Just found out today a friend from college died back in 1998. Got me to thinking about some of the fun we had when we were in college. Most people go to college, but I doubt they had as much fun as we did back then!
In a previous posting Honestly...She Never Bucks with Me I mentioned Dennis. Dennis was the kind of guy that would help you no matter what, so it made you want to help him. I have a lot of stories about Dennis, and most will never see print (as Johnny Cash said,"You don't tell everything"). The mare Dennis rode in that posting was a big strong bay mare, I think she was about 7 (barely green broke). We, of course, were young, tough buckaroos....never got bucked off, ect. After we rode all of those long yearlings, old school...snubbing them to a post, cinching them up and turning them loose. Those young horses really couldn't buck all that hard, which really gave us huge egos! By golly, there wasn't a horse that could buck us off after that. The first day we rode the bay mare, she did great saddling up...we really thought we were only going to be legging her up to turn the two of them into a stagecoach team. Ha! If we only knew! Headed out into the pasture and struck a long trot. Man, everything was going great! Dennis suggested we kick them up into a lope, my filly picked up a lope and was as smooth as glass (Contrary to what Guy might say, he spoke about her lineage - check the link above). I looked over and Dennis was grabbing leather, Ol' Bay had her head down and looked like she was trying our for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo! WOW, could she buck! Dennis never said a word, but he was grabbing at everything that went by trying to pull her head up. And of course, it was happening to someone else, so I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen! Well, I loped along beside the NFR qaulifing attempt for about a half a mile before Dennis got her head up. Curiously, he used the same language that Guy used a week or two later to describe the mare I was riding, looking back I didn't even know the two mares were related! I think the only reason she stopped bucking, besides being a little tired, was the fence that we came to! I really couldn't tell who was breathing harder and I give Dennis all the credit, he never suggested we trade (Like I would fall for that). After the first episode, Ol' Bay never bucked like that again...she did buck about every other time he rode her, just not like the first time. Needless to say neither of the mares ever made a stagecoach team. Hmmm....that might have something to do with the two hon-yocks that were riding them...nah, it was the horses. We ended up taking them to the sale and that is another story that involves a trade, a 58 Ford truck and a pair of spurs! Might have to tell that one sometime....
Dennis Weis 1967-1998 A good friend.
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