This is about age 10, 1940.

Horses, horses, horses, and other animals,

I had developed a love for animals, I had a pet owl, that I caught on the front porch one winter, I found it at the front door one very snowy night, as I was letting Teddy out for his duty call. The poor bird had a rip to the bone on the outside of its right leg, from top to the foot. I picked it up and held it gently, and right away there was a sense of trust I could see, between us. I called for dad, who came and looked at the wound as I held it. Dad thought we could sew it up, if the owl would let us. Pretty soon, the kitchen table was the scene of some great stitchery as we did what we could to disinfect and sew up the gash. Dad had earlier built me a set of cages in the basement, where I could bring home my trophies. Soon Hooty was bedded down. His recovery proceeded nicely, and it wasn't too long before this owl would sit on my right shoulder, when I rode my bike. We made quite a sight, and even got our picture in the local paper.

One afternoon, I discovered a riding stable during one of our rides, and, I guess the sight of an untethered owl on my shoulder caught the eye of the workers there. Pretty soon, this became my hangout, every day. I found that Teddy and I both loved Horses. I fed them, and rode them when their owners were away, One of them was a horse that had been the National, and Worlds champion belonging to Carol Helmann, of the famous Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise, now Best Foods. This horse developed a shortness of breath that left him just able to walk. Carol was in my class at school and one day she asked me to try to help her, by regularly exercising up and over. Every day, I would walk him and then one day I saddled him and we rode for a few minutes. Soon this reached 1/2 hour rides, and then finally, on the weekend, we took to the trails. I even got him to Gallup. He loved it! And in fact, one day he grabbed the snaffle in his teeth and took off at a dead run. I finally got him back under control by hitting him with the stale of the reins hard right between his ears. We came back with a lot of lather all over both of us. Carol had seen the last bit, and was there when we arrived back at the stable. I thought I was going to catch it real good, but I guess some one had told her of how diligently I had slowly worked up to that run. Carol came up to me as I dismounted, and asked if she could cool him and down, Sure, I replied, and she mounted and rod him slowly as he cooled out. She was so pleased, I became known as some thing of a wonder. The boy who speaks horse talk. One evening, at about 10 o-clock, the phone rang, and dad took it. In wonderment, dad turned to me and asked, Skip do you know Gen. Donavan, You mean Wild Bill I replied? He wants you to come down to his stall right now. Ok I replied, and off we drove. We went right to his stall, where he had a great, high-spirited Irish Hunter. There were a lot of people there, including some policemen. The General explained the problem to me, Skip, the stable boy came back drunk, and went in the stall to sleep. Someone says they heard him swearing and it sounded like he hit my hunter with the pitchfork, and the horse went wild and won't let any one in there. Do you think you can calm him down and move him to another stall?

Sure, I replied, just get the other stall open and then get everyone out of here, and I'll see what I can do. When everything was quiet, I began to talk to Big Red, and soon there was his head, over the stall door, looking at me. I slowly approached, and gave him a slice of apple, and began to pat him. Soon the breathing was slow, and the arteries in his neck were down to normal, I put on a lead line, opened the stall. And led him to the new stall, gave hi the rest of the apple, shut the stall door and called every one back.

I heard later that the man had been kicked to a pulp, and very dead, Now I could do no wrong.