Coming off our Fourth of July holiday weekend, I couldn’t help but reminisce about Independence Day’s celebrations of years gone by. I was just two days old when my family celebrated my very first July Fourth in 1949. Needless to say, I have no recollection of that one. Since then, time has flown by and this year’s event marked the (gulp) 75th year I’ve spent under skies full of July Fourth fireworks. But the most memorable July Fourth of my life took place some seventy years ago, and I’m lucky I’ve lived to tell about it.
That’s because my first time on horseback that day very well could have been my last – my last moments living and breathing on planet earth, that is. If memory serves, I was just five years old at the time, or maybe six. My family had convened at my Great Aunt Alda's home on Folsom Avenue in Folsom, PA, in Delaware County. There we would commemorate the Fourth of July at a picnic celebration held on her family's modest acreage. At that time, the mid 1950s, Folsom was rural enough to permit horses being stabled on the property where Aunt Alda, along with my Uncle Marty and cousins Joan, Jeanie, Judith Ann, and Janice, kept a pair of steeds – a docile little pony named Rusty and a temperamental young gelding named Duke - in their fenced, half-acre corral.
The most anticipated source of entertainment that day, of course, was the distant fireworks display we could all view from the backyard cheap seats if we cast our eyes toward Philadelphia after darkness fell. But equally intriguing was the opportunity to hop aboard one of the two mounts, both saddled and ready for the occasion, and take a test drive around the corral. I patiently awaited my turn to ride the meek little pony being led around the corral with another child aboard and quite a few other children queued up ahead of me for their chance at equestrian glory.
But when the fiery Duke became available for his next customers - a young man and woman - they thoughtfully invited me to join them for a ride. In theory it seemed like a great idea, but, in reality, it was a recipe for disaster. The young man hoisted me onto the western-style saddle where I immediately latched onto the ample saddle horn. He then climbed into the saddle behind me, took the reins with one hand, and lifted his young lady onto horseback where she took a seat directly behind him, her arms lashed around his waist.
With the three of us wedged into the crowded saddle, the man nudged his heels into Duke's flanks and directed him out into the corral. We hadn't gone more than a few yards when Duke, not pleased with the burden he had been asked to bear, threw a major horsey hissy fit, bucking and rearing with all his might. Both the young man and woman were instantaneously catapulted into the air and onto the ground, leaving me stranded alone and unchaperoned aboard the galloping gelding, my white-knuckled little hands clinging for dear life to the saddle horn.
In memory, the rest of my ill-fated ride unfolded in slow motion as Kid Stomper, er, I mean Duke, continued to buck and kick. One of those kicks from a hind leg caught the scrambling woman square in the buttocks and sent her flying. On the other side of the spilt-rail fence, spectators, my parents among them, watched aghast in gape-jawed horror as the potentially life and death drama played out. Even at the tender age of 5 (or maybe it was 6) I was fully aware of the jeopardy of my plight and I knew I didn't want to suffer the same fate as the woman. If I could help it, I wasn't about to let this stampeding horse literally kick my ass, or even worse.
I guess I was too young and naive to panic, and even today, in my gauzy, dreamlike memory, I can recall calmly considering my dismounting options as my belligerent bronco's bucking subsided and I stuck to the saddle like white on rice.
“When we get close to the fence again,” I calculated, “I'll just flip my leg over the saddle horn, let go, slide down the horse's side, and promptly roll under the bottom fence rail to safety.” Incredibly, to everyone's relief, especially my own, that's exactly what I did. My death-defying instinct for self-preservation served me well as I escaped unscathed and tragedy was averted. The entire hair-raising rodeo ride had lasted less than a minute, but for me and my anxious parents, my time aboard the fire-breathing Duke seemed to go on forever.
I remember entering my aunt's house a little later, and there, in the laundry room, I stumbled upon the young woman who had been kicked. Another woman was examining the consequences of the impact of Duke's rear hoof. The injured woman stood there, her back to me and her pants rolled down to mid-thigh, her head turned as she strained to glimpse the equine damage she had endured. I stared just long enough to observe the dark, distinctly horseshoe-shaped bruise on the left cheek of her naked rear end. Then, realizing the impropriety of my presence on the scene, I discreetly backed away out the door. Her young man, on the other hand, had suffered no more than a bruised ego.
Decades later, looking back on the surreal events of that afternoon, I recounted my version of the episode to my Aunt Alda and asked her about the accuracy of my recollections. She assured me that my wild ride had indeed happened pretty much the way I remembered it. It was the Fourth of July, 1954 or '55, but thanks to a headstrong horse named Duke, the real fireworks came early that day.
Tom Tatum is the outdoors columnist for the readingnews.us. You can reach him at tatumt2@yahoo.com.