THE CRAZY HORSE

9-11-09...THE CRAZY HORSE

I've wrote about Smokey before. He was a huge gray horse that Brenda's Daddy owned. He was mean and we were all afraid of him but Sid would not get rid of him. He thought Smokey could be a good gentle plow horse.
He decided one day that he would break Smokey to ride and we could all enjoy him. Now let me tell you, I don't know what the others thought about it but I would have never rode that old horse under any circumstances .
Sid got a saddle somewhere and attempted to put it on Smokey. Smokey bolted knocking Sid down in the process. Auntie was calling him crazy, stupid and lots of other things. She said, "Sid you can not break that horse to a saddle, you don't know how and you are going to get yourself killed". Well you could just see Sid stubborn up. He was even more determined now. He tried several more days and finally managed to get the saddle on without getting his head knocked off. Then came days and days of trying to get up in the saddle. In the meantime every time I got a chance I'd go look at Smokey. I got to where he would look at me right in the eye and I would talk to him. I really thought he was communicating with me. What he was probably doing was wishing he could get loose and plow my stupid face in. I kinda got to thinking maybe Ol' Smokey and I had made friends. I'm really surprised now that I didn't try to climb on his back. Thank God I didn't!!!
Norman and I was out in the yard one day playing. We hadn't seen him yet but we heard Sid hollering, "Nubbin, Look at this". (Nubbin was what everyone called Norman. Later shortened to Nub). About that time we saw Sid and Smokey through the big Persimmon tree. Sid was sitting proudly in the saddle. He was grinning from ear to ear proclaiming to everyone listening, "I did it"! Well I'll be He did it, he really broke that ol' mean horse. Yep sure nuff' he did. About that time Smokey's front feet went up in the air, and Sid went flying off the back side right in to the hard dirt road.
Auntie came out the door of her house and we took off toward Sid. We were told to stay back because that ol horse was headed our way then. He was crazier' than a bessie bug!!!!
Sid wasn't hurt much, mostly his pride and his back side. He got a worse tongue lashing from Auntie than any of us kids had ever got before. It didn't help nary a bit though. It just seemed to have strengthened Sid's resolve to conquer that horse. He hired some bronk busters who did it for a living. They declared that Ol Smokey was a lost cause after one day on the job. We finally got that ol' nag out of the pasture then because Sid finally sold him. I never heard how the new owners fared with Smokey but I doubt he ever became a docile sweet ol horse like our Dixie was. Nope just wasn't in that ol horse to be gentle. He was just flat mean. YEP!!!