The Horse and the Stick

One of my most embarrassing moments happened when I was 19 years old.  I was living in Minden and working in Shreveport.   I normally carpooled to work and back with three other women from Minden.  But on this day, I was driving home alone. I decided to take a short cut. There was a country road that ran behind the bowling alley and adjacent to a large field. We took this short cut often because it was so scenic.   The road ran fairly close to a fenced area where one of the locals kept his horses. 

I was driving slow and enjoying the view when I happened to glance over and see a horse grazing in the field.  It was a picturesque scene with the tall green grass swaying in the wind while the huge oak trees shielded the pasture from the setting sun.  What caught my eye was this horse.  And what further got my attention was the fact that it appeared to have a huge stick lodged in his side.  I pulled over and backed up to get a better look. I jumped out of the car and ran up to the six foot fence to check out the horse.  I was so concerned for this poor animal. I looked around to see how he could have impaled himself.  Did he jump over a fallen tree limb?  How could this have happened to him?  I looked up the road to see if there was a house or if the owner of the horse was nearby.  I thought if I could locate the owner I could alert him about the horse’s condition.  With no owner in sight, I looked up at the fence as if to think I could jump it and run over and help this poor creature myself.  And that led to my wondering how in the world would I go about pulling this huge limb out of this animal.

I became frantic. I thought I needed to do something. He obviously had to be in a lot of pain. Good grief he had a huge limb or stick poking out of his body.   My heart started to beat faster and I felt in a panic to do something.  While trying to figure out how to reach this poor animal, I began to notice other things.  He was eating, for one.  So, I thought he must not be in too much pain if he can still eat. Then I noticed that there was no blood around the entrance wound.  That was strange I thought. He should be bleeding profusely with that kind of wound. And then something happened.  The stick moved.  I jumped back and gasped.  

All of a sudden it dawned on me that this was no stick.  Then what was it? Oh, my God! I couldn’t say it out loud.  The shock of it all made me finally take notice of the rest of the world. While I was hinged to the fence staring at this poor animal, cars began to stop and wonder what was going on. People gathered to see what all the commotion was about.  I guess they knew what it was before I did.  When I turned to retreat to my car, they broke out in applause as if to congratulate me on finally figuring it out myself. I was mortified.  I drove home and never spoke of it to anyone.

I was so embarrassed that it took me several years and a couple of glasses of wine before I could share this story with anyone. Now that I’m much older…and somewhat wiser....and could care less what people think of me, it’s easier to tell and write about.  We've all shared many laughs over this story. I hope you enjoy it, too.