Horsey, horsey, on your way......to the glue factory

This was a lame horse, in more ways than one.  That's me and Melinda (my cousin) on a horse with no name, since I can't remember what we called it.  I heard Dad call it other names, but I won't list them here.  Maybe Brandt or Kathy may remember.  What I do remember is that no matter how much any of us kicked or jiggled the reins, that horse would never run.  And why wouldn't it run, you ask?  Cause it had a lame leg and walked with a limp.  Something was wrong with one of its hind legs.  One day Dad got tired of us complaining about No Name horse not running and he got tired of it.  He got on No Name and started kicking and jiggling the reins, but he wasn't having much luck either.  He got off No Name, walked into the barn and came out with a rubber hose and hopped back on Lame No Name.  He held onto the reins with one hand and started whacking that horse on the backside with the hose.  With horrified fascination and no small amount of respect, we saw that horse actually run up and down Guadalupe road with Dad on top looking like John Wayne.  He pulled up in front of us and made some colorful comment, got off and took it huffing and puffing back into the lonely corral, since it was the only horse we had.  I guess we were done riding for the day.

A few days later as I was wondering around the farm, I walked over to the corral and saw that No Name was laying on its side in the dirt.  Horses lay in the dirt lots of times and I didn't think too much about it.  But why was No Name licking the dirt?  That was kind of weird.  As I got closer I discovered that No Name was a great big dead horse laying in the middle of the corral.  What do you do with a great big dead horse?  I found out that you call some man out of the phone book that has a big truck with high sides and a back gate that swings open.  The man is usually a smoker and the truck is really beat up and stinks.  He backs up and hooks up the horse's back leg with a winch, pulls it into the truck, closes the back door and drives off.  I don't remember getting another horse.  After that, we stuck to cats, cows, chickens, and pigs.