To Everything There is a Season....

When I was twelve, I got my dream job at Blue Hill Riding Academy (Quincy, MA) by "bribing" the stable manager with a bag of potato chips. This is how it transpired:

After paying $2 for my weekly riding lesson/trail ride, I would hang out at the barn for a few hours until my parents came back to pick me up. I helped with clean up, swept the barn floor, etc. I also bridled the horses and led them out of the barn for paying riders to mount, as this was a rental stable with about 70 horses. Weekends were very busy. Sometimes there were not enough lead riders to accompany the groups. By necessity some of us younger kids who could ride a little would be sent out to bring up the rear or take a beginner on a lead. I had not had a turn at this and was yearning for a chance to prove myself capable. I had already proven myself capable in the manure-moving department. The older barn workers scoffed that a skinny little girl like me could do the job. Where there’s a will, there’s a way! I was horse crazy. I loved the fragrance of a horse barn and enjoyed shoveling manure into a wheelbarrow for the stronger boys to push up a gang-plank to a waiting dump truck below. I especially enjoyed sweeping the cement floor with a push broom and was told I did a better job than any of the other kids. Most were lazy and disliked the work but did it for the free horseback riding and lessons in exchange.

On this particular afternoon it was so busy and the group about to depart so large that another “side rider” was needed for safety but was not to be found. Shy as I was, I finally spoke up to volunteer. “No!” was the short and snappy answer, as Donnie, the weekend manager, looked around for someone bigger and more experienced. Then he asked if he could have some of my potato chips, as he had not had time for lunch. So I offered him the whole bag if I could go out with the group. He was famished so grabbed the chips and said, “Ride Rex then....and keep a close eye on that little girl on Sandy.” I was ecstatic!

This was the beginning of several satisfying and delightful years working at the barn. Besides feeding and grooming horses, cleaning tack, and the hard work of mucking out stalls and sweeping floors, I would ride up to six hours a day taking out groups. I was such a horse crazy fanatic that I would be furious if my parents did not take me to the barn every single day after school and all day on weekends and holidays. They wanted me to become more “well rounded” with my interests but I was of a one-track mind. I remember walking the three or four miles to the barn when my parents could not drive me. My father tried to interest me in his hobby of sailboat racing, but I did not like the cold ocean spray and the brisk east wind that filled the sail. I whined a lot at the Yacht Club while most kids enjoyed swimming off the floats, fishing, and sailing. Dad took a picture of my classic pout while I fumed about not being at the horse barn on a sweltering summer’s day.

I never really grew out of my love for horses, though I became less fanatical and easier to get along with in my later teens and beyond. It would be many years later when my dream of a horse in my own back yard would come true. It would have to wait for Indiana and my 30th birthday.

Fast forward to 2008. These days I seek the LORD about returning to my roots....the yearning of my youth, and applying for a job as a stable hand at Culver Academies. Can I do it at my age (late fifties)? I watched the stable girls clean up the barn the other day. They were younger than me, but I would like to think I could outwork them. I had a reputation for reliability in my younger years. Many hands make light work, so hopefully it would not be too hard. I think I would love to do this. It would be good exercise and complement my goal of physical fitness in order to hike the Israeli hills someday.

My husband laughs at my second-childhood ambitions. I will have to prove to him that I have the tenacity for toil on the home front first.

I like to reminisce about 1964 and the best times of my life at Blue Hill Riding Academy. It was a very good year...the year of Tandakiya. I had a dream about Tandi the other night. I saw him again, and he looked exactly the same. Is he waiting for me in horse heaven? He and I were both about 14 in 1964. Oh, to be fourteen forever with the wisdom of years!!

Is this the season to try to recapture my youth? Should I join the Culver horsemanship team and contribute something toward the hard work and dedication that make it possible for other horse-crazy kids to realize their dreams?

I will ponder this.