It's 9AM
I was never a living room cowboy.
My Dad’s third child with his second wife was raised by her grandparents.
They thought their 19 year old daughter was too young to raise a baby with a twenty four year old hippie going through a divorce.
I know, it sounds bad.
And even the excuse of, it was a different time falls flat fifty years later.
But I got a half sister out of the indiscretion, even if I spent a childhood without a father.
I had a father figure in Papaw, who lived a block up the road.
What we didn’t have were horses.
He would take us to his land in the country and we would stop at Bronson’s, who had a farm on his land.
He had two horses and a donkey, but no one rode any of them.
My half sister had two Shetland ponies, which was my introduction to riding.
Not in a circle on a lead, but across a pasture.
My very first time on a pony it got spooked by something and took off at a full gallop.
I grabbed the reins and held on tight and managed to stay on, despite a sore tuckus and probably a sore throat from screaming.
I was not a good cowboy at first.
Except I was determined.
I decided to keep at it.
After all, John Wayne could ride a horse and seven brothers got seven brides with their riding skills.
Or maybe it was the way they danced, which I couldn’t do.
I was thrown from a pony and landed in a pile of poo.
Got back up on the horse and got thrown again.
Until riding got easier and being thrown less common, though I was told by her adoptive parents that the ponies weren’t used to that much ass on their back.
Which was a phrase I used with my papaw on Bronson’s farm.
It earned a laugh and a warning.
Never say it in front of Mamaw.
Our little secret, just a couple of men in a field tending stock.
Taking stock too.
Of nature and the world and learning about it.
And what I get reminded of every single day?
There’s still so much to learn.
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