a different travel tale...

 

The Well-traveled Bouncing Horse

When our son was three years old my husband and I gave him a bouncing horse for Christmas.  It was a big beautiful palomino in a galloping pose, suspended in a sturdy frame by four heavy springs.  The largest size in the Sear’s Christmas catalog.  We positioned it in front of the Christmas tree with a big red bow on its neck, brought him and his one-year-old sister into the living room, busied her with a package to open, and waited for his reaction.  It was a little low keyed.  He seemed to like it, walked around and around it, touched it, and stood looking at it.  Finally I said “Don’t you want to ride it?”  He looked at me and said “Can I?” I said “Of course, that’s what it’s for.”  To which he replied, “You never let me ride the one at the grocery store.”  Was I such a mean mother?  Or just often rushed? Once I assured him that this horse was his to ride whenever he wanted to, he was on it and riding.  He discovered that it would bounce and also rock back and forth.  We discovered that the springs squeaked, but not too loudly. 

Over the next few years, he put a lot of miles on that pony.  We put it in his bedroom and I could always tell when he was riding by listening to the squeaking of the springs.  I like to think that he was just loving the thrill of the ride but I’m pretty sure that at least sometimes he was working off some frustrations from dealing with his little sister.

Eventually, as these things happen, he out grew the wonderful horse, his sister rode it sometimes, but never as much as he did, and finally they were both too long legged for it.  Happily, just about that time my ten year younger than me west coast brother and his wife had children the perfect age and size to ride the horse.  So one summer, we loaded the horse in the back of our VW bus, and took a trip west.  We left the horse at my brother’s farm, a perfect setting for a galloping pony, and went on our way.  Eventually, his children also grew too large for the horse, but just about that time, we had young grandchildren, so my brother shipped it back to us, partly disassembled.  We reassembled it and our grandchildren enjoyed it in our basement family room for a few years.  The springs still squeaked.  It has occurred to me that those big springs are probably not allowed on children’s toys these days, too dangerous, but as far as I know, none of our riders were ever hurt. 

Finally, the time came that our grandchildren were too large and too old for the bouncing horse, but, you guessed it, my brother now had grandchildren, so we loaded the horse into the back of our van (we were driving a Toyota mini-van by then) and headed west once again.  Always one of our favorite destinations.  By this point the horse had picked up some sparkly decorations thanks to my artistic granddaughter and these appealed to my brother’s oldest granddaughter.  That was the end of the horse’s travels, as far as I know.  In case you weren’t counting, that horse traveled cross country four times between Washington State and Indiana.  It traveled a lot of miles and was ridden for many more, but never so persistently and energetically as those first years in our son’s bedroom.