Bad Playgrounds ~~~ #2
The continued adventures of Betty Joe Bob and me. And why fate & kismet must have needed us to hang around……………..
Enter stage left~~~us~~~in the early 1950’s. The stage is set~~~rural, northeastern Ohio. Just south of Lake Erie.
Betty Joe Bob (my cousin) and I are left to our own devices……………
Entertainment is high on the list. What to do…what to do……………..
Some children have a Radio-Flyer/little red wagons. Some have sand boxes. Some have swing sets. Many have bikes. We had donkeys.
Yes, that’s correct.
Like all little children, I wanted a pony. We lived on a farm. Why shouldn’t I want a pony? So, one Christmas when I was in the Fourth Grade, I got a donkey.
Actually my sister and I got two donkeys. A jenny and her yearling foal (donk-ette?), plus she was pregnant (the jenny not my sister)…………………..
Ah, the infamous beginning of my riding career!
His name was picked. It would be Phineas———(of course it was). To be exact, his name was Phineas Quigley Tewilliger. My steady steed.
Later in the spring, Amanda (Amanda the jenny) gave birth to Erasmus. To be exact—–Erasmus Doodlelip Snodgrass.
Hey, we only had three television channels in black & white, we needed to create our own creativity………………..so, don’t judge the one-of-a-kind names.
My trusty mount was Phineas. My sister’s mount was Erasmus. And Betty Jo Bob’s ride was Amanda (or Mandy, for short).
They were great. Don’t let anyone tell you that donkeys are stubborn or dumb. They are smart, self-preserving (probably a good thing, because I wasn’t), and willing to try anything. And we got into everything.
If I remember correctly, Phineas was 12.2 hands. My Dad got old pony harnesses for us, he made travoises, and snowplows (we had a long driveway), and sulkies.
Like I said, donkeys were willing to try anything.
Dad had to contrive a “back-strap” (which I later came to find out is actually called a harness breeching) that would attach with snaps to our saddles. This was because donkeys are smart and they have no withers. They learned their own games with us……………………..which was to run down a hill, stop quickly, and put their heads down. This would cause the saddle (pre-back-strap) to go right over their wither-less shoulders and down their necks to their ears……………….along with their rider. The rider would usually end up doing mud-angels, face-first, in the mud………………………not fun. (This could have been when my bad-vocabulary began—–albeit the elementary-school-version).
One of our BEST creative, play-times in the winter was to harness Phineas and hook our saucer sled to the traces. Then either Betty Joe Bob or I would ride Phineas and the other would hang on tight in the dented, aluminum saucer.
Woo! Hoo! WHAT A RIDE!!! I swear we would get airborne on the corners.
Frost-bitten cheeks, ice crystals on our eyelashes, and Phineas flying through the snow-covered pasture! IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES!!!
We would do figure-eights and loops and start-n-stops. The tall, dried timothy heads were like little, frozen truncheons to our already frozen faces. Hoof-sized lumps of compressed ice/rocks/& snow were shrapnel to be ducked—–not to mention the flying, tiny hooves themselves that were alarmingly close to our heads. It was great!
Come to think of it, those hooves WERE alarmingly close. You’d have to sit back in the saucer sled to get a good snow-surfing-action going and to avoid the rear hooves. If you leaned too far forward, you could easily dig the front edge of the saucer into the snow, causing the entire game to stop abruptly and having the saucer-rider do major somersaults into the air……………….actually that was fun too.
Frozen tears on our faces. Frozen snot on our cheeks. Numb toes. Numb butts. Numb noses & ears. It was great!
One thought on “Bad Playgrounds ~~~ #2”
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