Real Ponies Don't Go OINK!
By Patrick F. McManus |
Even when we were small boys, Crazy Eddie Muldoon and I were gnawed by that terrible hunger known to nearly every boy in that distant time, the hunger for our very own pony to ride. We dreamed the impossible dream:
on our next birthday, or surely the one after, we would awaken to hear our
beaming parents gush, "Guess what's tied up out behind the woodshed, Son.
But before you rush off to see what it is, you'd better open this present
that's in the shape of a saddle." Sure enough, the present would be a saddle! Then you would tear out of the house and there, hidden behind the woodshed, probably with a big bow around its neck, would be your. ..very. ..own. .. pony! You would saddle up your pony and gallop off toward the horizon, pausing only long enough to wave at your generous and thoughtful and loving parents, the very best parents in the whole world.
My family wasn't big on impossible dreams. "Would you shut up about a pony!" my mother roared every time I brought up the topic. "Ponies cost money! You think money grows on trees?"
Occasionally, I would ride one of our pigs by the kitchen window, hoping to shame Mom into buying me a pony, "There goes old short-in-the-saddle," my sister, the Troll, would shout. "Hopalong Hog and Gene Oink, the smelly cowboy!" Then she and Mom would have a good laugh. Their response didn't leave me much hope of ever getting my very own pony by appealing to sympathy.
Crazy Eddie fared scarcely better. "Would you shut up about a pony!" Mr. Muldoon would roar. "Ponies cost money! You think money grows on trees?" Still, the Muldoons had an actual farm, with cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and even a goat, which, by the way, wasn't a bad ride, A pony would have fit right in to the Muldoon menagerie. If you stared hard enough at their pasture, you could easily imagine a pony out there. You could almost see it.
In fact, and one morning I did see it! Galloping majestically across the pasture was--forget the dumb pony--a beautiful, huge, glistening black horse!
Eddie was riding the horse.
It was almost too much for me to bear. True, Eddie didn't exactly fit my idea of a cowboy. The horse's back was so broad that Eddie's stubby legs stuck straight out on either side, as if he were doing an equestrian version of the splits. Eddie and the horse were totally out of aesthetic proportion to each other. From a distance, the two of them looked like a mouse riding a tall dog, although I knew the image would hurt Eddie's feelings.
"You look like a mouse riding a tall dog!" I called out to him. |
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