Right Job, Wrong Tool

Yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting at a red light, it occurred to me how often I make things harder than they have to be by trying to do the right job using the wrong tool. Butter knives as screwdrivers. Shoes as hammers. Not always with good results.

I don’t know what made me think of it - I hadn't done anything particularly stupid that day. 
It was at the corner of Maryland and Serene and I was idling along about midway between the beginning and the end of a long line of traffic waiting to make a right hand turn. There was road construction on Maryland but there wasn’t an arrow and I always forgot how long the line grew between greens. I had one foot on the brake the other on the clutch as I waited for the car ahead of me to inch forward because God forbid I not take advantage of four inches of progress. The cars behind me might self-combust with honking indignation.

Anyway, I was staring through the windshield thinking how I needed to wash my car but it was monsoon season so that would be a waste of time, and watching the clouds drift behind the tall steeple of the LDS church on the corner, when a guy on a crotch rocket got tired of waiting and cut across the parking lot. There wasn’t an outlet on the Maryland side of the church, but maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he was going to jump the curb. I didn’t know. It crossed my mind to follow him.

That’s when I thought about Cissy.

She was a blood bay. I always had a soft spot for bays. Crooked streak down her face, ending in the black velvet of her muzzle. Liquid eyes. Old timer snorted at her. Said you can't ride pretty. I knew that. But dang if she didn't make me want to try.

Backing up a bit, the first dozen years or so we lived on the ranch, we rode ranch horses. This stock was not a bunch of pets. Hell, they were barely horses. They did not approach to be petted. They barely stood the indignity of grooming and even that was a quick once over with the curry comb. They were work animals, nothing more than tools. I tried to love up on them at first but it only made them nervous and the men laugh, so I gave up. So there I was in 1983. And that’s how I learned to ride…on a beast that tolerated my presence only so far as my skill allowed. Get off balance a little bit? Any one of them would be glad to help you the rest of the way out of the saddle and then leave you there to walk home. Talk about an incentive program that worked.

And God forbid you take them out for anything less dignified than moving cattle. They were NOT (all caps, emphasis on the not) trail riding ponies - which was okay for a cattle ranch, really. Except they weren’t exceptionally cowy either. They were too long legged to squat, their necks tied in at an odd angle so they couldn’t really round their backs and most of them had clean throats but they were too hard headed to tuck their chin.  But seeing as how that’s all that was on the menu, we made the best of it for a dozen years or so.

Until Cissy. That little mare was about as pretty as a piece of apple pie. Only five, somewhere along the way she’d met already up with a bit of bad luck: her front right fetlock was circled with angry scars that looked a whole lot like the work of barbed wire. She was funky about standing tied. She’d do it, but it made her nervous. Men made her nervous, too. But women and children were welcome in her world which was fine with me because that’s why we bought her.

The first time I worked cattle on her, God, I remember like it was yesterday-we were in the pasture around the hill-a big old full section and a half with cuts and draws and old downed fencelines that shoulda been cleaned up a hundred years ago. It was rife with mesquite. Not little bushy stuff either-the tall as a tree version with branches big around as a man’s leg just aching to drag you out of the saddle and thorns like a ten penny nail. 

The cows in that pasture weren’t exactly social. Oh sure, they were friendly enough all winter when the feed wagon went honking, but come spring when the grass started greening they were done with the small talk. It was less like herding cattle and more like hunting.

I got sidetracked, sorry.

 Anyway we set out after this yella charolais with a big old white steer on her and she hightailed it into the mesquite. I’m not going to go all Louis L’Amour on you but it got really western for a while. When it was all said and done and the yella cow and calf were tucked back into the herd and my legs expanded in rhythm with  Cissy’s ribs, she snorted and gave a little jig and I slid my hand under her mane, resting it against the sweaty hide on her neck. She calmed back to a walk and all I could think was how different it was to ride a horse that worked with me and not against me. How much easier it was. How much more fun.

See, I didn’t know working cows could be fun. I thought it had to be all about getting yelled at and bucked off and then yelled at some more.

Damn. I wasted a lotta years riding knotheads.

Back to the corner of Maryland and Serene and the maverick on the crotch rocket – he was probably going to cut across the parking lot and then out a back road on the other side and then back on to Maryland on the other end of the construction. Not a bad idea, altogether. If I had been driving The Beast, maybe I’d a followed him… but in the little car? No. Right idea. Wrong tool.

I think maybe there’s a lesson in all of that. One that I need to apply to relationships. If I figure it out I’ll let you know. For now I’m just not going to take Serene.