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   When he was thirteen years old, my father lost his right arm in a hunting accident. He was out shooting rabbits on the family ranch, Windsor, a little more than twelve miles from Santa Rosa. Like all boys reared on a ranch, he had learned how to handle guns, how to carry a rifle, and the inherent dangers of hunting. Nonetheless, as he was crawling under a fence, something tripped the trigger of his rifle, perhaps a strand of wire, and it fired. The charge mangled his right arm and shoulder. It must have come within a hair's breadth of killing him.

   Fortunately, he was with his brother, Walter, who half-carried him across the fields to the ranch house. Both boys were covered with blood when they staggered into the yard. 

   In a buggy drawn by his father's fastest horses, with his mother holding him and trying to stanch the blood, they