My Dad - Part III

Part I;  Part II

From the family history book under the heading:

"The Close Calls and Other Escapades of Gordon Skinner"

"Long ago when gathering hay with a dump rake pulled by a team of horses, Gordon bounced off the seat and fell under the rake. He tumbled along underneath for some time before making good his escape!

"From Buzz: 'Remember the shot gun hole in the middle of the ceiling in the summer kitchen? We were cleaning guns after duck hunting and Gordie was showing how he brought down a duck in flight. He pulled the trigger whilst doing so, that sure brought mother on the run!'

Gordon was hauling hay and hit the big gate post at Uncle Ernie's with the loaded wagon and rake pulled behind. The gate post was very solid and he pretty well wrecked everything, except the post, and of course, the horses ran away home without him.

And yet another runaway story: Gordie was coming down Uncle Ernie's hill with an empty water tank on the wagon when the horses got away on him. They were moving too fast and missed the left turn at the barn. Instead, they carried on straight ahead, through two fences right down to the flats. Kenelm claimed you could hear the tank rattling a mile away. No one could remember if Gordie jumped or rode the wagon to the bottom!

In 1945 while serving in France an armor piercing shell came through at ground level, as Gordon stood in a doorway. The shell missed his leg by only two or three inches. "Touch wood."

Gordon has a reputation for having runaway horses. Joyce (my mom) recalled that 'the first winter we were married, Gordon and I had gone to town for supplies with the team and sleigh. On the way home we had to stop and fasten the gate at the top of Peltier's hill. Gordon hadn't tied the horses tight enough and they took off down the hill, full speed ahead! Realizing the danger, I soon got out from under the robes, figured out what to do, got the horses stopped and waited for Gordon who was running his fastest trying to catch us.'

Remember the shed that was a chicken house and tractor garage? One day, while getting the tractor out, Gordie put it in the wrong gear and went right through the wall into the chicken coop on the other side. There were feathers flying - but he didn't break one egg or run over a chicken!

And of course, there was the day Gordie caught the grain auger on a power line guy wire when coming down the hill by the creek. He pulled the pole out of the ground but amazingly the wire didn't break, although there were a few sparks.

Everyone near Katepwe knows about the milk cow whose name was Bluey. She was easy to milk and gave lots, but she was also big, liked to kick the milkman and slap him with her tail. There as a board to keep her from pulling back, a rope around her hocks and another tying her right hind leg to a support post. Quite a to-do for a pail of milk.

Then there's the time when backing the old Dodge truck out of the north end of the barn, Gordie leaned out of the door to see where he was going and fell out of the truck! Anyway, the truck got all the way to the road before he caught up with it -no damage done. Thank goodness for the deep ditch.

Did the man have nine lives, or what?"

Perhaps that explains why he was so patient with us kids. I remember a few occasions when I got into some serious fixes while operating the tractor. On one occasion I turned around too sharp and wrapped a big steel wire (part of the implement I was pulling) around the rear tire of the tractor, completely wrecking the tire and the rod-weeder the wire was attached to. God knows how much it cost him to fix both, but he never got mad at me. Same thing when I was operating the swather. I got too close to one of the granaries and took a big slice out of the side of it and moved it off it's foundation. No problem, as far as my dad was concerned. Whew!!