach us poems. Do you want the poems? They’re just little ditties that he taught us. LR: Go ahead. 12 KK: They’re pretty funny to teach little kids. Oh sure, now my mind goes blank. “Tom, Tom the pipers son, stole a pig and away he run, the pig got eat and Tom get beat, and Tom went crying down the street, amen.” It’s the amen that he would put on there. That wasn’t his original poem that I know of anyway. “I had a calf, that’s half, I put him in a stall, that’s all.” That’s one of his poems. One of his first little ones. “I had a little dog and his name was Rover and when he died he died all over.” Let’s see, “I had a little pig and I put him in a trough and I fed him and I fed him until his tail popped off.” Just the little weirdest little things. He could tell stories, it was just dad. Didn’t realize all that stuff till later on when we started performing with him, Kendall, Kaylene, and I. My little sister and I performed with him all over the place, as much as we could, and then you kind of get to see, “Dang, he’s good.” You’d hear other poets and they would be good poets but dad just had whatever that something was. There’s times, many, many times they would announce him and they’d start clapping. They’d announce somebody else and it would be ok, and they’d appreciate them, but they’d announce him and they just start clapping. He was good. LR: I read one of his poems and to be honest, I read it and I said, “Why is this good?” I know that doesn’t sound very good, but then I actually listened to a poem that someone else had, it wasn’t his, but I listened and then it made more sense. Like it’s not necessarily what’s written, it’s how it’s performed. That’s how I envisioned it. KK: No, I don’t like reading his books very much. I haven’t read every poem that he’s done for the same reason. 13 LR: I know, I literally went, Ok, maybe I need to hear it. KK: Do you remember what poem it was or what it was about? LR: It was supposed to be your dad but it wasn’t, it was someone else. It was just something I found on YouTube. To be honest I don’t remember the poem I just have this visual of a cowboy standing on a stage talking, but it made sense. Then it occurred to me that ok, these are things that obviously have to be performed to really get, for them to make sense. KK: To really get into them. LR: He must have been… KK: He was so good. LR: Cause the guy I watched was dry. I mean I’m waiting, but from what I’m getting from you, your dad just knew how to grab an audience. KK: He did. LR: And keep them, keep them right where you wanted them for a long time. KK: Yes. He went out to Elko to the cowboy poetry gathering when they first started out there and it was, the first year. He went he was just one of the cowboys, one of the poets out there and he hadn’t done it for very long. Second or third year, mom will know better when he went out, he was in a show and they have the main guys usually in the evenings and then during the day they just have little gatherings, different places and you can go sing or do your poetry. He was in one of those and he said they was just dry, just like you said it was dry. The guys would get up and get the poem and he said just on the spur of the moment on stage he did one of his poems. I think it was Homemade Bread, but we called it 14 the rap after that because he just started rapping this poem. “I was shoeing horses a-working away working at the end of another long day when over the fence I heard a female say, ‘Hi there Mr. Horseshoer, say if it’s not much trouble and not much spite, could you shoe just… not much squeeze, could you shoe just one more nice horse please?’ Well without looking up I said, ‘Sorry ma’am, I’ve done about all the shoes I can.’ Then that beautiful voice said, ‘One more horse,’ and when I looked at her I said, ‘Of course,’ that cute little lady melt your heart, give your motor another start.” He just did it spur of the moment, and that became one of his, not a fancy poem but one… till he did that and yeah, it was good. LR: I think that might have been the one I read. KK: Could have been. LR: I kind of feel bad. I have to admit it was weird to read this and think, he… KK: He got famous for this? LR: Right. KK: He got famous for this, are you kidding me? LR: But it’s amazing what happens when you actually see it and it… then it made all the sense. KK: Yeah. LR: So obviously it’s something he loved to do. When he became known for this, for his poetry and his reading, did he stop horseshoeing? KK: No. Well he did when he just couldn’t do it anymore. LR: But that was because he couldn’t, not