25 Years Ago
Late Autumn/Early Winter 1982
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Winter 2006 - 2007

(From the general news of the day and The Draft Horse Journal and breed publications of the time.)

On October 6, 1981, a truly great world figure and good friend to this country was assassinated during a military parade in Cairo, Egypt. Anwar el-Sadat fell to a hail of gunfire. He was a true man of peace, which is not easy-especially in that neck of the woods. In 1979, it was he and his counter number, Prime Minister Begin of Israel that had signed on with our president at the time, Jimmy Carter, as broker, creating a deal which came to be called the Camp David Accord. It was an act of bravery for both Sadat and Begin as both had unforgiving fundamentalist hotheads of their own to deal with. And they knew it.

Eastern Europe took turns being the powder keg of that region. Twenty-five years ago it was Poland's turn. Lech Walesa, a Solidarity leader, was under arrest, but his day would come.

This was also the winter when the medical profession identified AIDS as the disease that it is. Unlike most of the generals and politicians of that period, this killer had no politics of its own. It did not discriminate.

On January 1, the University of Iowa football team represented the Big 10 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The University of Washington wiped them out-28 to 0. Unlike most of the other stuff mentioned in this section-it really didn't make a big difference.

It is time to move on to the horse business-which was staging a comeback.

This was our annual stallion issue and the Percheron sire, Chief Laet, was the guest of honor.

Much to my surprise that issue carried an article by the late Howard Johnstone from Kansas, entitled "A Kansas Hayseed in King Arthur's Court." Seems that he and Glenna had slipped away a couple of weeks or more to give Howard another look at dear old England and Scotland. This visit was much less hazardous than his first as an Infantry Lieutenant in WW II. We will rerun a couple of photos from that story.

We will also run a couple pictures of Father Flanagan's Boy's Town in the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska. The place is also known as Boy's Town and Spencer Tracy starred as Father Flanagan in a movie which was called "Boy's Town." At that time they had a little mini-business project which is described here. With all this current emphasis on direct marketing, I'd think it would be about time to resurrect programs like this in places like Boys Town.

My introduction to the place was that movie and being a part of the dairy picture in Nebraska for a while, during which time I got acquainted with the Holstein herd at Boys Town.

That was followed by another story entitled "Draft Horses At Texas A&M." We will run the pictures and cut lines from the Texas A&M story.

Twenty-five years ago was a good time for draft horses. We will run three of the horses getting attention in 1981.