When We First Met (Scooter Stories)

Journal Article 14, 01/28/10

My mother and I were heading to the Westside YMCA.  Melvin, the rugged looking reject from the Wild West days was meeting us there.  He supplied the horses for the trail rides at the YMCA.  He was a horse trader by profession, and the man whom we always bought our horses from because he gave us good deals and good, dependable, riding horses. 

Mom had been telling me about this one horse that Melvin had shown her and she was very excited about him.  She kept bragging about how good of a horse he was, and if he rode half as good, he would make an awesome horse. 

Upon arriving at the YMCA, my mother led me down a dirt path that went behind the building, and which eventually led to a corral were several horses were milling about.  I quickly scanned the horses and picked out a tall, beautiful, chestnut with perfect confirmation.  I stated to my mother, there's a beauty right there.  She said yes, but that's not the one we are looking at, it's that one over there she said with a smile on her face as she pointed. 

I followed my mother's finger towards where she was pointing.  The first words out of my mouth were "you have got to be kidding me".  "Tell me you are not talking about the paint" I asked her.  Yes, my mother stated proudly with the smile still plastered on her face.  I looked back at the horse in question and thought to myself, that has got to be the ugliest horse I have ever seen (nor have I ever seen even to this very day). 

He was not a very tall horse and he had an even shorter, compact body; he had big knocked knees, and even bigger feet.  His mane was so unruly that it stood straight up from his neck like a Mohawk, or like maybe he had stuck his tongue in a light socket.  One of his eyes was blue, and the other was brown.  The "spots" on his body that supposedly designated him to be a paint horse, could not seem to make up their mind on what color they wanted to be.  Other than the fact they were faded out, some were brown, some was almost a maroon looking color, and some were almost like a charcoal.

The icing on the cake was his face.  From the top of his head to the end of his nose, his face bowed out and reminded me distinctly of a banana.  The name "banana nose" zipped into my mind. 

"Mom, that is one ugly horse, are you sure about this?"  Yes she replied.  She then spoke again and said "he looks like a mustang, he's not ugly, he has character".  "Character" I said.  I looked at my mother again and saw her still standing there with that silly smile on her face staring at this ugly horse.  I knew she was already hooked, but by what, I clearly could not see.  I looked back at "banana nose" and said he's definitely got something all right, not sure if I would call it character.

That's how Scooter came to be part of our family, and through the years by his various antics and mishaps, he showed me what my mother was talking about and proved to me that he really did have "character".