CITATION

When I (Terri) was 3 or 4 years old, Mom and Dad gave me a wooden rocking horse. His name was Citation, after the American thoroughbred Triple Crown Champion who lived from 1945 to 1970. He was beautiful and HUGE. He is the friend and toy I hold most dear from my childhood. When Clyde, III was a child, it was passed on to him. Eventually, Citation ended up stored in the garage, although he would make brief appearances as a Christmas decoration each December. (It was while taking him down out of the rafters for one of these visits that Clyde let him slip and ended up with a black eye that is evident in Meredith and Clyde's wedding pictures. Not an easy thing to explain to our new New Zealand family at the time).

Now that it's time for Citation to be passed on to Sofia, we thought it would be fun to get him all spruced up with a new paint job and new saddle. Neither of us are artsy/craftsy, so we contacted the local art center asking if anyone had a name to give us of a craftsman who might be able to do this job. We made this request by e-mail and included a picture of Citation. The artist who responded said, judging by the picture, we may have a real antique on our hands and it would be a mistake to paint him. He suggested we contact the Curator of Antiques at Sacramento's Crocker Art Gallery for an evaluation.

We set up an appointment and loaded Citation up for his big day.

We were early for our appointment, so we took a walk along the Sacramento River to pass some time. The Tower Bridge and the Pyramid Building were especially pretty in the sunshine following a cleansing rain.
We strolled along the boards that made Sofia's ride go bumpity-bump to her delight.

We got to show Sofia the Delta King's big paddlewheel . . .

. . . and we were just in time to see the train depart Old Sacramento.

Then it was time to unload Citation from the car and head over to the Crocker for his evaluation.

The antiques evaluator, having found no maker's plate or stamp on Citation, and judging by his construction, believed that Citation was most likely lovingly hand made by a dad in his garage for his own children. We found this determination to be more endearing than had he turned out to be a rare antique treasure.

We felt the trip was worthwhile and we had so much fun making this investigation.

So, here he is. Citation. He may be of little monetary value, but isn't he beautiful!!