Li'l Sis

As I've mentioned before, living with the McDaniels in Argyle during the first half of 1972 provided me with a number of new experiences, and one of those was having a "little sister"...

I don't recall exactly how old Stephanie was at that point (maybe 9 or 10?) but I do recall that she was kind a pest :-) She didn't bother me that often, and when she did she was usually trying to cajole me into riding her horse... Yeah - I'm not sure exactly what was up with that. She wasn't allowed to ride until her dad got home (which was a long time after school) and in the meantime she would sometimes ask me to saddle it up and trot it around a bit... I never did figure out if she just wanted it ready to go when her dad got home or if she was simply amused by my total lack of riding ability :-)

Aside: Ordinarily I would have never gotten on one of those critters, but Stephanie was (and still is) an unusually persuasive person. She talks a mile a minute and can be forceful, assertive, disarming and endearing all at the same time... It's kind of like getting hit by a tornado. When you're caught in it all you can do is hang on, and after it passes you're wondering what the heck just happened :-) But I digress...

I had never been around horses before so I don't know if this one was "typical" or not, but there were times I could have sworn it was brain damaged. For example - it ate a bunch of PVC pipe that was stacked just outside the pasture fence. (That must've hurt coming out the other end...) And I'm fairly certain that most horses do not pass gas nearly as often as that one did. Otherwise we would have never domesticated them regardless of how useful they were :-)

So... Stephanie would lead the horse up to the house and I'd try to get the saddle on it while it sidled about. Then I had to tighten the cinch strap. That was a challenge because the horse would take a deep breath and puff out its chest so the strap would seem snug but it wasn't... I tried "waiting it out" but it would just keep breathing shallow - never fully exhaling... The solution was to jam my knee into its solar plexus while yanking on the strap... That always worked :-) Yeah - it sounds mean, but it's better than having the saddle flop off to one side while you're riding...
Getting "on board" wasn't too hard (quarter horses are relatively short), but once I did it would immediately head for the nearest low branch to try and knock me off... I learned to duck... But if you were assertive enough for long enough the horse would eventually stop resisting so much and would actually become "rideable"... Needless to say I really don't get why some people are so fond of horses... That's why I haven't been on one since 1974.

And there's one more story involving Stephanie and her horse:
One day after I left Argyle Stephanie ended up home alone after school for a couple of hours. When her folks got home there were strange markings on the carpet in the family room... They finally got Stephanie to admit that she had gotten lonely and brought the horse inside to watch TV with her...

There are lots more "Stephanie" stories, but they're really not relevant to my "formative years" and it's already taken me far too long to write this post... Suffice it to say she's one of those "different drummer" types... I mean, how many women do you know who would toss a pre-teen niece and nephew the keys to a Vette and tell them to be careful? Seriously! ... And that's exactly what I like about her. :-)