because he didn’t want to? 15 KK: Right. He was shoeing a horse in Plain City, I can’t remember whose, and he had his good friend, Ben Maxfield with him. He had a heart attack and had to finish the horse, while he was having this heart attack. They drove from Plain City back to Harrisville and then called the ambulance from Harrisville, cause he had to finish. He had open heart surgery and I think it was six bypasses, but he had to finish the stupid horse. So that’s where I get that, it’s time to finish the job. LR: Wow. That’s crazy. I might have asked this already but do you know what year he started? KK: Shoeing? No. LR: Not shoeing, performing. KK: Oh, performing? No it would have been probably the eighties, I think. They were gone all the time. They put a hundred thousand miles on the car a year going to Canada, going to Arizona. There was one show in Kanab, I don’t remember what it was but I think mom still has the plates they gave him. He won the most serious, the most humorous, the all-around and he could have won the most original cause the poems he did were his own. A lot of the other guys do poems that other guys have written and they make them their own and they’re pretty good, but dads were all his. He and his brother Phil, the oldest brother, between the two of them, they wrote six books together. They were self-published but they sold all over the place. They were dry stuff, you’d read it and think, “I don’t get this one.” He also had the little things between poems. He would just get you. They do kind of a round robin thing at the poetry fest so he would get up and perform a couple poems and then he’d sit down and we’d get up and do a couple of songs. 16 He’d read the audience or figure out what he was going to do next and try and remember, and the older he got the more he wrote down and stayed pretty much with his list, which was ok. When he was by himself or in between poems, he would just say, “Did you hear about Sven and Helga? Sven and Helga were going to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary.” And he’d say it just like Sven and Helga, “So the reporter came out from town to interview Sven, and he said ‘Sven, fifty years. That’s amazing. Not many people go fifty years anniversaries and what did you do for your twenty-fifth anniversary?’ and Sven said, ‘Well I took Helga and we went back to the old country.’ And the reporter said, ‘That’s wonderful, and what are you going to do for your fiftieth anniversary?’ Sven said, ‘Well I’m going back to get her and bring her home.’” Just little… LR: That will get them going. KK: Little things. They took a survey of a hundred peoples bathing habits. They found out that ninety-nine people out of one hundred sit in the bathtub with their feet in the front facing the tap and the faucet. But one didn’t, so they asked him, “Why do you sit in the bathtub with your back to the tap and the faucet?” “I lost the plug.” He’d just make those up. LR: When you talk about performing, where would he perform? KK: Lot of churches, never charged for a church. I don’t know if he ever charged much, he ended up getting paid but they would say, “What do you want? And he’d say, if they were going to Idaho, “Put us up in a hotel and give us some gas money or something.” 17 LR: Would he perform at rodeos? KK: No. Well, I don’t think there were many rodeos. There was a lot of cowboy gatherings though, the poetry gatherings. If you’re in that culture there’s quite a few of them like Heber City and the Bar J Chuckwagon in Jackson, he performed with them quite a bit. Just kind of a camaraderie between all of them. There’s Coeur D’Alene, Idaho and there’s Pocatello and Nevada and California has some; Northern California, I don’t think there’s much in Southern California. If you’re in that little genre, you could go somewhere almost every weekend I think, especially during the summer. LR: Not what I envisioned. Ok. That makes sense. KK: I remember going to Jackson Hole, doing a show for the Secretary of the Interior, Kent Watts, or was it James Watts? I think and they had a big convention or something there, we did a show for them. That was pretty fun. Lots and lots of people. I found out and I think he felt the same way, the best ones were with a smaller group. He did have one called the “Gas Can,” about a Bill and Sal and they bought a little place. About have to do the poem to do it, but I don’t know the poem all the way very well anymore. “He bought a can of gas to clean and fix up, paint things and give things a little class and she didn’t like the smell outhouse so she poured the gas down