If Wishes were Fishes

As a young girl I dreamed of owning a horse. All the time. One Christmas my parents gave me a book on how to train horses and I really, actually thought they were going to get me a horse. That was a big dissapointment when I realized that it was only the book. Bummer. Another time my dad told me I could have a horse if I saved up enough money to buy one. I got a paper route and saved up enough money to do that. I even found one in the local newspaper that I could afford. When I showed it to my dad he backed out of the deal. As an adult looking back on it I can see his point. I hadn't accurately figured in feed, shelter, saddle, vet care, etc. There is so much more to owning a horse then just buying it. But at the time I was sorely dissapointed....again.

Then one day we had new neighbors move in to an old dilapitated trailer at the bottom of the hill near our house. They came with 23 horses and several mules. Turns out they were carny folk; they owned a pony wheel and carted their horses around the state to different carnivals. To me and my sisters it was a dream come true. They had girls in our same age range and we all became friends and helped them with their horses with the understanding we would get to ride them. The family used the military reservation land right next to them to stake the horses out. We helped haul water in 5-gallon buckets and moved horses as needed to new grazing areas. Just before their father planned to take the ponies to an event, he let all of us kids ride them bareback in a pen to get the kinks worked out. They bucked, rolled and did whatever it took to try to get us kids off. They had a mare named Nellie that I particularly liked. One time I was leading her over a ditch and she jumped and landed right on my left ankle. It was excrutiating pain for a short time and continued to be a sore spot for years. I always called that my Nellie foot.

While I was in Wisconsin visiting my sister, we visited briefly with one of her friends. Her friend's daughter has a white pony named Casper. He is beautiful. She has been training him to pull a cart. She is living MY DREAM! And she's such a nice girl. I envy her but at the same time am so happy that she gets to have a pony. She seems to appreciate how lucky she is to have a pony when so many girls dream of it and don't get to see that dream fulfilled.