We have a couple of saddle bronc mares on our place, each with a colt on
their side. We also have a nice QH mare with a really NICE filly on the ground. They’re all getting old enough to begin to be independent of momma and start playing more with
each other. It’s very entertaining to watch.
The colt bred to buck has a real “attitude” going on…..go figure.
His name is Bubba. It totally fits him. Bubba is huge, thick necked, heavy
boned and finally starting to catch up to his head size.
The QH filly’s well balanced, muscular frame testifies of a well bred pedigree.
Neither colt has any awareness of their differences. In this field…they are
equals. They play well together, neither one allowing the other to get one
up on them. They have absolutely NO IDEA that each is in a totally different
class of horse from the other, kinda like the “princess and the red neck”…
the red neck being of course…Bubba.
You know, the day could easily come when the “princess” enters a
rodeo arena carrying a roper or someone of a more feminine gender and passes
by the pens holding bucking stock and what do ya know….there’s Bubba!
Will she nicker at her old childhood playmate or pretend she doesn’t know
him because now she’s learned a behavioral dysfunction we humans have
embraced called “status”?
I grew up in the Ozarks of Missouri where most of my friends didn’t have
running water the whole time they were growing up. My parents were
particular of who we were allowed to hang around, but money or lack thereof
was not a considering factor. So I grew up bumming around with friends that
lived in what would be considered real dumps and I never thought a thing about
it. I remember our first year out on the pro rodeo circuit, we were driving
a 64 Chevy pickup with a camper on top that leaked like a sieve and was
held together with duck tape. You know the campers that have to have an
aired up inner tube stuck under the part that goes over the cab just to hold it
together? That was us. I distinctly remember being at one of the winter
rodeos somewhere in
the bull riding that evening and we were parked amongst all the aluminum horse
trailers just resting and keeping pots and pans under all the leaks. Two guys
were under the awning of the trailer next to us talking and one asked the other,
“I wonder what those poor folks are doing”? I remember it literally took me a
while to figure out they were talking about us! I actually didn’t recognize the
fact that we looked as bad off as we did. We got a laugh out of it because
we didn’t consider ourselves poor. Looking back I realize we looked like the
Beverly Hillbillies come to town!
I am so thankful for all the fine folk I’ve lived amongst and even for the hard
times I’ve gone through because I am comfortable either way…in a nice house
or a “less than nice” house. I sure like having nice things but I don’t have to
have them to be “somebody”. Status…it’s a great thing to attain as long as
we recognize the fact that we’re just like those colts, we’re playing outside
God’s window while He’s watching. Some of us are well bred and some
of us are broncs. There’s some “nobility” in God’s field and there’s also some
“Bubbas” and God is more interested in how we interact and treat one another
despite our “status”…or lack there of.