Last week I picked up a new gelding.  I’ve been trying to figure out a name for him. I thought of several, but nothing stuck. Figured I’d just wait and see if something jumped out at me as the perfect name. I think I have it. I’ll get there in a minute.

He’s a golden palomino about 5 or 6 years old, I think, of unknown origin, but I think he’s got a lot of Missouri Fox Trotter in him. He looks like a Fox Trotter. He’s got the deep, narrow chest, short back, and nicely shaped head of the Fox Trotter, and he has a natural gait. In fact, in the short time I’ve had him, he’s shown several gaits as he moves through the pasture. So far I have identified five separate gaits: walk, flat-foot walk, fox trot, running walk, and a nice canter. He seems to like the fox trot best and slips into the running walk as he gets faster, until he breaks into the canter. I’m pretty excited to start working with him.

This new boy is not yet broke to ride. I was going to start  his training this weekend. I had planned to go to St. George, Utah for a ride with the local Fox Trotter club and some friends, from Thursday through Monday. My plan was to take this new gelding along and start him out by ponying him along behind my mare, Lizzy. I was going to put a pack saddle on his back and get him used to having straps hanging and rubbing all over him.

Howsoever, that plan failed. I couldn’t catch the son of a gun! He would walk right up to me, let me scratch his nose, but as soon as I started moving toward him, off he would go. I worked at it for at least 45 minutes, before giving up and deciding I had to get on the road.

As luck would have it, we got rained out in St. George (I think it only rains about once every two or three years there) and I returned home yesterday afternoon. After letting Lizzy back into the pasture I used some horse treats to make another attempt at getting a halter on the new boy. No such luck…but I found he really likes the treats.

So, last night, as I was sitting in my easy chair contemplating this new horse and the challenges I’m going to have with him – the first being just catching him out of the pasture – I recognized the fact that I’m likely going to expend a number of swear words in his general direction before I get a good handle on him. That somehow turned my mind to one of my all-time favorite historical characters from Mormon lore.

J. Golden Kimball, son of Heber C. Kimball, was a General Authority (First Quorum of the Seventy) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church) for more than 45 years during the latter part of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.  He is, even today, one of the most loved and quoted (or misquoted, as the case may be) of all of the General Authorities of the church. In his time he was beloved by both Mormons and non-Mormons alike, for his straight-from-the-heart, unpolished, and unfiltered way of teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Brother Kimball was known for his dedicated service to the Lord and to his fellowman, his deep and abiding love and support for the leaders of the church, his quick wit, and for his more-than-occasional use of foul language in his discourse, both private and public. People would come from miles around to hear him preach from the pulpit.

To this day, stories and quotes attributed to this “Mormon Will Rogers” may be heard anywhere Mormon congregations are found. Most of these stories are of questionable origin, a few have been somewhat substantiated, many have been added to and colorized to suit the occasion, but all are in keeping with the humor and character of the man, and none I have heard detract from his humble and deeply spiritual character.

At the age of 15 years, upon the death of his father, J. Golden Kimball became responsible for the maintenance of his mother and five siblings. He landed a job as a mule skinner. It is to this employment that he credited his colorful and most notable linguistic skills. He asserted that mules don’t understand plain English and that one had to speak their language, which included a wide range of various levels and intensities of foul language, in order to get them to do any work. Brother Kimball, however, later pursued formal education at the Brigham Young Academy (now Brigham Young University) and became a voracious student and reader. He allowed that what most people heard in his everyday speech was but a pitiful remnant of a once very ample vocabulary clearly comprehensible to a mule.

On one occasion, Brother Kimball was guiding several dignitaries around Salt Lake City, showing them the sights of the town and of the industry of the Mormons. As they went along, Brother Kimball heard a number of comments from particular individuals in the group about how long certain buildings had taken the Mormons to build and that such structures could have been built in half the time in their hometowns.

As they approached the Salt Lake Temple (which had been 40 years in the building), one such fellow asked how long it had taken the Mormons to build it. J. Golden turned and glibly replied, “Hell, I don’t know. It wasn’t here yesterday!”

It was also well-known that J. Golden struggled with his love of coffee after his brother-in-law Heber J. Grant, then the Prophet of the Lord, began to encouraged church membership to greater strictness in keeping the Word of Wisdom, which forbids the use of coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol. Brother Kimball’s wife laid down the law in their home, so Brother Kimball had to get his coffee elsewhere when occasion required.

On one such occasion, it is told, J. Golden Kimball was in a particular cafe, one he often frequented, and was sitting in the back when he was recognized by one of the members of the church. She approached and asked, “Is that you drinking coffee Brother Kimball?”  He quickly responded, “Ma’am, you are the third person today who has mistaken me for that S-O-B!”

On another occasion, during a semi-annual conference of the church, our Brother Kimball was preparing to preach from the pulpit of the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. After he arose to speak, President Heber J. Grant passed him a note at the pulpit instructing him to refrain from the use of foul language during his discourse. After reading the note, Brother Kimball turned to President Grant and said, referring to the note, “Hell, Heber, I can’t read the damn thing!”

Someone once asked Brother Kimball whether he thought his use of foul language might ever endanger his membership in the church. He responded, “They can’t excommunicate me! I repent too damn fast!”

I think my favorite of all the sayings attributed to J. Golden Kimball, however is this:

“I may not always walk the straight and narrow, but I sure in hell try to cross it as often as I can.”

J. Golden Kimball was killed in a one-car accident in Nevada in 1933, at the age of 85. It has been told that when he reached the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter exclaimed, “Well Brother Golden, we finally got you here!” to which J. Golden Kimball retorted, “Yeah, but by hell, you had to kill me to do it!”

So, it occurs to me that with my new gelding being a dappled golden palomino, and knowing some of the language that might possibly slip from my lips during our get-to-know-each-other period, I might pay humble homage to one of my favorite heroes from LDS history (or maybe mythology) by christening him “J. Golden.”

I think I’ll probably just settle on calling him “J.”

Here’s a video of my little herd running in the pasture. J is the one trailing the herd.

P.S.
This evening, with a little teasing and rewarding with a few horsey treats, “J” let me slip the halter up over his nose and buckle it on. I spent a few minutes brushing him and fiddling with him before letting him go again. I thought, “How about that! And not a foul word was needed.” So, we’re on our way. The journey has begun. I’m pretty excited.

Much of the information for this post was taken from an article written for Meridian Magazine in 2007 by Eric A. Eliason. You may find the article here.