The Time That I Met "John Wayne"
Little Generikat astride good ol' Frisky horse. A multi-generational mount, he carried my grandpa, my mother, and finally me. He lived to be thirty-five years old!
If there is a horse in the vicinity, chances are that I am aware of it. I have been clambering around on the backs of equines since before I could crawl.
What I am not is a horse expert, rather my one single equitation skill is that I have no fear of horses when I am astride them. This probably says more than I would wish when it comes to a reader's ability to assess my IQ, but in all honestly, I'm okay with that. I am perfectly at ease riding a horse along a slippery 12 inch shale trail with a few thousand foot drop off to one side. If there is something to jump over, I'm elated about it. A river to ford? How lovely, let's get swimming.
A lot of this attitude is inborn, as I come from a line of horse people. My grandfather raised Appaloosa horses and mules. If Grandma couldn't find me she usually just had to look out in the field. Little me would be standing in the middle of the horse herd. Of course we had to spend my adolescence in Southeast Alaska, the land devoid of horseflesh, so imagine how elated I was when, shortly after getting married, I got asked by my sister-in-law to help out with their guided trail ride business!
I swear that someone must have been visiting the ranch when they snapped this pic, it looks like the section of the river just beyond the ranch house!
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My sister-in-law's ranch sits on the edge of a river that pours right off of the glaciers of Mt. Rainer National Park. It's a beautiful piece of land, and they picked beautiful horses as mounts for their guided rides: Peruvian Pasos. I had always been around Quarter Horses, Arabians, Appaloosas, and a few Tennessee Walkers. The horses that I now had to work with looked a lot like another one of my favorite breeds, Andalusians. They had arched necks, big flowing manes and tales, and most curiously of all, they flung their legs out in a very strange looking manner.
Now I could and probably will write a huge post on the amazing Peruvian Paso horse. These lateral (they move one side at a time) gaited horses are a joy to ride. Their claim to fame is that they are so smooth you can drink a glass of champagne while enjoying your ride and never spill a drop. I loved them, but come on, of course I did, they were horses!
My job was to take the green horses out on the rides. My place was at the rear of the pack. There was a couple of reasons for this placement. One was to keep everyone together. There was always some person who thought it was a great idea to try to hang back from the group and then kick their horse into gear for a fun run. The second reason was due to the whole green horse thing. Seasoned trail horses are pretty auto-pilot on a ride when they are together in a string, but green horses can be a bit unpredictable. Especially when you involve swimming across creeks, cougar tracks and scent, very loud logging trucks, and my favorite, walking over a bush and having a deer explode out from underneath the horse.
See the look projecting from this horse's eye? It's either wishing that you had ingested a few less cheeseburgers or wondering why the human in charge didn't see fit to remember to loosen the cinch.
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This anecdote, however, isn't about the horses. I just had to give a bit of background for the main part. We lived about three hours south of Seattle, so a lot of executive types came to the ranch for rides as team building exercises. My all time favorite group were the Microsoft Lawyers.
All of the law folk were lined up in front of the barn, and I would take the reins from one of my family members and walk the steed over to their assigned rider. As I drew closer to my next victim, I had to bite my cheeks a bit as I took in his attire.
The creature in front of me had on a brand new Stetson hat, a leather western cut jacket, complete with leather fringe, a western dress shirt that looked like the inside of an abalone, and some buckskin colored suede pants. It was the boots, however, that really stole the show. Their composition was alligator and they were so highly polished that I had to squint as I beheld them. The western apparition's pants were tucked into his boots, so that made them much easier to behold.
"He's from China, and he doesn't speak much English." one of his cohorts whispered in my ear.
"That's okay." I murmured in reply, "It's horses."
"Hello." I said in my most friendly tone as I handed Dot's reins to the duded up lawyer. "Are you ready to go?"
"I JOHN WAYNE!" The man shouted at me as he graciously took the reins from my outstretched hands.
It was a good thing he was going to ride Dot. Aside from being the most fun horse on the planet to take a swim with, I am reasonably sure that Dot would walk calmly into the path of a mushroom cloud with nothing but an ear twitch as a sign of life. She was a huge appaloosa mare, and the only non-Peruvian Paso on the whole ranch. We put the most nervous or un-experienced person on her, as she was the sweetest, most dependable creature ever. Sedate thy name is Dot!
"Well howdy, partner!" I responded with glee in the face of such a revelation. John Wayne didn't want any help mounting his horse, but he did acquiesce to my request to adjust his stirrups. I had to look at the ground every time he shouted; "I JOHN WAYNE, YEE HAW!". This battle cry was uttered frequently. I can still hear it.
In all honesty, John Wayne was the least of my worries. At least he had boots on. Another one of the lawyers was clad in a brand new pair of moccasins. This ride was three hours in duration. That included three creek crossings and lots of forest and hilly terrain. I wasn't really sure how that scenario was going to play out, so I put Moccasin Man right in front of me.
The next three hours of my life were punctuated by my view of a slip and sliding high-priced lawyer uttering all manner of creative curse words. All of this was overshadowed by the soundtrack of "I JOHN WAYNE!" or "YEE HAW" whenever something interesting happened. Everything was interesting to John Wayne.
I'll never forget that special man, he had to shake my hand and tip his hat to me when the ride was over, and before I could help myself, I replied with; "Much obliged, pilgrim."
My progeny demonstrating that the genetic obsession has been passed on!
And as always, with the exception of the above cited photos, the pictures in this post were taken on my horse hair covered iPhone.