That's a pretty steep hill they were on. We were riding down it years ago and Tommy's horse slipped and fell which was scary. Good times at Chico.
My Mom's cousin Buzzy used to take care of the horses there. He was a character and a really nice guy. I always liked visiting their house when I was a kid because there were over ten kids in the family, so not a lot of parental supervision. Good times.
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I remember one time the twins (there were two sets of twins in Buzzy's family) came to visit us when we lived on the hill in Columbus and set the hillside on fire with firecrackers. I always liked fire as long as it's not a house or nice trees or anything like that burning up.
Speaking of fire...
I got in a little trouble once for using gasoline to burn a C in the hill on that property. I thought it would be a nice symbol for the town. It worked fine except someone from the fire department in town saw the smoke and thought it was a brush fire and dispatched the fire truck. Mom was not pleased.
When I was younger - six/seven we were exploring a dirt cellar in an abandoned house in town. Couldn't see very well cause it was dark so we lit some newspapers on fire to use as torches. That smoke got someones attention, but we were gone by the time police/fire showed up. The town cop came to our house that night. I don't know how they knew I was involved.
Actually the only real out of control fire I was involved in was when we were clearing brush in one of the coulees near the house. I had on old car hood that we used to pull behind the pickup in the wintertime. I thought I could use that hood as sort of an outdoor fireplace to burn some of the brush we'd cut. That worked for awhile until the sparks jumped out and started the super-dry grass and sagebrush on fire. Luckily it didn't spread too far. Thank you - Columbus Volunteer Fire Department.
