TIME TO REFLECT

Beautiful weather again today. Very long walk on South Jetty Beach. Lots of people, surfers. bike riders, and these horse back riders.
There was a short time in my life that I handled horses. I was probably about fourteen. A new neighbor had moved in about a mile away, boy my age, but he was from Oklahoma, and he was afraid of cows. For some reason, his family acquired a couple of horses. I think that he and I played around with them a couple of times, then he called up and said that these two girls wanted to come out on Saturday and ride the horses with us. Us, us, what in the hell do they want me there for? He said that he didn't know why, but they said to make sure that I was there!
Janet and her twin sister. All Janet wanted to do was ride double with me, and hide in the woods. I started getting funny ideas.
On another Saturday horse ride, there was a big gray stud. He hadn't been ridden in a while, and was a little testy. Janet said that she and I could ride him. Started down the rode, her behind me. That horse went straight up in the air. As Janet slid off the back and onto her back, she was yelling at me not to let go of the reins! I held the reins, fell off the back, landed with one foot on each side of Janet's head. And pulled that horse right over, nearly missing us. Janet hopped up yelling to get back on immediately, a show that horse whose boss. We did, and I thought that was the toughest little girl I had ever met. I liked it!
That next winter she taught me some other stuff at the drive-in movie.