How I spent my Sunday (a shaggy dog tale)
18 years ago, a cowboy friend came into our lives.
We had bought a quarter horse, named billy (Red's Billy Bar to be exact).
We didn't have a horse trailer, so we went to a neighbor, and he agreed to go with us, use his trailer, and load Billy.
Billy was being sold because he was spooky and not rideable by his (then) owner.
Our daughter was 12, and her horse, an Arab named Amir, had died six months earlier. It was time to get a new horse with whom she could bond.
Our cowboy, an Indian named John (feather not dot) loaded Billy easily. We took Billy home. The next day our daughter had a lesson at the stables she hung out at. Billy was a real pill. The instructors all agreed that he was too much horse for her, and that she should get her money back.
We told John about this. He said he'd talk to Billy. He took Billy to the beach and ran his ass off. Billy's head was drooping. The next day our daughter had another lesson at the stable with Billy. Billy (like Tigger) was a nicer, more manageable boy. The instructors couldn't see how this was the same horse.
And so began our relationship with Cowboy John. John agreed for $500 a month to help train our daughter and Billy. He took them to the beach and to the mountains. They rode all over the hills. He got us (as a family) hooked in with his family and with endurance racing and trail riding. He didn't fit in anybody's box. When riding (after we met up with John), we began carrying wire cutters. It's easier to cut barbed wire with them than your teeth. We crossed through fenced parkland regularly. In rain or sun or dead of night we'd go riding.
There's a hamburger joint, called Zatt's we'd ride to about ten miles away. we'd go there, have our fill of burgers and beer, and ride home at 10 O'clock at night full gallop across meadows, around low tree branches, next to roads -- heading home drunk and sassy.
His kids were pistols too. his daughter, who was three could shinny up her horse's leg, grab mane, and swing herself on the horse's back.
There was a day at the beach, where our daughter had brought a friend. they were riding together. John said he'd give the friend a hundred dollars if he could pull our daughter off her horse. He couldn't.
There was a video I made of John on his horse, and our daughter on her horse hugging on the beach. then there's this wrestling going on where they're each trying to dismount the other. There were times when they'd get ahead of me, go around a corner and come chasing back right at me and my mount. The games were all about having a good seat.
Our daughter had been riding since she was two on a pony or horse that belonged to her. She was not a novice. By teaming with John, she really learned to ride.
When she was 15-16 she won the Junior division of the Tevis, the toughest endurance race for horses and riders on the planet. she came in 64th overall. This is out of a field that was 250 to begin with, and 125 actual finishers. It is 100 miles from Squaw Valley (at Lake Tahoe) to Auburn, CA over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The race starts at 5 AM. There are vet checks along the route every 20 miles. Her mother and I crewed. We'd meet them with hay, water, etc. The race goes through the full day's sun. It gets over 100 degrees fahrenheit. It goes across rivers and streams, through snow, across a narrow bridge with no rails, and through old deer /Indian/ trails through the dead of night. Our daughter finished around 2 AM the next morning.
This was all a result of John's influence on our family.
On May 22, Billy turns 25. We're having a birthday party for him. Carrots and apples and other goodies will be brought. Stories will be told.
John won't be there. Although he owns a house worth $6M or more and other places, he lives free off the government's dime.
A few years back, he had nothing better to do than hang out with some people doing meth. Some of his new friends were poor. He decided, brilliant man that he is, to go to Safeway and get them some food. he loaded up a grocery cart and walked it out the door to his truck. A clerk came up to him, and asked if he had paid for it. John showed him a shooting iron in his pants. the clerk didn't argue. Instead he called the cops. John drove away. He got to his friends' house, yelled that the cops were after him, and that he's just stuck up Safeway. A neighbor heard this and phoned the police. The courts didn't think it was funny that he forgot to pay for the groceries.
Two years later, he only has four more years to spend at his free government apartment. He's earned enough credits for an AA degree (that's college not Alcoholics Anonymous). He's teaching fellow inmates English. And he was just moved to new quarters after a skinhead (White Supremacist Nazi), he shared a cell with, tried to run a shiv into his neck. John being a good cattle hog tier threw the guy down, but he didn't really make friends that way.
We, our family (his family too, for that matter) go see him regularly.
Last night my daughter wanted to know if I'd go with her to see John. I said, "OK."
Today it was raining cats and dogs. the wind was howling. I drove. We took her SUV, a Montero. 4 wheel drive and we were still driving slow to stay in the lanes (slow = the speed limit). Little cars passed me like I was standing still.
We got there around noon. The line was long to get in to see him. We stood in this little tented area for over two hours. The wind and rain came through there. fun fun fun. We saw John for half hour and then they herded us all out, in the rain, in the sally ports waiting for gates to unlock. Waiting for buses to take us back to parking. Prison isn't fun for the visitors either. Four more years of this.
We traveled two hours to get there. We stood in the rain soaked tent for two hours. We saw John for a half hour. We drove home in another two hours. One day shot to Hell. We'll do it again in a month. His wife does this twice a week. As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"
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Happy Birthday to Billy, and goodluck to Cowboy John. Isn't he eligible for early release with the rest of those jailbirds as a cost cutting measure for California? Or does the "use" of a weapon during his crime prevent that? 
