LJ Idol Season 5 Week 15 - Riding Shotgun for the Texas Rangers
o/` "I shoulda been a cowboy
I shoulda learned to rope and ride
Wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony, on a cattle drive
Stealing young girl's hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs
Oh, I should've been a cowboy" o/`
----- "Should've Been a Cowboy" performed by Toby Keith
Somewhere in my mother's belongings, beneath a carefully folded American flag and service medals in a rosewood box, lies a paisley flower covered photo album. Once brightly colored hues of red, royal blue, yellow the cover has faded and the pages become brittle. Its spiral binding has cracked; we didn't know about acid free archival pages back then. One photo in particular, taken with a Polaroid, shows me as a six year old sitting solemnly astride a sorrel and white pinto. My legs don't reach the stirrups; in fact, they barely come down the horse's sides.
The real story, however, was never captured for posterity. My dad didn't like having his picture taken, and maybe that's a good thing.
My dad was a New Yorker, born and raised, and after he met my Wyoming born mother he tried hard to erase all trace of what he considered an unfortunate upbringing. It might have worked if he hadn't used as his role models John Wayne, Chuck Norris, and classic spaghetti westerns. He wore a pair of scuffed cowboy boots he'd bought on their honeymoon in Yellowstone, faded jeans, a black Stetson, and flannel or tee shirts. He swaggered when he walked and affected a western drawl...unless you made him mad and then the inevitable "youse guys" would creep back into his speech.
He knew absolutely nothing about horses.
Both Cochise, the pinto, and his stall mate --- a handsome chestnut with a messy black mane and wild, white ringed eyes --- Comanche had come from a literal glue factory. My mother sighed when she saw the sad looking bone racks hitched to the back of the station wagon and mentally committed herself to their rehabilitation. My dad was so proud of his "mustangs" that she didn't have the heart to tell him that they probably would have been better off as glue.
It took months before either of them was ready to ride and Comanche, who still had a tendency to kick or bite, was the one my dad had chosen to be his steed. Shaking her head and muttering dire predictions, my mother followed him as my father proudly led Comanche out of his stall. No mounting block existed, so he led the horse to the loading docks behind the stables. The first attempt to get in the saddle did not go well. Deciding the easiest way to get on the horse's back would be simply step down off the docks, he positioned one foot on its edge, brought the other one over...and encountered air. Comanche, disliking the arrangement, had sidestepped his would-be rider. My father, with only his Stetson somewhat the worse for the tumble, picked himself up out of the sand and tried again. Brace on the edge, bring the leg over...Comanche laid his ears back and bared his teeth. My mother, fearing her husband was about to be torn limb from limb by an irate horse, covered my eyes with her hands.
Silence.
I couldn't tell what had happened but then I heard Mom stifling a giggle. I darted out of reach and opened my eyes to see what had happened.
Sitting on Comanche's back, wearing a lopsided shit eating grin, was my father. He lifted the Stetson from his head and whooped, "I did it, Judy, I did it!"
There was just one problem: he was on the horse backwards!
Why the chestnut didn't buck him off, I never knew. Perhaps the horse was just as confused as we were and had no idea why there was a rider yelling at his ass.
He looked so tall and proud it rendered my mother speechless. I suppose eventually she told him or Dad figured it out. I never knew because I had to run back to the stables, where I collapsed in a bale of hay laughing and howling until I thought my sides would split.
They say John Wayne hated horses, but he did know how to ride them. The same just could not be said for my father.
I shoulda learned to rope and ride
Wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony, on a cattle drive
Stealing young girl's hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs
Oh, I should've been a cowboy" o/`
----- "Should've Been a Cowboy" performed by Toby Keith
Somewhere in my mother's belongings, beneath a carefully folded American flag and service medals in a rosewood box, lies a paisley flower covered photo album. Once brightly colored hues of red, royal blue, yellow the cover has faded and the pages become brittle. Its spiral binding has cracked; we didn't know about acid free archival pages back then. One photo in particular, taken with a Polaroid, shows me as a six year old sitting solemnly astride a sorrel and white pinto. My legs don't reach the stirrups; in fact, they barely come down the horse's sides.
The real story, however, was never captured for posterity. My dad didn't like having his picture taken, and maybe that's a good thing.
My dad was a New Yorker, born and raised, and after he met my Wyoming born mother he tried hard to erase all trace of what he considered an unfortunate upbringing. It might have worked if he hadn't used as his role models John Wayne, Chuck Norris, and classic spaghetti westerns. He wore a pair of scuffed cowboy boots he'd bought on their honeymoon in Yellowstone, faded jeans, a black Stetson, and flannel or tee shirts. He swaggered when he walked and affected a western drawl...unless you made him mad and then the inevitable "youse guys" would creep back into his speech.
He knew absolutely nothing about horses.
Both Cochise, the pinto, and his stall mate --- a handsome chestnut with a messy black mane and wild, white ringed eyes --- Comanche had come from a literal glue factory. My mother sighed when she saw the sad looking bone racks hitched to the back of the station wagon and mentally committed herself to their rehabilitation. My dad was so proud of his "mustangs" that she didn't have the heart to tell him that they probably would have been better off as glue.
It took months before either of them was ready to ride and Comanche, who still had a tendency to kick or bite, was the one my dad had chosen to be his steed. Shaking her head and muttering dire predictions, my mother followed him as my father proudly led Comanche out of his stall. No mounting block existed, so he led the horse to the loading docks behind the stables. The first attempt to get in the saddle did not go well. Deciding the easiest way to get on the horse's back would be simply step down off the docks, he positioned one foot on its edge, brought the other one over...and encountered air. Comanche, disliking the arrangement, had sidestepped his would-be rider. My father, with only his Stetson somewhat the worse for the tumble, picked himself up out of the sand and tried again. Brace on the edge, bring the leg over...Comanche laid his ears back and bared his teeth. My mother, fearing her husband was about to be torn limb from limb by an irate horse, covered my eyes with her hands.
Silence.
I couldn't tell what had happened but then I heard Mom stifling a giggle. I darted out of reach and opened my eyes to see what had happened.
Sitting on Comanche's back, wearing a lopsided shit eating grin, was my father. He lifted the Stetson from his head and whooped, "I did it, Judy, I did it!"
There was just one problem: he was on the horse backwards!
Why the chestnut didn't buck him off, I never knew. Perhaps the horse was just as confused as we were and had no idea why there was a rider yelling at his ass.
He looked so tall and proud it rendered my mother speechless. I suppose eventually she told him or Dad figured it out. I never knew because I had to run back to the stables, where I collapsed in a bale of hay laughing and howling until I thought my sides would split.
They say John Wayne hated horses, but he did know how to ride them. The same just could not be said for my father.