When I was in the fifth grade at Sandusky Middle School in Sandusky, Michigan, I was in love with horses. This is because my family, being from middle class, middle America, watched Bonanza and Gunsmoke every week on TV along with whatever western movies came on TV. We never went to the movies in town; we watched them on TV when they were a few years old. So one fall my Dad found a deal on a big pony and a beagle named Cindy about fifteen miles away from our farm. So we drove up there to see the pony and the dog. We really liked the two of them and Cindy the dog came home with us and Sandy the pony arrived later in a trailer. The only problem was that my younger sister's name was Cindy also and she was not the least bit happy sharing her name with a beagle! We told her that beagles weren't smart enough to survive a name change and she would just have to learn to like it.
The reason my Dad got my brother and I a big pony was that one of my school friends had a old work horse that he inherited form his older brothers. He would ride it a mile down the road to our place and I would ride the horse while he rode our minibikes that our dad built for us. The horse was huge, old and gentle. He never gave his rider any trouble and he made the rider look good. After we got the pony, I mostly rode Sandy when we had the time, and my brother and my Dad would ride motorcycles in the woodlot across the road. I had a minibike called the Bumblebee that was homemade. It looked great but rode like a hay wagon - no suspension other than the airplane tires which didn't have any tread. So you could not keep up with motorcycles that had at least three inches of suspension and knobby tires. So Dad and Glen would be riding motorcycles on the trails and Sandy and I would catch up with them. Sandy had a few problems; he wasn't very well trained. Every time I rode him he tried to buck me off and he wasn't very good at doing what he was told. When he would get over in the woods he wouldn't walk through the trails like the horses did on Bonanza; he would run as fast as he could to catch up to the motorcycles. Now I have always had a need for speed but Sandy and I were much taller than a motorcycle or a deer and that was how high most of the brush canopy was. Sandy was just a little bit taller than a big buck. So when he took off at a gallop the thornapple bushes didn't smack him, just me. My pain and shouting just encouraged Sandy the wonder horse; he just went faster and faster as the brush got thicker and thicker.
His favorite trick though, was to gallop as fast as he could, start bucking and if he didn't manage to throw me off, he would stop dead in his tracks and just skid his hooves until I flew over his head with a loud thump and landed in a heap. When I recovered I had to chase him down and put him back in the pasture. Eventually God blessed me I continued to grow until I could wrap my legas around his belly and he hardly ever bucked me off anymore. But then most of the fun was gone too.
You see there is great fun in working through adversity and mastering it and getting ready for the next challenge God blesses you with. Sandy the Wonder Horse taught me the power of "failing forward" literally!