the outhouse so it wouldn’t kill the grass and one night after supper Bill took his paper and match and headed out back and locked the indoor latch. He lit his paper like a,” I can’t remember how it goes. “He waved the paper around the hole to scare the spiders away and the neighbors on one side 18 were looking at the sky when Bill lit the paper and the outhouse went bye-bye and the neighbors on the other side were looking at the sky.” The punch line is, “When I look back to that night and mull things over in my mind, it’s hard to get the sequence straight and get the picture to unwind,” and he’d go like this and he had his microphone. He said, “Bill must have been up there somewhere though I can’t say for sure, the flash of the gas and the dark of the night made the visibility poor. But one thing was different too, the thing that caught my eye, that’s the only time I ever saw two moons in the same night sky.” He’d pick some heartless old lady, and he’d lean right into her with, “That’s the only time I ever saw two moons in the same,” and they’d laugh. With a smaller group it’s easy to do that. You can find that gal, “My husband drug me to this thing,” he liked those. LR: He won a lot of awards for his poetry and his readings. KK: Yes. He’s got one or two in the Library of Congress. I can’t remember if it was Orrin Hatch or Bennett, one of them had him send stuff back, I can’t remember which one it was. Probably the serious one. He’s got one he calls “The Woman of the West,” about grandma. Harv was out feeding cattle or something and she loaded up the pack horse and put the three boys on behind she said, “You’re big enough, you’re five, you’re six, and you’re seven,” and they rode halfway down the canyon to her parents place, which is the ranch that he homesteaded part of, and they stayed overnight. Then she rode into town with a pack horse to get some supplies and came back and picked them at her parents’ house, then they rode back up and when they got in sight of the cabin she could see some smoke coming out of the chimney she knew her cowboy was there. It was called Woman 19 of the West and it just made you cry. She passed away the year Laurel and I got married, so 1979. She had five or six heart attacks and uncle Lavell died of a heart attack, and dad had a heart attack. Phil’s had a heart attack… so that doesn’t sound good for me but so far so good. LR: Do you have any questions Tanner? TF: I understood he worked at Weber State. KK: Taught horseshoeing. TF: How long did he work there? KK: I would guess it’d be ten or fifteen years, mom might know. Taught a lot of guys how to horseshoe. Seemed like during my young junior high and high school years he was always teaching at Weber State every summer. I don’t know when he would because he wasn’t home. I imagine he worked at Hill Field till 3:30 and then went there, I don’t know. I don’t know if you could dig up any transcripts to see when he taught. Sometimes people would call him professor and he’d chuckle a little bit. LR: So he’d get up and go to Hill Field in the morning, perhaps go teach, and then horseshoe, so when he came home at dark… KK: It was dark-thirty. LR: You really never saw your dad growing up. KK: No, and when he’d come home he was tired and he’d be grouchy and being boys some chore was never done, and I had a temper, oh I had a temper, and he wasn’t against using the belt. He didn’t use it overly but I remember, I was probably twelve or thirteen something like that and I had glasses. I got glasses in 20 the second grade and Kendall never had to have glasses. He was taller than I am, much better at sports, and I had a temper, and I’d throw my glasses and break them or do whatever. I remember him saying, “One more temper tantrum you’re going to get the belt.” I slammed the screen door on the back porch, I don’t remember if it broke or whatever but I remember I got the belt that night and for whatever reason I’m the most patient guy ever. I don’t know if that’s what did it, my sisters say it was. He was mean to me, meaner to me than Kendall, but it might have been that I deserved it, might not, I don’t know. I guess the method may have been something that people may not agree with now, but the result I hope is what he’d be pleased with. He didn’t like to say, “I’m proud of you,” but he’d say, “I’m pleased with you.” I don’t think he’d want to be too proud, he never wanted to be too proud but he’d say, “I’m pleased,” and that was good. LR: How did your mom tolerate the never seeing him? I mean that had to have been rough on her too. KK: It had to be. LR: Apparently she didn’t show it though if you can’t remember. KK: It’s just the way it was I guess. He would come home and sit in the chair and he’d be tired and she’d fix him supper or heat up something and take it into him and he’d watch TV or watch the news or something while he ate. We didn’t have TV for a long time though. So when I get my little pity party and Laurel says “I’m not doing that Don.” She says, “Don, Don, I’m not doing that.” LR: I know you’ve told already a few stories of your dad but do you have any other favorite stories of your dad you’d like to share? 