Once upon a time there was a little girl from the city who loved horses. This girl came from a modest family that was not poor but not rich either. That meant that this little girl could only love them from afar. As it turned out however the girl's mother and older sister also loved horses, but that is for another story except for one part that we shall talk about later.

This little girl was very intelligent; she had lots of friends and loved to play outside. Lucky for her as the apartment that she lived in was small and any real playing had to be outside. She played most of the games children played like "kick the can" rope jumping and once again lucky for her she lived across the street from the school yard so there were always swings and monkey bars to play on.

How could you know of this love if it was in her mind? Well, if you knew where to look there were clues. At first these clues had to do with the type of toys she liked, yup you guessed it she always wanted a horse toy or two. Not that she was an odd girl. She fit in with her peers as at this time most girls had at least one Barbie doll. This brings us to the next clue. She never talked to her Barbie doll. She always talked to her horses.

As the girl who loved horses grew up she found an amazing place. The library. She would often go with her mother and later with her older brother to the library and guess what her favorite books were. You guessed it anything with a horse in it or on it. Now some of that was not by accident, you see her heritage brought her up with legends and myths that included animals like Billy Goats and Giant Bears.

you do not remember events very well. That was true for most of us but this little girl barely remembered moving from the city where she was born to Texas. I only say this to show you how lucky this little girl really was. She was only two and would be put out of her little house with her brother and sister to play in the big back yard. Being from the city the big back yard was very much fun except that this back yard was in a very new housing development north of Houston. In those days there was not much between Houston and Natchitoches except the big thicket. Do you want to know what one of the citizens of the big thicket that belonged there was, not a little girl but cotton mouth water moccasins.

The parents of the girl who loved horses were not stupid just uneducated. When you live in the suburbs you get your children a dog. This one was named jet. Jet was a Texas dog and was born hating snakes especially big ones. The other part of this story is this little girl was very active and with a yard that was an acre her parents put her in a halter and tied her to a tree. The girl did not mind this as for the most part her brother and sister and their friend played close by. Well on that fateful day her parents heard jet barking and snapping and could not get him to keep quite so went to investigate. There was the girl playing and two feet away was an eight foot cotton mouth water moccasin headed right toward her. Jet was in between. A lot of things happened very fast that resulted in the little girl being safe and the farmer next door having another trophy and jet getting to be treated to a wiener at the next family wiener roast in the back yard. Until then I did not know that Texas dogs could grin.

Glendale to be specific. She of course was much to young to have noticed the tense conversations between the mom from the city and the dad from the city that up until then did not know what water moccasins even were.

Upon moving to Glendale this young family discovered a park near by (when you move from Texas everything becomes nearby) There was a park near Mulholland drive. In this park at this time there were pony rides. This was not some sissy tired old pony on a chain going in a circle. This was an amazing ride. You see the children wore a special belt that stuck them in the saddle and when the pony man got done he would wack the pony on the rear and they would run around the pony yard as fast as they could. The little girl remembered this time in her heart and began her love of horses. The older brother remembered the look of joy on her face and the fact that her sister's pigtails stood out straight from her head.

Here is an example of what the girl grown up draws today.

Oh yes there is much more to this story even a wedding