Or maybe it is. Sometimes the hard things we experience become fuel for some humorous remembering. Baxter Black, one of my favorite humor columnists, regularly turns tales of ranch accidents and disasters involving large animals or recalcitrant transportation into deep- down- laugh -out -loud humor.
This yanks my funny bone because it’s part of my memory bank too. In fact, there are quite a few deposits under this category. You know how people flip houses these days? Well, my parents went through a stage of flipping horses (note—this is not the same as flipping cows at midnight, that’s a whole ’nother story).
My brother and I, as resilient little scrappers, often had the job of “getting the kinks out” of whatever project horse or pony was bunking with the regulars in the barn. In retrospect this taught us both some great life skills we’ve used in a variety of situations from work to home. To this end I’ve ridden, more or less successfully:
-A Morgan with her head so high from driving I could kiss her between the ears. She would have liked to knock out teeth and bloody the nose of whichever human rider was trying to train her to lower her head and relax a bit. Note to self—a battle of the wills seldom succeeds with either horses or people, try a different method.
-Shetland ponies. A succession of them. I will NEVER buy one of these “children’s models” for any future grandkids. These have to classify as the worst bucking off experiences ever. It does not matter if your feet almost touch the ground. You will still fall. Hard.
-A high strung quarter horse mare who introduced me to the whole experience of getting the wind knocked out of you. To her credit, once I was lying on the ground, staring up at her furry belly and gawping for air she stood immobile, tickling my face with stiff whiskers and snuffing at me.
-A small Grulla mare with a genius for solving physics problems on the fly. She had mastered the Olympic sport of scraping a rider off under the lowest branch she could find. Her gift for instantly analyzing the trajectory and height of a rider compared proportionately to the height of a branch qualified her for a degree in higher level math.
-The carnivorous horse who pinned me against the truck so she could steal my bologna and mustard sandwich.
Here’s a couple links to some folks with a gift for seeing the “funny” in life:
Anytime Mike Rowe shares texts and emails from his mom—tune in. They share a similar sense of humor and will help you re-awaken your sense of the ludicrous.
http://mikerowe.com/2017/09/tfm-my-monthly-haircut/
And of course Mr. Baxter Black, check out his regular column or Critter Tales on the website: