8/17

the weekend was filled with the mystery of life. there were near misses and lots of standing ovations as we watched that magnificent horse 'hildalgo' streak across the saudi desert. american zeal and the democratic heart overcomes all to power towards victory. the heart of a warrior, champion and dare i say...hero hildalgo!
this reminds me of the idaho adventure where i was but a small child on the family horse peanut. peanut was flax colored and we had another black horse called shadow. i am not certain how we or where we purchased these horses or how we ended up with three acres of horse pasture across from the payless/albertson/brass lamp strip mall. all i remember is one day i was playing adventure man (where my brother and sister would taunt me and push me down stairs 'playing' the villian and i as adventure man would endure to their dismay). after hitting the wall at the bottom of the stairs i arose from the sleeping bag shell to the song of my mother singing 'today we gotta have horse rides' it fills the house like the smell of christmas or a relatives hug. then off we went.
my father was an inventor of windows and tall tales, though he always had more than two dollars in his pocket i was universally informed about our poverty. my sister would clutch collages of all the latest fashions cursing poverty and the terrible idaho shopping scene ('why we don't even have the united colors of benetton, international news or for the love of god swatch!') it must be admitted here that i had no idea what a toys r us was until i was ten or so visiting my mother in portland oregon, but that's another story.
harold was my brother, the athlete and friend to all. he never cared much for the shopping scene but was in love with hooded sweat shirts that you could get your name on. it was the fury of our youth and one could say we exhausted it.
gone savage against the trampoline or lost in the forest our father built, him moving like a steam train flurry and smoke red faced at the end of the day not saying do you like it but being let down or chipped away each day my mother didn't stop to admire it. people no matter how great are always excited to show and tell. people, unfortunately, are taught that adults have no time to look or listen. the important man keeps his own company.
the new pasture had a rickety barn, no tools whatsoever and no farmer. we were pilgrims adventuring from the hustle of the city to the virgin farm lands (the eighties movies come to life!).
it must be stated that from the age of six i was on a diet. not successfully but was on a diet or program convicted from the earliest age of being guilty of sweet tooth. i can not deny i enjoyed a sweet or two and my adult size boiler atop my tiny kid frame was an immediate giveaway. how embarrassed must they have been, 'hello carl, here's my family.' 'oh sue i never knew you had a dwarf brother.' uncomfortable silence...'that's my youngest robby.'
it had come to a point where i was put into commercials shamed to the scale and jenny craig meetings....but more another time.
so you could feel the tension amongst the animals as they saw my arrival. watching, with terror, my every move. my brother smooth as a panther slid across peanuts back, my sister atop shadow my mother and father arm to arm smiling with the ease of being right with it all and me trying to avoid eye contact looking towards the road and petting the field cat.
'alright let's go buddy' said my father as he grasped lifted and placed me atop shadow. my brother hugged me about the waist my mother singing 'hold on to the mane'.
once my father stepped away shadow bolted! full gallop towards a low hanging branch, he was going to do something no calorie counter could achieve, stop the stomach. there were screams of terror across the field, my brother wet himself and it was only i who remained calm. it was i the rider and shadows my steed. i called to him through my mind. clung tight to his mane my head against his neck feeling the throbbing of his pulse getting wind whipped wet from the sweat of his neck. ever closer it grew, the branch in full sight it's leaves jagged teeth the knots the dead eyes of a killer, the idaho sun blood red and atop our backs. i promised that day, to shadow, if he spared us, gone would be the diet rites and fudge o's, refused would be the happy meals and second helpings of cake. this would be my second chance, my new life. i promised against the honor of he-man against the badge of the lone ranger. i could feel the tension dad billowing smoke sister crying for shadow's pain the neigh of peanut and my mother singing swing low sweet chariot, and my poor brother faced buried tears streaming screaming 'ooh why did he give me fatso!'
then in one mighty voice i bellowed 'shadow, do we have a deal?' and he slowed and he stopped. the leaf of the branch not jagged teeth but tickle fingers. the knots not death eyes but holes for squirrels to store their winter fare and shadow dropped his head and began to graze.
as we five stood together hugging and sharing our new found second chance there came the hot steam of horse breath upon my neck. turning i came eye to eye with shadow just as my mother sang 'who is up for mcdonalds?' it was into his black pools i replied, 'how about a salad bar?' and with that shadow rose to his hind legs and let out a mighty neigh.
it was at the end, watching hildalgo give his all to save the day, risk it all to save his friend that i thought of shadow, now probably long dead our blood oath broken by his passing that with no guilt i patted my huge stomach and said to my wife 'hey, do we have any more ice cream sandwiches?'