Day 207 CJSM

Day 207

 

 

Watching “Indian”-John try to ride Stormy,

the red-nosed reindeer, in Oregon.

 

 

For a plain & simple guy, sometimes things can get quite convoluted! Indeed!

 When we packed up the gypsy-caravan to trek westward to ole Oregon-country, the convoy was quite the spectacle. Miss Candy and I had shuttled the Mustang to the Great Northwest after I had returned from a sojourn to secure us a house; we contracted the horse move with a company from southern Oregon who transported horses and such around the country. He boarded the critters for us until our move, then delivered the animals to Salem, where we lived.

 J & K Stables on the northeast corner of Salem became home to our herd; John and Karen took good care of us “easterners”. John was a real character so he and I got along very well.

 His claim to fame was his appearance in local parades where John dressed up like an Indian in full head dress and rode his cayuse to the delight of spectators. The first time I saw a picture of John in his “outfit”, I didn’t recognize the man, the costume was that stark a contrast to his “normal” persona. Looked just like an Indian chief right out of Hollywood! Delightful!

 Well! We had a young horse name of Stormy who was not a “gentlemen” by any stretch.

 Even after he was gelded into an “it” (stallions are super-macho and dangerous) he refused to relent in his appraisal of being one mean-stud-machine. Of course, his “jets” had been cooled.

 Ole Stormy did not like male humans, at all. Big tough “I’ll-ride-anything” Indian-chief  John saw the desperado act up any time we tried to saddle and ride the beast; John had had enough!

 With his white straw hat (out of wardrobe at the moment) firmly seated on his head, he put a foot in the stirrup of ole Stormy’s saddle and mounted up to tame the savage beast. Uh! Huh!

 Well! He got one hell of a lesson---John…not the Stormy-horse.

 After two wild bucks, Indian-Jon was sitting on the gelding’s neck sans his hat and with his eye glasses askance on his nose. (Hmm! I thought Indians could ride!?)

 Thank God nobody got hurt. Well! At least, no ambulance ride to the hospital. Just John’s ego! He took quite a ribbing over that “rodeo” show. Careful! Indians have no sense-of-humor!

 Becky eventually tamed-down ole Stormy horse, even broke him to the harness! Good show!

 

Ah! Cookie Jar Sweet “Indian-John rodeo-star” Memories!