vituperation

April 14, 2004

Check it out, the forums are back. Sort of.

Over the weekend, I read John Stossel’s Give Me a Break. Damn, what a fine book that was. I liked it so much I emailed him and told him.

He hasn’t replied yet, the bastard.

Robyn, though, gets a kick out of me from time to time saying, “Oh, I’d better check and see if I’ve heard back from my good friend John Stossel.”

Speaking of books, Riding Lessons was pretty good, too. It’s not the sort of book I’d normally read (ie, it’s about horses, it’s women’s fiction, and it’s written in present tense, which I generally cannot stand), but I know the author from a message board and bought it to support her.

And ended up liking it a lot. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a good read about women and horses. (Did that sound like a porn thing, or am I just a pervert?)

There’s nothing like having a perfectly healthy and in-good-shape parent ask you if you’d mind serving as executor of their will when they die to make you wish like hell you were a little kid again, instead of being a grownup with responsibilities.

And now, speaking of horses, parents, and being a kid…

Sunlight filtered through forest greenery, dappling everything with splotches of yellow. From high atop a saddle I surveyed the surrounding trees, the blooming flowers, and the gravel road before me.

Far ahead, my sister and a friend rode matching quarter horses, moving away from me at a good trot. Behind me my parents strolled, hand in hand, watching us all ride. Beneath me, the enormous brown horse plodded along the road, her head held low and her tail occasionally swishing me when the flies bothered her. I was five years old and having a grand time on a perfect summer day, except for one thing.

My horse was just too damn slow.

We rode pretty regularly back then, in 1972. My sister — who is still an avid rider at 42 — wanted to go to the local VFW most weekends during the spring and summer, where they offered horse rentals for good prices. In that time, before personal computers, internets, and virtually unlimited cable channels, people did things like that. We even went as a family more often than not.

But this damn horse. Plod, plod, plod. I wanted oh-so-bad to be like my big sister, riding the running horse, bent low over the saddle, holding my legs tight while the wind blew my Moe Howard bowl cut hair back.

I knew the secret to getting the horse to trot; after all, I’d seen plenty of westerns and hell, we watched Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Big Valley all the time. At least, my sister watched them. I was generally in the room, but playing with toys.

Just kick it in the sides, I thought, and you’ll be just like her.

I kicked the horse in the sides with both feet. Nothing. It continued to plod sedately along.

So I kicked it in the sides again. This time it stopped, spang in the middle of the gravel road.

“What are you doing, Freddy?” my dad asked from just behind me.

“Trying to make it go faster,” I said, and kicked the horse in the sides a third time. It turned its head and gave me a walleyed look of reproach, but stood its ground.

“Oh,” my dad said, and swatted the horse on the ass. The horse jumped and bolted, finally giving me the speed I craved.

I responded in the best way I knew how: I dropped the reins, grabbed the saddlehorn with both hands, and screamed like a little girl.

“Pull back on the reins!” my dad shouted.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” I replied (quite loudly and panicky), clutching the saddlehorn for dear life.

The horse cantered along the road happily, da-da-DUMP, da-da-DUMP, da-da-DUMP.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” I shrieked. Beneath the sound of pounding hooves I heard a different sound — thumpthumpthumpTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

Carefully, almost too scared to take my eyes off the bouncing road in front of me, I turned and looked over my shoulder. My dad was there, running alongside the horse’s hindquarters, his arms extended to the front, like he was a football player going out for a pass.

“JUMP!” he screamed.

I looked at him like he was crazy, then shrieked again for good measure.

He tried a second time, starting to lag back a little. “JUMP! I’ll catch you!”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo,” I cried. Like hell I was letting go of that saddlehorn. My dad fell behind.

Far ahead, my sister and her friend heard the hullabaloo and stopped their horses. Almost casually, they turned so the horses were lined up across the gravel road. When my horse got to them, it stopped and acted like it hadn’t just scared the shit out of me.

Matter of fact, I wish I had shit on that horse, come to think of it.

My dad finally caught up with us and took me off the horse, then stood bent over for a while with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. We walked the horse back to the stable, without me on it, and I’ve only ridden one time since.

But damn if I’m not getting a hankering to do it again.