Re: RC: Trail Courtesy

[BMcCrary27@aol.com]

When I was a teenager, 'way back in the mid to late 1940's, I was riding my 
mare along what was then a two-lane state highway, but due to the much less 
traffic of those days it was more like a rural road. A driver in a pickup 
truck swerved so close to my mare that the handle of his off-side door struck 
my left stirrup (I was riding correctly on the right shoulder of the road) 
and flipped it right off my foot.  Kind of scary at the time, and I felt that 
it had been deliberate.  Nowadays, the same road has been widened to four 
lanes, is no longer a state highway, but has a jillion times more traffic 
than back then.  The traffic is also much faster.  Wouldn't take a horse 
there for all the tea in China.  It was really fun living near a small town 
and riding my mare down to fetch the mail, buy a few groceries, ride on the 
beach.  My home was near a small local airport.  To reach the beach, I had to 
cross it and also a railroad track.  I used to look carefully both ways to be 
sure there were no airplanes coming, then hotfoot it across the runway.  Then 
I was careful to be sure there was no train coming, or if there was, I would 
sit there and watch it go by and wave to the brakeman in the caboose (he was 
a neighbor of ours).  Then I rode down to the beach which was virtually 
isolated and unused, pulled off the saddle, left it unattended on the sand 
and swam my mare in the ocean (actually a bay, so it was protected from 
strong ocean currents and wind).  I would wear shorts and go barefoot, and I 
remember the rocking motion of the swimming mare and the fact that I was 
waist deep in the water.  Great memories of days gone by, no longer to return 
due to vastly increased population.

Barbara