Ontario Vacation

2012 Ontario Vacation

I'm reconnecting with my childhood memories and my childlike mind as we drive around Southern Ontario.  As I note the stone farmhouses and the dying cornfields I think about my family's Sunday drives where my sister and brother and I would sing out "hup hester,hup hester i lange lasser" (translated, ponies, ponies, in long streams - kinda loses something in the translation, I know).  We were crazy about horses and longed to ride on one.  My father was good at explaining the reasons why we couldn't have things and while you nodded your head in agreement acknowledging the good sense of it all inside you'd be saying "but I still want it".  Many years later my brother John told us the story of his horse.

                His horse?

                Often John would go with Dad to work on Saturdays to keep him company and at this time Dad was running his own canning company in Toronto.  It was a long drive from Burlington and often there would be traffic jams, even on a Saturday.  John was maybe 7 or 8 at the time when this particular story happened.  John has questioned him once again about why we couldn't have a horse and I guess Dad must have seen how serious and longing he looked.  So he began this father talk differently.

                "Well, Ole, I did buy a horse for you." and he paused as John looked up at him expectantly "but these days there aren't very many horses around" another pause as they moved forward a bit in the traffic "see that horse just there" and he pointed down to a traffic cop on a horse "well, I had to lend the horse to the police because there just wasn't enough to go around". John looked at the horse and felt very impressed that his horse was being ridden by a policeman.

                When John told the story we laughed, it was just like Dad to tell a story like that - and it was just like us to totally believe him.  I look out the window and point to the horses "hup hester"