I was six or seven years old in the late 1940's living with my parents and two brothers on South Street in Owatonna. Grandpa Andrew lived on the other side of town on his wife's family farm off St. Paul road. For some reason he made each of us three boys a lariat. Now I defer to Wikipedia for the type of lariat Grandpa made:
"A lariat is made from stiff rope so that the noose stays open when the lasso is thrown. It also allows the cowboy to easily open up the noose from horseback to release the cattle because the rope is stiff enough to be pushed a little. A high quality lasso is weighted for better handling. The lariat has a small reinforced loop at one end, called a honda or hondo, through which the rope passes to form a loop. The honda can be formed by a honda knot (or another loop knot), an eye splice, a seizing, rawhide, or a metal ring. The other end is sometimes tied simply in a small, tight, overhand knot to prevent fraying."
[The wonderful cowboy on the rocking horse above is from dreamstime.com. I purchased it for this blog and its copyright notification is: © Dennis Cox| Dreamstime.com ]
I remember Grandpa's lariat rope having a metal ring spliced on one end through which the other end of the rope passed to form a loop. Grandpa even rubbed beeswax across the surface of the rope to reduce friction as it slid through the metal ring which allowed the loop to close easily. The lariat's construction was beautiful. I don't know why he chose to make lariats for us at our young ages, unless he was just exercising a grandparent's prerogative. He thought we boys could use the lariats to do some rope tricks.
It wasn't long after Grandpa presented us with the lariats that I was playing with some friends in the backyard of our house in the late afternoon. One of my friends was sitting on the concrete steps of the house and I was practicing rope tricks with my new lariat. I decided to try to lasso my friend and eventually got the loop around either his neck or his body, I don't remember. I pulled on the rope and this caused his head to strike the sharp foundation stone of the house. Immediately lots of blood started pouring from the cut in his head and my friend started crying.
Hearing the noise a neighbor lady, at least a generation older than my parents, emerged from her house and began loudly announcing to the world that I had done a horrible thing and that I'd be lucky if there wasn't permanent damage to my friend's head. "How could you do such a thing!" Other people gathered around, and mom came outside. Someone got a wet towel to apply pressure to the wound on my friend's head and escorted him home.
I felt badly. Mom assured me that the neighbor lady had over reacted and that the news from my friend's parents was that the cut was small and manageable and that no additional damage had been done.
News spread, and that same evening Grandpa Andrew drove his truck to our home and removed the 3 lariats he so carefully and expertly made for us boys. My brother's were not too happy with me as they had not yet had an opportunity to "play" with their lariats.
This incident would be the talk of the neighborhood for some time. In later years I often wondered what Grandpa Andrew had done with the lariats. There were many times I wished I still had mine!
