The nighttime in summer is just about my favorite time to sit on my porch, listening to the insects and birds, watching the stars appear and seeing fireflies flicker across the yard.
For years I drove home many a night from a horse show in the dark, and I don’t think I was ever afraid during those long weary trips. Well, maybe a little nervous sometimes when the gas gauge was dipping a little too close to empty. There was one midnight drive from Columbia when I forgot to stop for gas until I was past all the open stations, and I decided to chance it. After all, I had a means of transportation in the trailer behind me, if worst came to worst. Let’s just say things got a little tense about the time I passed the Shady Grove store. I had certain touchstones on those trips – Bratton Lane, the long hill at Edgewood, the Swan Creek bridge (where some friends and I had a flat tire one night coming home from a horse show), and the hill where Swan Creek Road intersects. I always breathed a sigh of relief when I topped that little rise and started down the hill to the radio station, knowing I was almost home.
Horse shows at night have a special feel to them. The lights make the show ring special and even the voice of the announcer and the music has a different sound at night. Then there are the late night, sometimes very late, stops for a meal with horse show friends, while the horses rest and munch hay in the trailer. Some of the most hilarious moments of my life have been spent at 2:00 in the morning at IHOP or Steak and Shake or Cracker Barrel, around two tables pushed together while we eat and remember and observe other customers. You see some strange people at that time in those places, and I suppose we were among the strange sights – dirty, sweaty, punch drunk from excitement and weariness. I can just hear them in their car after their meal. “Did you see those folks over there laughing and acting all weird?” Things are just funnier at 2:00 in the morning.
I was reminded of horse show trips a few weeks ago when I traveled to Shelbyville to do a story about a horse event there. I left the house in the cool or the early morning, not at sunrise, but near enough to bring back memories of other trips that began at sunrise and sometimes ended well after sunset. The biggest difference was that I was not pulling a horse trailer behind my truck and I didn’t have to pack up half my belongings the night before.
I have no idea how many horse shows I traveled to in those thirty years, and I have to say that writing the words “thirty years” startles me considerably. In fact, I had to stop and count up the years again to be sure that was right. But then I remembered that Bullet is 30 years old this year and I was already showing several years before he was born.
I would leave for those shows with a flutter in my stomach, from excitement, optimism and a little nerves. Usually, about halfway there, I would remember something I forgot. No matter how much stuff you pack, there is always something you forgot. Some times were better than others; sometimes I started home with good ribbons and greater memories; sometimes I started home disappointed, frustrated and disheartened. Sometimes I was just plain old mad. But the odd thing was that always, usually about halfway home, I would start to plan what to do before the next time. I would think about how I could improve our performance, how I could train or ride better, and usually I would realize that everything that went wrong was usually my fault. The darkness gave me a focus – after all, there was nothing else to do except think and plan, and who can stay down when you’ve spent the day on horseback?
It’s been a while since I traveled from horse shows in the dark. But I still like the dark. The other night I was in the swing, just at dusk, listening to the birds celebrate the end of another day, when, suddenly, everything stopped. The birdsong trailed off, the frogs fell silent, even the insects stopped their noise. I have never heard a silence so complete. No cows lowing, no traffic on the nearby roads – just absolute total quiet. It was eerie, like those horror movies where the woods fall silent when the monster is about to appear. I glanced at the dogs, sprawled in various places on the porch. They slept on, dreaming whatever dogs dream on a summer evening.
The wind held its breath. Then the dark came. I don’t know if there was no moon or if the moon was simply invisible behind the clouds, but it was DARK.
I have no recollection of what I was thinking about, there in the swing with just the dogs for company. I don’t think I was planning or doing any heavy thinking. Maybe it’s the closest I ever come to meditating. I lost track of time, there in the soothing darkness, because when I finally made my way inside, I realized it was almost bedtime and I had never thought to eat supper.
Loved that
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