Ridiculous Opinions #182
I’m not really going to write this newsletter about things that annoy me. I just included that because I wanted to grab your attention. Let me tell you a story…
When I was a little boy, we lived on a farm. I must have been five or six years old and it was during one of those periods in my life where my father decided he wanted to go old school and be a farmer or something like that. He had his reasons and his reasons were known to him alone. We had pigs and cows and a creepy old barn.
Because he lived by the cowboy code and probably should have been born 100 years earlier than he was, he wanted horses. So, at this point in my life, there were horses lurking about the farm. Occasionally, I got to ride one.
It was on a fine spring day when I was riding one of our horses around the yard. Our house was up on a hill that overlooked the vast Tahlequah landscape that surrounded us. The house, itself, was on a dirt road and once you were far enough out of town, there was a turn-off to the right, which was our driveway. You always knew our driveway because there was a pond at the foot of it, small and snake-filled. When you turned toward our house, you would follow the rocky driveway up the hill until you reached our house.
The house was a common, rural-Oklahoma place. Two levels. Brick on the bottom and white paneling on on the sides. There was a front door that was on a concrete porch, but we never went in that way. We always came in through the lower level of the house, which was on the right side.
The yard around the house was big; big enough so that one could ride a horse around the yard without any fear of something going wrong, and on this day, that is exactly what I was doing. My father was doing something farm-like and I was riding the horse around the yard. I was probably in kindergarten at this time.
As I rode around the yard and controlled this mighty stallion all by myself, a bit of bravery crept in. I wanted to push this farther. It wasn’t enough that I was riding the horse around the yard, I wanted to explore! To go farther! So, I asked a question of my dad as I rode up next to him: “Can I take the horse down the driveway?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but turn back around at the bottom. That horse can get spooked.”
So, with the bravery of Davy Crockett, I turned the horse down the driveway and rode down the hill. The horse took the trip slowly, because there were all kind of ravines that the rainy run-off would make in our driveway. But I rode that horse down the driveway like I belonged in a dimestore novel about cowboys in the old west. And finally, we reached the end of the line.
But the horse did not stop. It kept going, right out onto the dirt road. I pulled the reins to turn it around, but this horse only saw freedom, and my weak-little kindergarten arms were not going to be able to bring a halt to this creature. This horse was majestic and free. It craved the open road, just like me. It just kept walking.
The sweet smell of freedom can be overwhelming and soon that walk became a trot. I hated when horses decided to trot, because it hurt my butt when they did. Just bounce, bounce, bounce. And this horse was trotting to freedom.
By now, I wondered whether anyone knew that I was no longer in control of this creature. I was sure that my father had taken note of the fact that I had not returned from my trip, and sure enough, when I looked behind me, I saw his black, 1970 C-10 Chevy tearing down the driveway, towards us.
The horse heard the truck and because the horse was easily spooked, the sound of his pick-up roaring down the road probably filled the poor creature with fear. What does a creature do when they are afraid? They run.
By this point, this horse was galloping at full speed down the dirt road, in close pursuit by my father, who was fishtailing back and forth, trying to get to us. At a certain point, I gave up hope of survival and tossed the reins aside, choosing instead to hold onto the saddlehorn with all of my might in an attempt to cling to life. Dying as a kindergartener is dying too soon, I thought to myself. I deserve a longer life than this!
I debated jumping off of the horse, and to this day, I can still see the horrific images of the blackberry bushes on the side of the road as they whizzed past me at full speed. Those blackberry bushes would break my fall, I thought. It would hurt, but it would be better than landing in the ditch!
At this point, my father whipped in front of the horse with the pick-up, but the horse jumped over the hood like an equestrian champion. I held on. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw my dad fishtailing towards us again, and further up the road, I saw my mother in her white Monte Carlo raising up a dust storm as she came after us as well.
Finally, my dad managed to pull in front of the horse and it stopped. The horse had run at a full sprint for about three miles. I was terrified.
My dad made me ride the horse back home. My career as a cowboy was over.
You might ask yourself, What lessons are you trying to impart to me with this story, Randall? There are no lessons here. We live in a random and meaningless universe.
Have a great Saturday!