21 KK: Can’t think of any right off the top of my head. Branding was fun. We would go every spring and fall to Star Valley to help grandpa brand calves. One time we were up there in grandpas corral and Kendall and I were just walking across, we were probably six or seven, and all the sudden we heard dad yell, “Run!” He said that’s the first time in our lives we ever obeyed without questioning. I’m sure it was the tone of his voice because that old mama cow who had been on the other side of the corral, we hadn’t paid any attention to, was taking after us and would have killed us. We ran across and scooted right up the corral just as she hit. Just would have killed us. He used to take us horseshoeing whenever he could get us to go, when we were younger. We used to shod Glistmans by Weber State a lot, I don’t know they had a lot of horses, and he’d get to Coombe’s on 12th street I think it was, and he’d say, “Somethings wrong with this truck, this old truck…” and this old truck would turn into Coombe’s and we’d get an ice cream. Every time he’d say, “Something’s wrong with this truck. This old truck.” LR: That’s a nice little treat. KK: Yes, I’m sure that’s why we went, or one reason. When I was probably twenty-eight, twenty-nine years old, he offered me the job, the horseshoeing business. I think he’d made pretty good money, I don’t know for sure, but I said, “Dad, are you crazy? Maybe you were six feet tall to start with and I’m six-four and you can’t bend over and walk…” There are two or three times at least when he would come home from getting kicked or stepped on and mom would cut his boot off. I remember at least one bloody boot, she would pull up his leg and cut the boot off 22 and he’d been stepped on and kicked, and I said, “No way. Thanks but no thanks.” There was one time… you ever seen anybody shoe a horse? LR: Yes. KK: When he did it, he’d use his gloves sometimes, sometimes he wouldn’t. Different parts, like the front feet he didn’t use his gloves much. He would put the glove on his left and take the glove off of his right hand and set it on the top of his little tools. He designed this tool kit, and then he’d put the nails in his mouth, always had blue or black lips, little lines cause he’d always put the nails in and he was on the back hose, some owner was holding the horse and he had the foot between his legs. Then he’d, the horse is there so the rear is here and he’d slip that hoof around after he put the nails on and he twist the nails off but he hadn’t clinched them so they were still kind of sticking out and he slipped that shoe off like this and had the glove like this and the horse started to kick and the glove caught on the nails. He tried to let go but the glove caught on the nail so that horse was just jerking him back and forth. He grabbed his hand like this and finally he said the horse just quit. He didn’t think it was anything he did but he said the horse figured he wasn’t going to get rid of him, he quit kicking and he stood there catching his breath and the guy said, “My hell, you’re tough.” He said he was just trying to catch his wind. Wasn’t trying to keep hold of it, just couldn’t let go. LR: That’s hard to fathom. Did any of his kids go into that? KK: No. We knew how to trim a horse and I’m sure we’ve nailed a shoe on a time or two but not anything like that. He could make a lame horse walk. He was the one 23 to call for any kind of corrective shoeing. If a horse would overstep and the back foot would hit the front foot he could make a shoe so the foot would come up quicker and go down quicker so it wouldn’t step on it. He’d do corrective shoeing. Or if a horse got a disease or a soft hoof or thrush, the disease called a thrush. I remember a lot of times he would put some kind of medicine, he’d trim the hoof up, put some kind of medicine, a rubber pad and then the shoe to hold the rubber pad on and the rubber pad would hold the medicine in there. Then he’d go back, I don’t know, a week or so later and check the horse. LR: Did he have any formal schooling