Thank you everyone for such a wonderful array of stories of your push biking days. We are starting to get stories from more places round the world and it adds to the richness of our shared yet different experiences.
Charli made a comment that she preferred horses over bikes and it set me thinking – was having a horse all little girls dream? How many of us wanted one but it stayed a dream and how many had that dream fulfilled? For those growing up in rural areas was horse-riding ever a dream but rather a way of life? Did girls in the city and areas where horses don’t seem to be common have that same dream or did little girls where they come have a different universal dream. Did boys dream about horses? What was the male equivalent of the universal (?) dream for a horse? Have you gone on a trail ride and got a story to tell?
Please join in giving your location at the time of your memory and your generation. An explanation of the generations and the purpose of the prompts along with conditions for joining in can be seen at the Times Past Page. Join in either in the comments or by creating your own post and linking. Looking forward to your memories.
Baby Boomer – Australia country town
Like all the girls I knew I desperately wanted a horse as a child until I was around thirteen. I was always fobbed off with how much work it would be, that they didn’t call it mucking out the stable for nothing, I would lose interest, paddocks were too expensive to rent. I think that my friends had similar arguments put by their parents as none of my friends had horses either. Instead we contented ourselves by reading books such as A Taste for Blue Ribbons by Eugene Lumbers, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, National Velvet by Enid Bagnol and C.S. Lewis’s A Boy and his Horse. There were probably more but these are all I remember decades later. My only real childhood experience of a horse was when a friend of my mothers had a foal born and we went to see it.
© irene waters 2018
Naturally I fell in love with it and my desire for a horse increased dramatically at the time but I think it ended in sadness as my memory tells me the foal did not survive and I was devastated.
I only once went on a trail ride. I was around sixteen and I went with three school friends. Three of us were raw beginners whilst one had ridden before. She rode at the front and stupidly put her horse into a gallop which our horses followed. I managed to stay on as did one other friend but Bronwyn landed on the ground, luckily not hurting herself.
I’m looking forward to reading your memories……. and don’t forget that if you are interested in memoir check out the series on the second Friday of the month over at Carrot Ranch. Join in the conversation.
Baby Boomer – Australian City
Times Past – Horses
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 