I have a draft horse story. I worked for a friend of the family for several years starting in high school in the early '70's. He was a hard worker and decided to treat himself to a hobby, he bought a team of Belgians and started gathering stuff to go to local parades, trailer for a show wagon, show harness, etc. This was back in the early 80's and he already had a 70's IH straight truck that he would haul cattle from local livestock auctions. He would load the horses in the cattle truck and trailer the show wagon behind. Anyway, he eventually had 8 Belgians and 2 show wagons, and an early rubber-tired horse drawn manure spreader that he used to give the teams a good workout. He typically would hitch 4 horses for the parades. I had already started working for the local Budweiser distributor by the time he was heavy into the shows. The Budweiser Clydesdales were in town at the University of Michigan for promotional propaganda and as an employee for the distributor I had a little extra leeway for getting into events. My ex-boss was a dyed in the wool Budweiser guy and along with the draft horse interest he was able to strike up a friendship with the team drivers. While they were in town they offered to let him drive the Budweiser Hitch, he declined but never forgot the huge opportunity. I did a lot of odd jobs for him through the years, restored the manure spreader, did some paint work on the IH truck, etc. He and my dad were high school friends and after both of them came home from the NAVY they stayed friends to the end, my mom and his wife were the best of friends, like a second set of parents to me when I was young. I learned a lot from all of them, be honest, dependable, work hard. They were THE GREATEST GENERATION!
