Magic Barn: Hiyo Silver, No Way

I am so old I can remember when no one had a TV and when we first got one. TVs were small and the shows were in black and white and they were just as stupid then as they are now.

One show was the Lone Ranger, who was a cowboy in stretchy pants and a mask with an Indian buddy named Tonto. Tonto called the Lone Ranger “Kimosabe,” which I thought was probably Apache for “Nincompoop.” But I liked the music at the beginning and his handsome white horse, Silver. Silver would rear up on his hind legs and the Lone Ranger would say, “Hiyo Silver! Away!”

Back then I had a Welsh pony named Silver and she, too, was white. Unlike mean, ugly Dan Patch, Silver was a gentle, fat, ladylike sort of pony who only had two speeds: walk and all-right-I’ll-walk-a-little-faster. What I didn’t know about her was that Silver knew a trick.

When you want a horse to back up, you pull back on the reins while they are standing still. That’s what most horses are trained to do. Not Silver. She had been trained to do the Lone Ranger thing, which was to rear up on her hind legs. I found this out the first time I tried to get her to back up.

Since I had no saddle, when Silver reared, I slid right down her chubby back and right off her chubby booty and landed in a heap on the ground.

As I sat on the ground, wondering what had just happened, my brothers were laughing. “Hiyo Silver, No Way,” they kept saying and laughing some more.

Sometimes my brothers were such Kimosabes.