Cowgirl to Car Girl

 From Cowgirl to Car Girl

If you caught last week’s post, you know my parents moved to Arizona when I was four years old because I had asthma. If you didn’t catch that post, I put a link at the end of this one so you can check it out. 

The move to Arizona likely influenced my decision to be a cowgirl when I grew up. Well, that and the fact my dad and I watched westerns on television every Sunday afternoon.

In Arizona we went to rodeos and visited Old Tucson. My closest friend was a Mexican girl named Moey. She taught me a few words in Spanish. Her mother cooked tortillas on a griddle, flipping the thin round flour food they used as we did bread, with her bare hands. I was fascinated. We pretended broomsticks were our horses and we fought wild Indians together. (No comments on not being “politically correct” here, please. I was four.)

We moved back to Ohio near the end of my first-grade year to the house where my father was born. It was on my grandparents’ property. The move was necessary because my grandfather needed help on the farm following a heart attack. The medical assumption on my end was I had “outgrown” the asthma by that time. 

Once we settled in Ohio, my dad made good on his promise to buy me a pony. I named her Flicka after a pony on the television show, My Friend Flicka. I know. Not very original.

Flicka came with only a short lead. Dad talked with me about learning to ride a horse. He told me my pony had never been ridden and it would take a while to break her in. “And the thing to do if you get bucked off is to get right back on,” he advised. Dad looped a rope around Flicka and tied her to the fence post in the front pasture and left. 

I must have figured it was up to me at that point. She was, after all, my pony. I took a feed sack and draped across her back.  I tugged on the rope to get her close to the fence, climbed up and jumped on her back. 

In less than a minute I was on the ground. Undaunted, I tried again. And again. And again. I don’t know how many times I tried before my mom came around to the front of the house and saw me. She was not a fan of broken bones. She told me to stop before I broke my neck. 

It wasn’t my neck that was hurting. 

Dad came home later with a saddle, bridle and blanket for my pony. Under his instruction, Flicka and I learned the joy of riding. We had many adventures on that dairy farm. I was truly a “cowgirl.”

Flicka wasn’t my only horse experience. Flicka birthed Thunderhead. I had a Quarter horse named Duchess and her foal I called Princess. There was Tiny and the Appaloosa I called Saki. She birthed Abi. 

In high school I lost my passion for horses as my interest in boys increased. The only “horse” I enjoyed through those years was a Midnight Blue1966 Mustang. I named her “Midnight.”

Perhaps Midnight was a vision of my future. 

You see, since marrying Mike, I’ve become less of a cowgirl and more of a “car girl.” 

My Arizona Experience: I call it The Gift of Caring Parents. Click HERE.

    More of a Car girl, Less of a Cowgirl, though I get my "fix" every Sunday. My husband, Mike, and I now attend Stable Faith Cowboy Church in Brooksville, Florida. (12077 Broad Street)