Letters to my father

      Having started my blog, or anything else I do for that matter, without a clear direction is typical for me.  Reading what I wrote so far started me thinking,” ...why am I doing this?”  Am I just telling stories, and if so to whom...?  Then the whole thing hit me, letters to my father...  Let me explain.

My father died in July of 2010 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.  He fought it for several years before it took him.  The difficult part was that he looked 50 before it stared and in a few short years he looked 90.  We were not always close, nor did we always see eye-to-eye.  But, we both loved adventure.  When it came to hunting and hard work we were solid.  After moving away from home at the age of 18, most of my conversations with my father revolved around hunting.  As my father became ill the stories became more important between us.  There was a sudden urgency to talk and create more memories.

My father loved to hunt and horses.  He was always bringing home a stray horse that needed broke, or re-broke.  Re-broke was harder that un-broke.  We mostly “green” broke horses, which meant you got them to the place were they could be saddled, rode, and pointed in the right direction without too much resistant.  My dad had away with horses and further trained may.  He like to call it educating them.

My job was to climb on and stay on.  This was not an easy job, but it was mine.  My job was not like that of a rodeo cowboy were you hold on with one hand your hat in the other and spur the horse.  When I climbed aboard I used my hands, feet, teeth, or anything else I could come up with to defy gravity and avoid the hard ground.  To complicate matters further I did not always have a saddle, or reins.  Sometimes it was bareback and a halter with a lead rope.  Sometimes I was tricked on to a bucking horse...  We would be down in the pasture and he would yell “jump on that horse and stop those cows...”  This never turned out well, and you would think that over time I would have learned not to jump on a horse I have never seen before, kicking it in the ribs and yell HAAAA...”

My favorite story is when my dad put me bareback on this 5 year old Arabian Welch gilding.  The horse had been green broke several years prior, then not ridden for sometime.  This makes a mean horse that refuses to be ridden.  This particular horse not only refused to be ridden, but refused to be saddled.  With only a halter and lead rope I jumped aboard under protest from the horse.  The horse had a long mane, and I grabbed two handfuls.  He jumped straight in the air several times then reared all the way over backwards throwing me to the ground.  My father yelled “hang on.”  “Hang on” I yelled back, struggling to my feet, showing him my hands full of freshly pulled mane.

Discussed with my performance, and with baited promptings from my grandfather, my father mounted up.  The horse and I were about to become educated.  Again the horse crow hopped several time straight in the air, but this time instead of rearing over backwards he took off like a sculled dog, then as suddenly as he took off he planted all four feet and dropped his head launching my dad into space.  Horrified, at what I just witnessed,I hear my grandfather burst out laughing, tears streaming form his eyes.  “You showed him Daryl...” he cried.  Pulling himself from the ground, without a single utterance, my father brushed the dirt from his clothes.  With the lead rope still in his hand, he walks the horse into the trailer attached to his truck, closes and latches the tailgate, and drives away.  “It's Alpo time...” my grandfather says.