That cowboy part of my heart ..

By Lloyd Rolfes II 

Remington Park Director of Internal Compliance and Surveillance

 

My mother put me on horseback at an early age. Well, the horse was actually a pony, and it was led around the older inner-city neighborhoods of New Orleans by a little grey-haired man who was promoting the sale of photographs of children on his palomino pony. This early experience being astride a horse (pony), was enough to spark a keen, on-going interest in horses.

From that fateful day of the pony photo, I could no longer pass one of those mechanical horse rides on the sidewalks in front of stores, without begging my mother for several nickels, to facilitate a number of consecutive riding sessions. My growing obsession with horseback riding became so great that my mom & dad had to find another venue to satisfy my lust for riding those spirited stallions of the sidewalk, and save those mounting numbers of spent nickels. They tried introducing me to the comparatively slow-moving, up and down, carousel horses at City Park, but they were just too tame for me. Not to mention, the accompanying calliope music did not befit the rugged pursuit of horseback riding for a burgeoning cowboy.

Being an admittedly spoiled child, my parents bought for me a spring mounted, wooden rocking/bucking bronco of my very own, and placed it on our front porch. I fondly remember those many hours spent in the great outdoors of the inner-city, which were plainly visible from our screened porch. Each riding session found me appropriately wearing my Buffalo Bob boots, Hop-A-Long Cassidy leather chaps, Roy Rodgers cowboy hat, and The Cisco Kid six shooters. I am sure that you must have shared similar experiences in your youth.

The joy of horseback riding, and my ever improving riding prowess, would have gone on much longer, were it not for a tragic riding accident. My joy of riding was cut short one fateful day, when my young sister (five years my junior) was out on the porch watching my skillful riding exhibitions. All of a sudden, without time to react, my sister got too close to my exuberant steed while he was in mid-stride. Her shrieks of glee, laughter, and excitement, were shattered by screams of pain, and the splattering of bright red blood across the floor of the porch. She had been struck in the mouth by my beloved horse, and one of her front baby teeth was knocked out. The sight of her gleaming white, cavity free tooth, resting on the floor of the porch, in a pool of her own crimson life's blood, was just too much for me to bare. I was so traumatized by this event, I never wanted to ride another horse, again. I didn't even protest when my mom & dad gave away my beloved equine to one of my cousins.

 

To this very day, it is difficult to gaze upon those old family photos that show my sister smiling with that horrid gap between her front teeth, caused by my obsession with the horse.