My parents were into rodeo in a big way when my brothers and sisters were young. My brother Bobby was a bull rider and his girlfriend was a barrel racer. She made a dress for me once, out of the same material that she wore when she rode. I wanted to be like her, so my first ambition was to ride horses in the rodeo.
We had to move to town when I was about six so my folks could take care of my grandmother, but we kept my horse (Peppy) and I continued to ride sometimes whenever I could talk someone into taking me out there and waiting around for me. It wasn't very often, especially after my dad died.
I was about 14 when my mom and my sister Alice and her kids all went out to the farm together. My boyfriend lived out there too, his name was Mike. He was nowhere around so I just saddled up Peppy and rode around the pasture for a while. At dusk we headed back up the gravel road toward the stables. My favorite thing to do at that time of evening was to gallop along the road in the quiet of the country, so I worked her up into a trot. That's the last thing I remember clearly. I don't know what happened, I don't remember getting thrown off, but the next thing I remember (vaguely) is walking along that country road in pain and seeing Peppy running far and fast up ahead away from me.
I was scraped bloody from chin to eyebrow on one side with bits of gravel embedded in my skin, so I know my face must have interacted quite harshly with the road. By the time our neighbor Mr. B drove by in his pick-up truck, I was starting to be hysterical. I kept saying "I don't know! I don't know where I'm going! I don't know what happened!"
He took me back down to our farmhouse where Mom and Alice were waiting for me. I don't remember much of that. Next thing, I remember being in the car and still freaking out. I kept saying, "Mom, I don't know! I don't know what happened! What happened?" I kept asking her what happened over and over again, until it started to freak her out too, and she said "I guess you got thrown off the horse! Shut up!"
I don't remember much about the hospital. Next thing I remember is being at home later talking to Mike on the phone. He must have been there at the house when Mr. B brought me back because he said, "You seemed alright. You were calm, just standing there." I kept asking him, "Is today Tuesday?" Funny, that's a very clear memory, asking over and over, "Is today Tuesday?" I don't recall now whether it was actually Tuesday or not.
The doctors at the hospital must have advised my mom to wake me up several times in the night to make sure I wasn't dead or in a coma or something because she came in more than once with a flashlight and shined it in my face. She asked me goofy questions like, "What school do you go to?" and "What's your middle name?"
And that's my traumatic horseback/amnesia story. I did try to ride a couple times after that, but I'll admit I was freaked out. Plus, I was way more into boys than horses at that point.
Speaking of boys, one of them took me to the county fair the next year, when I was 15. He was a goober and I didn't want to go but my mom made me. She liked him a lot. Since my friends were going to be there, I let him take me.
You know that ride with the big wheel that spins round and round, and hanging down from it are these long chains with seats attached? You sit in the seat and it spins you round and round up in the air. Really fast and really high.
Well usually, there's a little chain that you fasten up between your legs but this ride had only the chain that fastened across in front.
My friend Anita and I were messing around, leaning over to try and push against each other while the ride was in full swing. I was leaning waaay over, trying to grab her hand...when I came forward out of the chair. The "cross the front" chain caught me up under my tits and held me for a second as the chair slid up my back behind me. Anita started screaming at the ride operator dude to stop the ride, but he was chatting up some women and paying no attention. She yelled at me, "Hold on!" Instinctively, I tried to find something to grab with my hands but the only place to reach was up above my head. I grabbed the chains above me and tried to pull myself up, but you can imagine the G-force opposing me as I'm swinging around in a full horizontal arc. In fact, when I reached up to grab the chain, I slenderized myself to the point that I slipped right past the "cross the front" chain and flew through the air with the greatest of ease.
Yes, reader, I was a projectile. I clearly remember that moment--the adrenalin, the noises, the sight of the carnival lights against the black sky, and I clearly saw the grill of the carnival truck as I fast approached it, feet first.
I made contact in the fender area, right around the front tire.
Again, acting purely on instinct, I jumped up and took several steps before I realized my leg was broken. I stood there trying to decide whether to sit back down in the dirt or continue trying to walk over toward something I could sit down on. In a minute or two, Anita and my goober boy hero came running up and helped me over to the side. The ride operator came up and said, "You kids can't play around on these rides like that!"
In those days, the trend was tight tight jeans. I usually had to lie down to get mine zipped up. Yuck, I know, but we thought we were the shit back then. I had on my favorite pair of painted-on Sergio Valente jeans. When I stood up to head back to Goober's car, Anita said, "Oh my god, your jeans are ripped."
I felt my backside and discovered what an understatement she'd just uttered. My jeans were more than ripped, the whole ass was shredded right out of them and I was offering my sweet cheeks up for the whole world to see. Apparently, though they may look very hot, tight Valente jeans are not terribly durable when you smash them up against heavy machinery at high speeds.
Well Goober drove me home and carried me from the car into the house. It was the first time I was ever carried by a man. I discovered I kind of liked it. It's a shame I'm not petite, then I might have been carried more often since then.
And then I got to wear a cast for a while, and that was pretty cool. Especially since it got me out of 7am marching band practice.
So that's my traumatic carnival ride story. To this day, I'm not a fan of roller coasters or other whippity fast, fling-my-body-around-through-the-air kind of rides.
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