What Could Go Wrong?

In 1951 my dad was in the house moving business. He also farmed cotton, corn and hay for his 100 cow herd. He never acquired a large cattle trailer with which to haul his cattle to market. All he had was a one axle 4x8 ft. wooden enclosed trailer that could only haul two cows or maybe four calves at one time.

On this one occasion he didn’t wean the steer calves as early as he usually did and instead of the usual 350-400 lb. calves he happened to have eight steers that weighed about 600 lbs. each. Instead of having to haul them to the auction two at a time he figured on doing this in just one trip. He was good friends with Mr. Prause from Prause’s Meat Market and he decided to borrow his heavy duty two-axle trailer. Now Mr. Prause used this trailer to haul wild bulls and such so it was built pretty heavy and stout. Now the problem that arose was when dad loaded these eight 600 lb. steers into this heavy trailer, all he had to pull it with was our 1947 international ½ ton pickup truck. That little pickup was so loaded down in the back that as I watched dad leave our yard and cross our cattle guard that rear bumper was hanging so low it looked like it was throwing sparks crossing those pipes. Even a young kid like me could see that there was a rolling accident waiting to happen.

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