Horseshow Time

As long as I live, late August into September will be forever carved into my mind as horse show time. I grew up going to the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration and the Racking Horse Celebration every year from the time I was born. It takes me back to sparkling chrome horse trailers, the smell of fresh hay and sawdust, saddle soap and fried food, thousands of horses and people... glory days.

My school notebooks were full of horse drawings and my brain was fixed on daydreams of myself riding around the big ring on my horse with a blue ribbon and cheering fans. Since I've become an adult, I have missed the Celebration just a few times, but even when I'm not there, these memories are so powerful that I'm sure if I never went back, it would still be a benchmark on my brain's emotional calendar.

The anticipation of seeing friends, the competition, the late night barn parties, and the occasional behind the barn mischief was something like mainlining adrenaline to my ten year old brain. So much of who I am now was being formed in those dusty alleys between barns and in the prints of horse's hooves.

I immediately think of my Mamaw Nita Ann and Papaw Harold. Their preparations began months in advance. They always had their big brown and white Pace Arrow motor home stuffed to overflowing with food, show duds, bill caps advertising the names of horses and stables, jackets embroidered in our stable's colors and our names on the front, -all necessary items for a proper Celebration, and that's really only the beginning. Even the golf cart had to be loaded up on the back of a pick-up truck, usually without any of us suffering serious injury, but not always.



Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I'm just thinking about how much those times mean to me right now. And whatever effort went into making them seems trivial when compared to the treasure chest of memories I have today. Yea, we were all utterly exhausted when it was all over, but I would not change a single thing. Maybe the stress of it all contributed to my Mamaw's current failing health and Papaw's heart attack and five hip replacements. But if I could ask my Papaw in heaven right now if it was worth all that effort, I am sure I know exactly what he would say.

"Hell yea boy! Them were some of the best times of our life."