Ye-Haw and Jesus On Saturday
Posted by: Liz | From: May 13, 2003
Ye-Haw and JesusOn Saturday I had my Big Brother Big Sister field trip to ride horses. Or at least that’s how it was billed to me: riding horses. The reality was more of a general stroll around a stable in Queens by a black cowboy named Vern. The place was run by the Federation of Black Cowboys, an organization I never dreamed existed, and boasted an impressive 40 horses. They even had this guy who worked a whip and did some tricks showcasing his tremendous whipping skills, which boiled down to making a loud crack with the whip and making a REALLY loud crack with the whip. Everything was going along just fine until another cowboy, inspired by the whipping, launched into an unprovoked sermon on child rearing. “The Lord said, ‘Don’t spare the rod to save the child’ and I raised my children with the guidance of God. I got my children so all’s they had to do was look at me and they knew to behave. The Lord tells us right out how to raise our children, and then here comes some psychologist only twenty years ago, telling us all of a sudden this is child abuse. Boy, I tell you, what world did this guy ever create? None, that’s what.” It went sort of alarmingly down hill from there as he digressed into some tirade about Bill Gates having billions of dollars but ending up in the earth all the same like the rest of us. The kids were all quiet, not knowing exactly what to make to the impromptu sermon. I think they preferred the whip tricks. I rode a horse named Smokey up and down the road and tried unsuccessfully to get my little sister onto a horse. She was terrified and refused to get near the animals. She almost got on at one point, but the horse decided that would be an appropriate time to give a little kick backwards and that scared her right out of her timid willingness. She at Cheetos and watched the others.
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