The ostrich act of covering his eyes made him as blind to opportunity as to disaster.
But according to grandpa what happened was an opportune moment. "I plowed into that old horse with such a force it knocked me goofy and I thought the ghosts had me for sure. With all that screaming and snorting and trampling around me I was sure that Beelzebub had been loosed from the pit of Hell with all his fallen angels," he said adding that his eyes were still closed, "I was too stunned and scared to open them, but when I come to myself grappling down there on the ground thinking I was fighting off ghosts then realized it was only John's old horse I'd spooked… well, I felt like a fool. It took that old horse to knock some sense into my noggin and I somehow knew right then and there that there wasn't ever any truth to that old legend. After that well... I was never afraid of that old pile of stones again.”