The History of getting to 83: Prairie in my bones

By Manny

Naturally, I was born...  in Calgary.  Lived here until I was 10 and then moved to Lethbridge.   Went through the school system and ended up at the University of Oklahoma as there was a big oil push in 1948 in Leduc and U of O was the school to go to.  

I was there with lots of Veteran who were taking geology courses, like myself.

Our father was an entrepreneur, but in those days your business was tied to the land and agriculture.

One day I was called back to help my father.  We were shipping wool and it was being loaded by on rail cars for the east.   He was getting impatient with how long it was taking so he  left us young fellows to load and said "I will see you in Lethbridge, going to the cow auction"

On his way to  Lethbridge my father was hit by a train & injured.   My educational career ended abruptly and I stayed to help with the business. My father was an agriculturalist in Cattle, Sheep and Land, I became a sheep herder.  My father’s specialty was buying and selling ranches & livestock  in Saskatchewan and Alberta but his hobby was race horses!  

courtesy of Wikipedia

At 21 I had my own airplane because the roads in Alberta were impassible in the winter.   I had a 4 passenger piper pacer which was equipped with skis for the winter.   We would do food drops for ranchers from Saskatchewan to Alberta, who may not be able to get to a store for supplies for months due to the snows.

In the winter I had more time on skis (of the plane) then in cars.

Being so mobile I never had a steady gal! 

I remember one old rancher up in the NE of the province was so grateful for our consistent help he gave me a 1928 Model A Ford convertible which I still have to this day!