Mr. Mahan! Mr. Mahan!

Learning The Ropes

64 Dodge Dart with Push Button Transmission
The one is kinda painted, Jourdan's
lacked a little in that.

Michael Jourdan was a high school friend of mine.  He stood about 5'6" tall, probably weighed about 145 pounds soaking wet, drove a 64 Dodge Dart, that was a faded blue color car with push-button transmission (it really had push buttons) and seemingly had the world by the tail. Empty Skoal cans lined the dash of that beast, silver aluminum lids on those cans, from window to window.   It is important to note that I myself stood about 6'4" and could put two Mike's in my pockets, and the kid would have a heckuva time finding his way out of things.

R.L. Quinton, Michael Jourdan, Carrie Minor, Randy Jansen
 Charlene Holden, Ralph Peck, Mary Winn, Sam Willis, Terri Hayes,
Cindy Shea, Larry Snyder and Dennis Pannell.

Mike was a "cowboy" as were the rest of us...Randy Jansen, Charlene Holden, Mary Winn, Terry Hayes, Sam Willis, Steve Keaton, Bobby Evans, Cindy Shea, all of whom lived in town, in fact on really nice roads, in pretty good houses, but alas, we were there to be the rednecks of the world, and who better to do it all.

Quite a Bit Older Now

Larry Mahan (May'-Han) was THE cowboy of the day.  Being fifteen years our senior and just seven years younger than our mothers, made Larry, the King of the Day.  He and Phil Line made a movie called The Great American Cowboy that won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1973 which was about the time I became a sophomore and Michael moved to town and was a junior.  We all managed to see that movie two or three times, and this was in the days before video tape, before cd's and such, so we managed to find it playing at a movie theater and took it in there.

Ralph Peck, Cindy Shea,
Karrie Minor and Same Willis
at the Dewey Fairgrounds

Mr. Floyd Jack had some property he had gotten on Tuxedo, just south of Madison Avenue.  He taught school at Col-Hi, mostly in my memory it was with Mr. Fee and was drivers ed.  He had some kids as well, because my brother took his daughter out once, I vaguely remember.  You have got to remember the day, because it was about 10 acres (not a house in site) and once you took Tuxedo across Washington Boulevard and went a few blocks, there was nothing there but farm land.

In fact, just an interesting little foot note:  There was hay hauling that went on through Bobby Evans step father, in an old blue 1951, 1-ton truck with a flatbed, and pop-up hay loader.  If you had it set right, you could haul away with two of you on that truck and no one in the driver seat.  The steering was so stiff it just wouldn't get off to the right or left.  The place we hauled hay from now has apartments, businesses, storage places, the whole bit.  We thought we were out in the country.

Paint

Anyway, back to Mr. Jack's place.  Mike had two horses, a paint and a palomino, that Mr. Jack made him a deal...if Mike would clean his barn (of fifty years of horse leavings) then Mike could keep the horses there and have a place to ride.  So being the ever present salesman that Mike was, he talked a friend (me) into it, and before long, Mike and I were cleaning out that barn with sharp shooters, and regular shovels.  The height of the roof was like six feet off the ground, because three feet had been built up over the years.  So we shoveled, and cleaned and shoveled, and shoveled and made the barn area be closer to nine feet in the four stalls, and left a pile of manure stacked up outside the building, which later went on a few teachers gardens.

Mr. Ed
(He was a palomino)

Mike and I had shoveled ourselves silly.  In about a weeks time we had managed to make that barn area livable again, and we had brought the saddles out and were ready to ride.  After getting both horses saddled up, we had loose reins (meaning the reins were separated, with just one to each side) Mike climbed aboard the palomino and I got on the paint.  We rode around the land inside there for a while, then Mike opened the gate and we ended up taking a dirt road about two miles out in the country.  (Again, this dirt road is now paved with houses on both sides)

This was all great and we had a big time, and Mike sped his horse up, which meant mine was trying to speed up and take in all that countryside.  We finally made it back and around and down to the 'farm', and Mike loosened up the wire at the top of the gate and we rode back in, feeling all big and cool.

Not me but it had to look the same.

That was when, (I have no idea why and it takes longer to read it than it actually took to happen) I leaned back in the saddle, threw one arm back, took my cowboy hat in that hand, whipped the reins up like a saddles bronc rider (when the left rein disappeared from my hand) and I hollered out "Ladies and Gentleman, World Champion Saddle Bronc Rider, Mr. Larry Mahan" and I said something like 'woo hoo,' sort of in a loud, cracking sound, and that's when that paint horse decided that he had had enough of me, my weight, my riding him and and before I could rescue that one rein, he was bucking across the field....head down, my right hand pulling the right rein, his head turning, his back legs catching and kicking air, his two front feet staying together, whamming into the ground.  It's funny what you remember in moments like that.  The grass seemed so green, just a vibrant color, the big pond surrounded by rock seemed to lay there looking at all this hubbub that was going on, my feet were managing to stay in the stirrups, and most of all I remember thinking it was awful weird to have ones heart beating up in ones throat.

That horse managed to take about four hops, when there came up on us, the barbed wire fence that separated the south pasture from the north pasture, it was an 'oh gosh" kind of second, and that horses front legs hit the ground, my mind was telling me that we were going to go over that fence together, I dropped a bunch of slack into the rein, causing him to turn his head sharply to the left, and about that time his backside came high up off the ground, and somehow or another, that horse managed to turn his head, causing his body to snap to the left, causing my body to snap to the right, and before I knew it, I was on the rocks and the ground, face down, and that horse had just managed to turn his body and ditch me over that fence.  I shook my head, trying to figure out where and who I was.

How I Thought The Horse Looked

That is when I heard Mike calling from the other side of the fence, running and being all excited, "Mr. Mahan, Mr. Mahan...are you alright???  The laughter was causing tears to come down Mike's face, my own face was in a state of shock, and the paint horse was walking to the barn, both reins beneath its legs.