Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Horses don't mix



I grew up in the country. A small town, not a farm. Close enough to farms that I knew what manure was and how to not step in a steaming cow pie. Haying was something that was done with human labor and the pay wasn't that bad...$2.oo an hour. We were swimming in cash.
One of my friends had horses. Eddy Jostock was his name, I'm not sure what the horses names were. I recall riding the horses once. Eddy had the lead horse and mine was a follower. We were (maybe I should say, I was) a stupid kid. Any one can ride a horse... I watch Bonanza and Gunsmoke. We were riding bareback with just a bridle on the horse. As my horse was the follower Eddy decided to run his horse in the pasture down a hill following a tractor path. My horse followed at the same speed. I didn't follow... as we headed down the hill I headed to hanging on to dear life as I slipped from the back of the horse to hanging on to it's neck from underneath it. Eventually the law of physics applied and I ended up falling to the ground. Fortunately the horse didn't trample me. Pride more than anything else was hurt. It did step on a foot but neither I nor the horse were the worst for the incident.
Years later I was in California visiting my Uncle. He had a horse that he kept for his kids. Not remembering past incidents I felt it mucho of me to ride the horse. The horse had other thoughts. As soon as I straddled the horse the horse was determined that I was not to stay there. I realized that gravity was going to have an affect on me at this time as well. Memories of prior horse experiences came to mind. I ended up on the ground-the horse ended up not carrying around a burden. I have come to the conclusion that I have an aroma that is offensive to horses. After this incident I have never gotten on the back of a horse.
About a month ago my oldest daughter, Kasi, found herself on the ground following her own close encounter with the horse kind. She was not as fortunate as I was as she suffered a severe back injury. We have counted our blessings. She suffered some fractures in her spine but there was no severe damage to her spinal column. She has severe bruising that has caused some temporary paralysis but that should come back after the swelling and bruising diminish.
This weekend we had Grams at the house and during our conversation I found out that this wasn't the first time that my eldest daughter had a close encounter with of the horse kind. Apparently when she was younger and was staying at her Grams for the summer she had gone horseback riding and found herself in a similar position. On the ground without the horse.
To my eldest daughter- it's genetic I apologize.... love dad.......jsf

4 comments:

Kasi French said...

I get it now ... French's don't ride horses, EVER! Done and Done!

Jeff and Kandis said...

I figured a techno guy like you would eventually fall into the blog world. It just makes sense. Welcome, I am excited to hear from your wise counsel.
Kan

mountnumberthree said...

I love the way you write and think you also are pretty hot. Now only if you could remember how to give nightly messages without pregnancy you could be the perfect mortal man!

Gabby said...

I hope that last post was mar.