Last weekend I attended my nephew's horse show. Since he's only five years old, his class consisted of a handful of little children proudly perched upon their ponies being led around the ring by the more advanced riders. As a group, they displayed their horsemanship by walking, trotting and then posting their trot. Since no one lost life or limb, everyone in the class received a blue ribbon. Pretty good for young children I would say! (And of course my nephew was exceptional!)
Being out at a barn again and attending the horse show brought back some happy memories of my own childhood. If memory serves, I was about nine and my little sister was about seven when we started taking horseback riding lessons every Saturday at Hoofbeat Ridge in Mazomanie, Wisconsin. Because Mazomanie was a little bit of a hike from Madison, our parents would drive us to a half-way point where all of the kids would convene and wait for the bus from Hoofbeat Ridge to pick us up and take us all out to the barn for the day. I don't recall exactly how long we would be on the bus before we arrived but it had to be the better part of 45 minutes . . . although it felt like a lifetime.
Since these were the days before hand-held video games, text messaging and fancy ipods, we sang a variety of songs to pass the time. Personally, I refrained from singing out loud opting instead to sing like a rock star in my head. To put it mildly, if I joined in on the singing for real, I am certain that everyone on the bus would have instantaneously turned to stone . . . including the driver. So as everyone sang songs like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Yellow Submarine and Yesterday, I enthusiastically lip-synced. No one knew the difference.
One thing that I do vividly recall, however, was that the ride to the barn required the driver (Steve Bennett) to negotiate some pretty scary (and what I thought largely unsound) country roads. Since the barn sat atop of a large hill, I found the bus ride a bit unnerving; especially when I looked out of the window and noticed the steep drop-off on either side. Now, the ride up wasn't so bad really because a bus loaded to the gills with singing children could only garner so much speed. It was the ride down that scared the absolute shit out of me . . . particularly during the winter months when the small country road became a virtual toboggan run.
Now that I've been driving for a number of years myself, as I think back on it, seems to me that Steve was a pretty careless fucking driver and probably should have had his driving privileges entirely revoked. I remember closing my eyes and holding my breath every single time that he went careening down that hill and into the center of town. Everyone else was enjoying the ride and zealously singing including my little sister who didn't miss so much as a stanza through the whole ordeal. I, on the other hand, sat pulverized with fear.
I was absolutely convinced that some important component on that rickety old bus (like the steering wheel or the brakes) would suddenly fail causing me to meet my untimely death. During these moments of uncertainty, when life itself hung in the balance, I couldn't help but wonder if my death meant that my little sister would automatically inherit my allowance, skateboard, Huffy ten speed, guitar, basketball, Wisconsin jacket and everything else that I owned in the world. The mere thought of my little sister riding my ten speed up and down Acewood Boulevard solidified my resolve to live well past one hundred. And I vowed, then and there, that if Steve Bennett caused my death and my little sister got everything, I would tirelessly haunt him for the rest of his whole life.
So as I walked around the barn looking at the horses, petting the animals and generally recalling all of the carefree Saturdays that my little sister and I spent at Hoofbeat Ridge over thirty years ago, I couldn't help but snap a few pictures to remind myself of what life is like around the barn on a warm, sunny, late-summer afternoon . . .
What a nice jackass. I've met a lot of these over the years. I wonder if he went to law school!
And here's another fine looking ass. I am sure that I sat right next to him in Contracts II. (ha! ha! ha! I just couldn't resist!)
