This is a story I wrote last Christmas on my return home to Australia.
The time frame is the mid fiftees and although I had endured personal tradgedies so early in life , adventure , excitement and feedom were never denied to me.
BUTTERCUP.
My medical condition spawns a realization of what is important in life.
So I decided to take the very efficient Queensland Rail system to the other side of Brisbane to visit my Auntie Lil. That alone brought back memories of my youth as I had travelled to my first job in a bank forty years ago on this very rail system , albeit steam powered. My dad had procured this clerks job in the National Bank for me when I was seventeen so he could put himself through university to become a doctor , an event that caused us to be estranged for twenty or more years as I had been a high achiever in boarding school. As I rode the train I reflected on my banking career which was very short. Elvis had been just crowned King in those days and I wore similar clothing as he did and a haircut to match but I was dissapointed that I was not mobbed by screaming girls. Instead , I was rewarded with the condescending stares of the pompous bank manager whose nose would wrinkle as if someone was holding a small dog turd thereunder.
I arrived in Graceville and popped open the umbrella and walked in the rain to my Aunties whose tiny 89 year old frame embraced a warmth that I was sure could cure me. We chatted and relived the past carefully avoiding unpleasant events that had molded my character as much as happy ones.
And then she gut- laughed as she related a story that I had long forgotten. It is not an aviation story but bare with me.
Aunt Lil was the railway station mistress in the very small town of Mt Molloy that was serviced dailly by the rail motor , a contraption that was half automobile and half train. I think they are called Bud cars in Canada. It had a standing old fasioned radiator and an engine only powerful enough to haul one car behind.
My friend , Nooky Cambell , had a pony called Buttercup but the family was not wealthy so he rode her bareback with me perched behind as we raced over the rolling hills. This was my dual training. Nooky was an experienced horseman two years my junior and that made him eight years old. Buttercup was a tough little bitch of ample girth and boy, did she have an attitude.
We would ride her out to the first bend in the rail line a mile or so out of town and waited.... bare footed and excited atop our trusty steed. Nooky thought it was my turn in front so I clambered into the captains seat for my "in command under supervision" ride.
Buttercup rested and lazilly munched grass.
Suddenly, she raised her head with a mouthfull of grass , ears pricked up and looked in the direction of the approaching rail motor ... we had not heard nor seen it yet. She knew what the drill was.... she whinnied and stamped her foot... I tightened up on the reins to control her enthusiam and she backed up prancing a little. As the rail motor rounded the bend she wanted to go as she had done many times before. This was my first command .. I , too , was excited. We waited for the train to come abreast before I gave her her head and I let her go. The driver stared straight ahead as he was not to be a partner in this madness.
Buttercup lunged forward in the direction of the station. The train was on flat tracks but we had to hurtle down gullies and up the bank and jumping over fallen gum tree branches ... up hill and down dale ... racing..Buttercup imagined she was Phar Lap racing in the Melbourne Cup and I was The Man from Snowy River. The train gained ground on us so back went the ears of our rotund rocket and she put her heart into it.
We caught up .. the driver staring straight ahead ... the platform was approaching.... fast. The people awaiting the arrival of their loved ones smiled and waved. But the passengers looked at us , some laughing , some sternly looking ahead so as not to encourage us. The train slowed but our pace kept up as Buttercup was going to win the race by at least a furlong .. I tugged on the reins to no avail .. all that happened was that I pulled myself forward .. Nooky screaming something in my ear as I hurtled toward the platform .. the smiles vanished from the faces of the awaiting small crowd , some of whom scattered , some of whom pressed themselves flat up against the wall to avoid the 600 lbs of thundering meat bearing down at warp nine upon them .... I pulled harder only to pull myself up onto her neck .. I was too far forward ..around her neck .. hanging on, I dropped the reins and Nooky now also slid forward into the captain's seat but with no reins. Into the crowd we plunged and the only thing that convinced Buttercup to cease was the baggage cart piled high into which we crashed as I fell to the ground beneath the panting, sweating horse .. she stood victorious in front of Auntie Lil's ticket window whose horrified face was pressed up against the glass only to witness Buttercup's tail rise to shoot out a big pile of steaming horse turd which splattered on the platform.
I clearly needed further training