Dad's Slides: Birthday Party Pony Rides

As Leslie continues to scan in Dad's slides, I am seeing events that I do not remember happening. These pictures from my sister's birthday party are case in point. I have no memory of giving pony rides to Jenny and her friends at her birthday party.

It was April, 1972. I'd been a horse owner for a whopping two years and was fourteen. Jenny was turning seven and had invited her friends to our home for a party.

Me with Jenny on Pokey in our front pasture. You can see the Wabash River across the highway behind us.

The birthday girl gets the first ride. 

As you can see, the Wabash is in flood mode and has covered much of our river pasture. More than once, we had to move horses quickly to dryer pastures!

If you look behind the girl on the far right you can see a bush and a culvert that goes under the road. The highway is raised about three to four feet to keep it from being flooded. Unfortunately, that culvert allowed floodwaters to pass under the road and flood this pasture, too. Then there were times when the water rose too high and swamped the road as well as both of our pastures. Luckily, we had a third pasture that was on higher ground and never flooded.

Unlike Leslie and me, Jenny has never been horse crazy, but she did like to ride occasionally.  I haven't asked her what she remembers about this party, but my guess is that having pony rides at her birthday party made her and a lot of her friends very happy. I think I enjoyed it, too!