Mom's Lifelong Impact

My parents married during the Great Depression and raised five children in the days when few jobs were available and Welfare checks non-existent. Neither parent had more than a fourth -grade education. I came to understand how Mama became the innovative person she was, and expected the same from her children. She proved time and again that no problem in life was beyond her ability to solve it.

So I naturally believed that my incessant begging for a horse would certainly produce results. This effort started when I was five years old and was taken to the carnival that came yearly to the little Mississippi Delta town Belzoni. Mama gave me a dime for a ride at the pony ring. I was completely awed, not only about getting to ride, but also the scent and the feel of the pony’s back as he carried me around the ring. After the ride, Mama could not separate me from the encircling fence. I clung to it, watching the ponies and taking in the smell, Mama trying unsuccessfully to entice me to go see more of the carnival with her.

Mama explained to me repeatedly in response to my begging for a horse of my own that we could neither afford to buy a horse, nor to maintain one. Nevertheless my begging continued for years until the Christmas I was eleven years old. We had moved to a rent-free converted chicken house in the country owned by Daddy’s boss. Mama raised a flock of Peking ducks and sold them to a Chinese grocery store for $30 enough to buy a thin, sorrel gelding and a $6 bridle. There was no money for a saddle, so I rode bareback until the next Christmas when she found a used Calvary saddle for $18.And so began my association with equines, and the love and success I’ve enjoyed with them.

Another trait that my Mama had could be called non-interference with her children’s lives, sort of the opposite of “the helicopter parent”. Never did I hear her tell me that I could not do a thing that many parents would consider dangerous. I learned by my own mistakes. If I faced a barrier with something I planned, I found a way around it. Even though she was not raised around horses, she taught me many things - how to fix a fence, how to restrain a horse by pinching its upper lip, how to tie certain knots r-things one might learn growing up in rural Missouri.

Eventually my life as a teenager evolved into breaking and training horses and giving riding lessons to the children of wealthy plantation owners. I gave the money I made to Mama, and it certainly came in handy when Dad, in one of his drunken rages, took our used Studebaker and left for Texas. He stayed a year sending home only one $50 check.

Mama started taking me to nearby horse shows where I paid expenses with prize money I made in jumper classes on a mare that was given to me as a yearling. That same mare, Biscay, became an important part of my life, going to Vet School at Auburn with me and living into her twenties.

One might believe that the harsh life Mama had would have made her a humorless and unhappy person. Not True! She could see the humor in almost any situation, and some of my happiest memories are drying dishes for her in our little kitchen. We could always find something to laugh at, and sometimes I would have to pause my drying because we were laughing so hard, I’d drop a dish. One joke she liked to tell was that her uncle was sent to prison for stealing a short piece of rope: of course there was a horse attached to it.

So who most influenced the good life I’ve enjoyed with horses? The only answer possible would be MY MOTHER!