CATEGORY: LATE CHILDHOOD
PHOTO: TWO HORSES THAT LOOK LIKE DIXIE AND JOKER

The summer after our school year in Camp Sherman, one of our Camp Sherman school mates visited us for a week in Grass Valley.  Her name was Lou Hendricks, and she was the same age as I was: twelve.
 

It was in August and the county fair was going on in Moro, ten miles away.  Actually it was eleven miles since the fair grounds were up on the east hill a mile beyond Moro.  I somehow imagined, without asking, that Lou would love to do the same things I found exciting, so I concocted a scheme for us to ride horses to the fair as a special treat for her.  I arranged to borrow a horse from a neighbor who owned a ranch adjoining ours.  His name was Eben Key.  He had a white horse that was almost a twin to our horse, Dixie.  The fact that the horses matched made it all seem doubly mind blowing to me.  When I announced this to Lou, she was pleasantly agreeable, although not actually jumping for joy as I had expected.  She had never ridden a horse before this visit, but I had already broken her in with a ride out in the pasture.

As we rode along, Lou became quieter and quieter.  When we got to our destination I thought she looked a little pale.  She was also not walking very well.  I wondered if she was coming down with the flu.  I knew she must be hungry and thirsty, but after I had fed and watered her, she still did not seem to enjoy walking around to see all the animals and the exhibits.  This, even though I had entered cookies and won a white ribbon, which was third place in my category. 

We met some people I knew from Grass Valley.  I excitedly told them that we had come to the fair on horseback!  They looked at me.  They looked at Lou.  They offered her a ride home with them in their car.  I was a little put down when she eagerly accepted.  I rode back home by myself leading Mr. Key’s horse. 

It was years later, when I had occasion to go horseback riding after having not ridden for a long time that I realized what an ordeal I had put her through.  When I hear the expression “blind-sided,” I think of Lou, and that she is one person living who knows what that really means.