Before we were married in 1968, my wife & I dated for two years. Often it involved me going with her to her parent’s home for dinner. Back then, their property was sufficiently north of the city of Tallahassee to include room for horses and there was unattended acreage nearby for riding.

She was a horse person; I was strictly a city boy. But for the free meal, I was willing to try my luck on the back of one of the beasts. I did so well, in fact, the first couple of outings, she allowed me to graduate to one of the more spirited horses. This turned out to be premature.

Everything went okay until we got to open pasture, at which point my horse decided to open the throttle. At that point, I had absolutely no control. Before long, I think my mind went blank with panic. My glasses fell off; my feet came out of the stirrups; I lost the reins. I held onto his mane for dear life, which probably pissed him off even further. Lacking glasses, myopic as I was, it all was a blur.

Then he galloped into a wooded area. My final thought before total terror set in was… does he know enough not to run into a tree???

Eventually he came back out into pasture and slowed to a stop. My body somehow managed to transfer itself from atop the horse to upon the ground. As my pulse slowed and my brain kicked back into gear, I could only hear one sound: my wife laughing. She thought the whole thing was hysterical.

Switch to several months later. She and I are in a movie theater watching a Brando film, “Reflections on a Golden Eye.” There is a scene mid-flick where he is on a horse which takes off running through some woods. The suspense is thick, the audience hushed… except for the two of us. We’re laughing uncontrollably.