Author: susanwebsite

Tomorrow we are driving to the Shenandoah Horse Show, formerly the Roanoke Valley Horse Show which has moved to the Virginia Horse Park in Lexington, hence the name change.Although we are now horseless we still horse around quite a bit.

A few weeks ago my husband was lucky enough to show the nice pleasure driving mare owned by Tommy and Jeanine Lovell in Asheville, NC. I spent a week being a substitute riding instructor at Legacy Saddlebreds in Winston-Salem. I have the joy of teaching children to ride without being there when a horse colics, or the water freezes or the tractor won’t start. (Been there–done that.)

I have written a children’s book about horses, tentatively titled The Riding Lesson which will be released in October by High Tide Publications. I also wrote an e-book on How to Buy Your First Horse.

So while I don’t walk to the barn to feed on a daily basis, actually I did feed today for some wonderful horse people who do competitive driving, horses are still in my life and most importantly, in my heart.

Happy Trails

I am so fortunate to be a substitute riding instructor for Legacy Saddlebreds. I work very hard for a week, meet and visit with many wonderful children, teens and adults and then go home, realizing that I won’t be there when the temperature dips or swelters, the horse colics, the water freezeds, or the tractor breaks down. (Been there, done that.)

I had a good week. No one fell off and hopefully most riders enjoyed their lessons. I went to the Blowing Rock Horse Show and helped to put 26 riders in the ring in academy classes. These are classes in which the riders compete on lesson horses, with the rider being judged rather than the horse. All of our riders had good rides, some had great rides. The classes were large and competitive. I saw many friends from the horse world.

Teaching for a week reminds me how good riding is for everyone: physically, obviously, but also emotionally and mentally. I see little girls come in and hug their favorite horse. I see riders work through a challenge on a difficult horse. And most impressive are the riders who earn lesson and show privileges by working at the barn. Catching horses, grooming, tacking up, washing horse laundry, feeding and doctoring horses, hosing down a hot horse—they undertake a tremendous responsibility and are happy doing it. Our children grew up that way and I’m glad to see other children and adults take on those responsibilities. They are truly character building.

Some of the highlights of my week:

Me: “Why should you walk around the front of the horse instead of the back?”

Student: “He might poop on you.”

Me: “What are you doing in the middle of the ring?”

Student:  “It’s my eye’s fault.” She had gotten dust in her eye.

Adult Student: “Why is my horse not listening?”

Me: “Because you aren’t telling him what to do.”

My wish for everyone is to be as happy as an intermediate rider being permitted to canter.

They say we become our parents. I can remember hearing my mother yell at the TV if a newscaster dared to make a grammatical error. I find myself yelling at the TV, the newspaper and many novels. “Where are you at?” makes me cringe. I hear sentences ending in “at” from the pulpit, the newsroom and the politician’s mouth. Apparently, shortly after I graduated from high school someone removed the rule that said not to end a sentence with a preposition.

Diagramming of sentences must have also ended. “It was her/him/them,” is another   frequent offender. Has no one heard of the predicate nominative?  Do they call it something else these days? Do they mention it at all?

I realize that grammar rules can be relaxed in dialogue, but are all speakers grammatically challenged? One book I read quoted a college English professor as saying, “She is older than me.”  I think not, or at least, I hope not. The construction here is that there is an omitted but understood verb. “She is older than I (am).”

Direct objects also suffer misuse. “They took Jim and I out to dinner.”   Since no one would say, “They took I out to dinner,” I don’t understand why this is confusing. “I” which should be “me” is the direct object of “took” as is “Jim”.

I don’t claim to be perfect. I know I have written sentences that are shall we say, less than illuminating. I know I have used punctuation incorrectly at times and the wrong word for a given situation. Our language can be a subtle and confusing thing. But the grammar that I hear so often mangled was once taught in seventh grade, if not earlier.

Once learned, grammar remains. Our son, who was a less than stellar student, still corrects his grammar when he is talking to me. “See, Mom,” he says, “I did learn something.”  If he could teach a class for local newscasters, there might be hope.

Susan Williamson is a novelist and freelance writer as well as a former extension agent, riding instructor, newspaper editor and food-coop manager. She is the author of How to Get By As Time Goes By, How to Buy Your First Horse, published by High Tide Publications. She also the author of the novels Turkmen Captives and Dead on the Trail. She is a contributor to Next Door Neighbors Magazine as well as Tidewater Women.