There was a time in my life that I was an incurable show-off. There were reasons for it, but I need not go into that here, other than two examples:
The first was in eighth grade. I bought a cheap paper-back book which purported to teach the reader how to become a deadly martial arts master. I read two pages, then made the announcement to anyone who would listen how very lethal I was.
That afternoon at lunch hour, three upper classmen accosted me out near the baseball diamond, and by the time they left, I had this suspicion I was not as tough as I thought I was.
The next event I remember where vanity vanquished intelligence occurred at a fair, held at my high school. I approached a saddled horse, having been drawn there by the number of girls who surrounded and petted him. I pulled a stem of long grass from the ground, set it in my mouth, and approached the small crowd like a well-seasoned rangler. I rubbed the horse’s mane with confidence, and was thrilled when the best looking girl there said, “Lucky, do you ride? I’d be afraid to ride him!”
I scoffed. “Can I ride!? Hundreds of times.” [Read: Never in my life had I been that close to a horse much less sat on one.]
The farmer who had bought the horse to the fair to let kids ride him said, “Great! Why don’t you climb up there, and when the others see how easy it is, maybe they’ll want to ride to.”
Snagged on my own bravado. It was now ‘Put up or shut up time.’
I had seen enough cowboy movies to know one mounted from the left side. My effort to achieve seating was more a clamber than it was a mount. The kindly farmer, having spotted me as a rookie, gave me a ‘fanny up’ which, mercifully, was hidden from view.
I clucked the steed and gently tapped his flanks with my heels. For the first hundred yards, he walked easily along. Then, with no urging from me [believe it: no urging from me!] he broke into a cantor. I started to bounce on the saddle; balance became a premium.
Then he started to run! All the pulling back on the reins, all the ‘Whoa Nellie’s’ I could yell had but one effect: none. Smugly, I concluded, if I put my hands over his eyes, he can’t see, so he’ll stop running. So I bent forward and did just that.
As discrepant as it may sound, he ran faster! What form of demon had I mounted!! Just my luck to be astride a psychopath with four legs! My heart was in my throat; I thought I’d pass out from anxiety.
Eventually he stopped; the farmer ran up to us and yelled, “Bad girl, Pansy!”
‘Pansy?!’ I had been near kidnapped by a girl named Pansy?!
He led Pansy back to the truck; after her performance, no one else was going to ride her that day. Maybe that was her game all along.
I passed the group of girls who rushed to me. “Weren’t you scared?!”
“Who me? Nothin’ to it.”
The years having gathered have left me some pride, but now, considerably abraded by such incidences such as these, far less vanity.
Look for Lucky’s books locally and on-line: I Swear By Apollo; The Oath of Hippocrates; The Cotillian; A Journey Long Delayed; Campfire Tales; Sabonics; More Campfire Tales; Growing Up In Stephentown; Animal Archives; The Story Teller.
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