The Last Time I Sat on Old Bars

Old Bars was gettin’ old. He wasn’t very big, but he was smart, and rawhide tough. When we got him, he was Little Bars, and had stripes on his legs. He’d been a pack horse at one time, scrounging for his feed and keepin’ his rightful place in the string. We’d turned him into a saddle horse for the kids. He didn’t complain. Kind of moseyed along and enjoyed the better eats and all the kid’s attention.

The last day I sat on Old Bars was warm, bright and sunny. The grass was rich and green and fat in the sun of late Spring. Old Bars was rank, and lazy, and set in his ways. He hadn’t been rode at all, not once, since last Fall.

He hadn’t forgot how to suck in air for an artificial bloat, but I kneed him in the gut and got the cinch wound up tight. He didn’t much like the flavor of the bit, but chewed his way past it without a fit. Despite my own winter’s expansion of girth, I pulled myself up stirrup and swung into the socket. He groaned, and didn’t want to go anywhere, yet ambled into a walk after I gave him a kick in the slats.

All was well until we reached the pasture and started ‘round the flat. A dastard small thing crossed our path unseen with a zing of wings and a rasp. I thought it a grasshopper. My opinion didn’t count. ‘Cause Bars just knowed it was a horsefly that had to have blood in its eye. Old Bars’ deepest equine desire was to escape that fly. To do that he’d even buck like Hell.

He didn’t care that I was on top, snug in the saddle. Or, maybe didn’t even notice. Anyway, that condition didn’t last. I flew up and up until apogee and gravity worked their physical return from low Earth orbit magic. Even now, I can tell you positively, that the reentry fall did not hurt.

The suddenness of the stop at ground level, did. Thankfully, I landed flat on my back on a pad of thick, rich grass and soft, soft dirt. Old Bars, I’m reliably told, completed at least five major kinks, jinks, and bucks that would have made a major rodeo grounds, bareback warhorse proud. Any yearling could do as much without even half tryin’.

After my breath came back, my ribs weren’t really broke, and the laughin’ and gigglin’ had stopped, and a twitch or two convinced me that nothin’ internal was really busted or otherwise smooshed, I was determined to get back up on that dag-blamed, irresponsible, dumb, hammer-headed, winter-stable-rotten, hairy beast. So despite the bruisin’ and hydrostatic shock, when my little girl led Old Bars over to me, while hidin’ her lopsided grin, with a few grunts and a giant gasp, I did.

And I rode him right straight back to the barn and his stall. There I peeled his saddle, and slipped the bridle, and turned him in with some of his favorite oats. And reached up on the shelf for the biggest liniment jug of them all.

That was the last time I sat on Old Bars. Both of us were too old and fat after that.

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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