Funny Things from Yesterday: Trying to catch a donkey

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Robert N. Tidwell, Sr.

Things have changed a lot since I was a young boy.  Nowadays, children have many games and toys for entertainment: video games, VCRs and now cell phones also occupy a lot of time.

Back when my brother Dale and I were youngsters, we had to create our own entertainment. After we moved to town, however, we had several boys close by, so we did have playmates. Having a big crowd around always made things more fun. There were four or five boys between the age of 10 to 13 who lived near us in the South Park area. Most of you know how much mischief this many boys, in this age group, can get into, and we were always looking for something to do.

There was a large pasture close to where we lived, and the man who owned this pasture had several donkeys in it. As boys can think sometimes, we thought we could ride those little donkeys if we caught them.

So, we set about to herd them up. Now, wild, unbroken to ride, donkeys don’t herd up too well. So our next move was to chase one down and ride it. We all chased several different ones without much success. Finally, my brother Dale caught a little jenny by the tail. He hollered for the rest of us to come and help him.

Many of you may know what came next. You guessed it—that little jenny donkey perfectly placed both hind hoofs right smack dab in the middle of Dale’s stomach. Needless to say, we didn’t get to ride that little jenny that day.

It seems that Dale, right then and there, developed an aversion to getting behind a donkey, mule, horse, cow or any animal with hooves and four feet on the ground.

From there, we boys went on to other adventures.

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