Part 6

When I was 18, I was able to go to my first couple rodeos.

I had worked countless hours with my horse and endured an extreme amount of criticism under my dad's tutelage, if one can call it that.

I am talking beyond criticism but actually degrading.

I am talking “You stupid b****, you can't ride,” and on and on it went.

It was loud and clear so every person that visited the post office, the library, our restaurant or the store heard every word.

The criticism I endured would have made any person crawl into a hole and never come out.

I am not going to say I was a strong person, but I wasn't going to quit either, and he wasn't going to make me.

I was also not allowed to go to any barrel clinics or get any training from anyone.

I read books, bought a video, and talked to a lot of people.

I spent that summer going to all the rodeos I could,

ending with the rodeo in Lakeview, Oregon over Labor Day.

That fall, my grandparents celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary

and sometime after that we awoke to my dad flat out choking my mother to death.

It was terrifying.

He was screaming at her that she would never see her “50^th wedding anniversary”.

I was in my room. I had zero clue what to do, but I was terrified beyond belief.

I really thought it was going to be over that day.

I was 18, standing there completely helpless,

not knowing what to do. Hate wanted to fill your heart but

there is nothing, nothing I could do but wait it out and pray.

You know that you are completely helpless against your own dad's strength.

But, what do you do??

What?

What could one do in that amount of evil.

We made it through that day.

There were clumps of hair in the garbage.

We made it through the yelling.

My brother had actually crawled out the window and ran down to the barn,

which really only made things worse.

My mom had befriended the cop's wife, and she encouraged my mother to get another restraining order.

And so, the third restraining order happened.

With it, the cop or his wife, told my mother that if she broke this one,

she wouldn't be able to get another one.

Part of the restraining order it was marked that there was to be absolutely no contact.

No phone calls, nothing.

My mom freaked out.

She was calling the trucking office leaving messages that her husband needed to call home.

It was through this that I figured out that my dad was also having an affair.

This wasn't the first time.

There had been countless women through the years.

I remember back when I was 5 years old, stopping at the teacherage apartments.

I know my dad and I were riding his horse Weed. We stopped to visit a teacher living there.

I didn't realize at the time what was happening but I remember naively running up and telling my mom where we had been when we got home.

This “other woman” also had two kids

a daughter who had also been getting ready for the Junior Rodeos that summer.

And, my dad had helped her.

He had been helping her that spring to train and get her horse ready.

Talk about a severe blow.

I know my mother told this “other” woman that there wasn't going to be a divorce and she needed to get lost. Really I have no clue why.

What possesses a woman to try to hold on to something that isn't there?

Why does a woman who has been beaten, choked, constantly ridiculed, sexually used, and degraded in public think that there is any hope of a marriage with someone who clearly has showen that he does not like her?

On the other hand, why does a guy who seemingly has done everything to show he does not like this woman stay with her?

The cop's wife had given my mother a book on codependency.

What is interesting about this is,

my grandmother gave her the exact same book.

And another customer gave her the exact same book.

Three books, the exact same one on codependency.

My mother refused to read it,

stating it wasn't “scriptural”.

I sat down and started reading it.

Surely if three different people gave her the exact same book,

God had a message in it for her.

I read the introduction and the 1^st chapter and

said, “YES!!!”

The book was right on.

My mother blew it off as having no “scriptural backing”.

My mother continued to try to “get a hold” of my dad.

Many of us were telling her to “let it go”.

Let him go.

I went to a trusted friend, who was my mother's friend,

who walked through so much of the drama with my family,

begging her to talk to my mother.

She did, but it did not help.

The next spring, my brother and I went horseback riding.

We came back that morning, put the horses away,

and about an hour later we looked out and

here my dad's rope horse was hanging by a front leg in the panels.

Neighbors came over and helped us get the horse out, but

the horse had a cut just up from the hoof that would not stop bleeding.

Another guy was called and he came and stitched it up.

Shortly thereafter my dad was home, again.

Very concerned about his rope horse and if he was going to be able to rope off him that Summer.