Old Leroy

Will Rogers said,
"If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old."

If you think I'm not a very quiet, ordinary, 60 something year old person, don't even try to imagine what I was like as a teenager.  :0)  Since I was a teen in the 60's, my parents gave me free rein.  Plus, since my father worked for TWA, I could fly anywhere in the world for a $6.00 surcharge for first class.  And, fly I did.  I once flew from Kansas to Illinois for a date.  My folks were pretty trusting, if I do say so!
I had a job at 16 yrs. of age at Peterson's stable in Lenexa, Kansas.  I trailered my quarter mare 50 miles round trip by myself to show up for work on the weekends.  I always love to tell the story about how I got the job as head instructor at the young age of 16.  First things first, I had been riding horses since the tender age of 6 yrs. old.  I had been showing horses since I was 7 yrs. of age. 
The test to get the job was to ride old Leroy, a big white, circus looking horse, from the barn to the riding arena.  That was it.  Pure and simple.  You get him to the arena, you have the job.  As soon as I started to give him a bit of a squeeze with my legs, he started to rear.  I turned him in tight circles and then straightened him out trying to rodeo him out of the barn.  He would balk and lift his front legs off the ground threatening to flip over backwards.  I remember Pete Peterson, chewing his tobacco,  just a looking and a grinning at me.  I have always had a way with horses.  I smiled back at him.  I turned old Leroy around bass ackwards and backed that silly son of a gun all the way from the barn to the arena 'uphill.'  I GOT THE JOB!  P.S.  I was offered a full time job after high school, but I had places to go and places to see. :0)
I don't get defeated easily. I'm a Capricorn.  Things come to me late in life.  I have to earn them.  I'm not sure what got me on that tangent, but I hope you enjoyed the story. :0)  Today I am off to another AHBA Ranch trial.  Kilt and Yoko will be running in ranch sheep.  Kilt better perform. She is on my shit list at the moment.  Jet and Yoko are going to work arena geese.  This will Yoko's second time on geese.  I hope I won't have to buy and cook a goose for dinner.  We'll see.........