for the horseshoeing? KK: It’s all self-taught. LR: It’s almost like he intuitively knew what to do. KK: Yes. He had a thing called a war bridle which is a lariat and you’d wrap it around the horses head, behind his ears and then over his snout. It was just one end of the lariat and when you pulled on it, it would pull on the ears and make that old horse mind. We had to be careful, I remember him always saying, “You got to be careful, you got to know what you’re doing.” Once when I was a little kid and when he was pretty new, he jerked and some young colt reared up and reared over and killed itself. Reared over and broke his neck and the owners standing there and dad just felt horrible. I don’t know what he did with the horse or if he paid for the horse or whatever but things like that, little mistakes, I guess he would learn because he could use the war bridle on a horse and before the nights through he and that horse are best friends. There’d be some big old fat horse the owner never rode was out in the pasture, the only time they would 24 exercise it was every two to three months to get the horse shod or new trimmed up or something. Those horses get pretty rank and he’d just have them scratching out of his hand. He just had a way with horses in particular and people, one of the first poems he wrote. Can you pause for just a minute? I’m going to see if I can find the book. (Recording paused) Oh. I don’t see the one I’m thinking of. There’s another one he used to teach us, well he taught my brother and it’s not really a poem. He went to high schools too, some word got out and he would go to their English class and do poetry. He’d spend a whole day at Northridge High and then another day at Clearfield, Weber, wherever. “Once upon time there were two twin skunks named In and Out. One day In and Out’s mom said, ‘Hey, In and Out, why don’t you go out and play?’ So In and Out went out to play. Well a little while later here comes Out without In, so In and Out’s mom said, ‘Hey Out, where’s In?’ and he said, ‘Oh he’s out.’ So In and Out’s mom said, ‘Why don’t you go out and find In and bring In in?’ So Out went out to find In and bring In in and a little while later here comes Out with In. So In and Out’s mom said, ‘Hey Out, how’d you find In?’ Out said, ‘Oh, it was easy. Instinct.’ I don’t know where he came up with it. LR: To hear someone say that, it’s kind of fun. It’s really cool. KK: One of the things that I was blessed with that Kendall’s not so much blessed with, but he’s got his other talents. I can say I’m like dad, I really like to read the crowd and put some feeling into it. Whether it’s humorous or serious or whatever. LR: Do you perform? 25 KK: Some, but not near as much as dad did, but he was retired by then and they could go. He performed with Watty Mitchell and Don Edwards was there, they were good friends with all the more famous performers. I can’t think of who the vet is from Texas off the top of my head, but he was right up there with all of them and he made friends that just lasted forever. At his viewing and funeral, we just couldn’t believe how many people there were. So many people that he would help spiritually, he would help them physically, he’d help them with money, somebodies house burned down I think he sent them $10,000. Just stuff that he would do. LR: You kind of already touched on this but, my last question I like to ask at the very end, and it’s not an easy question so I apologize, what do you think his legacy is? KK: In the cowboy poetry? LR: Overall. In general. KK: I think he would say his family. I think family and the gospel were most important to him. He was never perfect, never claimed to be, never thought he was. He knew he had faults. I wonder if he had a temper and maybe that’s where I got the temper. Maybe that’s how he realized, we got to break this kid of his temper, I don’t remember. I know he suffered with some depression, I don’t know that he ever took any medicine or anything for it he just put his head down and worked. So his legacy would be, I suppose family. What I learned from him is hard work and don’t judge, don’t judge anybody. He just loved everybody, and you just knew you were loved by him. If that’s what I could learn from him and pass on it would be, in fact I think that’d be the greatest thing you could do. He’s terrific and 26 it’s taken a long, long time to come to grips with it, because he was a tough dad on me. He was real tough, he’s a good man though. LR: Well I really appreciate your time and your willingness to talk to us about him and thank you very much. KK: Thank you.