daneallred

High Ho Silver

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High Ho Silver

One of the most traumatic events of my youth occurred when I was eight or nine. I had been given my first horse which was all mine. It was a grey Shetland pony who I think was named Flicka, but that may just be too much adolescent television talking. I think I may have tried to forget this particular pet's name subconsciously, and the why of that statement will become evident in a moment.

I had experience with horses from when I was younger. I've been told that one night I was out in the barn while Dad was working on one of the horses. I walked too near the backside and received a complimentary kick across the barn. Apparently the horse caught me right in the chest, and since I couldn't have been more than 5 years old, was promptly deposited against the nearest barn wall. Ouch.

But back to the Shetland pony. This particular horse was not very nice. I remember being bit several times, even when trying to feed the stupid horse. I had hay fever, so I didn't have to worry about feeding the horse too much - my dad had other horses which he fed at the same time.

I was allergic to the horse a bit, but it was still too much fun to ride to let that get in the way. After saddling up the mini-saddle on the mini-horse, I could pretend I was galloping through the Wild West. Mostly though I was galloping through my still developing neighborhood. I did have the sniffles for a while after every ride, but it was glorious fun until the day we jumped the ditch.

If you have never been on a horse, one of the important things to remember is that you often have to straighten your legs in the stirrups of the saddle or you may wind up on the ground. This includes when the horse might buck, jump or when the ride is just too rough.

This is especially true when jumping ditches.

We were tooling around the small fields which hadn't been turned into building lots yet, and there was this small ditch which ran across the center of the fields. It was probably only a foot deep, but it was a serious enough jump for the small horse that I should have had the sense to stand up briefly in the stirrups and avoid getting dumped off the back.

You guessed it. I bounced when the horse landed on the other side, fell off the back of the smallish horse, and continued to follow.

My right foot was caught in the stirrup. This meant that the pony, which didn't like me all that much to begin with, was now dragging me across the fields which contained various rocks, tall weeds, and other exciting stuff to scrape my back upon.

My shirt had immediately shot up around my armpits, which made it difficult to try to reach up and disengage the boot from the stirrup. The brambles and the dirt were scrapping up my back pretty well, and the stupid horse showed no sign of stopping.

I don't know if the horse was enjoying the romp or was just scared since it was dragging this big weight behind it. It didn't seem to matter which was the reason. The horse just kept running.

Every once in a while the horse slowed up a bit and I could try to reach my boot again. The worst news is that every time I got close to being able to get the boot out of the stirrup, the horse would kick me right in the forehead.

I must have been kicked in the head seven or eight times. Ever since then I felt I was destined to be a performer.

Finally the horse came too close to a home which was being built nearby, and a neighborhood father was able to grab the reins and stop the mayhem.

I sat up slowly and released my boot. I stood and pulled my shirt down my now scratched and bleeding back. I took the reins from the man who stood looking at me like an alien. Here was a kid who had been dragged across the field and had been kicked in the head several times.

And I was still walking upright.

Double ouch.

I walked home very slowly, unsaddled the horse and put it back in the pen.

When I went inside, I told my mom I wanted to sell the horse. She looked at me and the horse was gone in a week. It almost makes me wish the urban myths about people who like to eat horse flesh were true.  I don't hold that grudge anymore, but then I haven't ridden many horses lately.

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Abundance Obstacles July 31

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Sonnet Ten by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet X

by William Shakespeare

For shame! Deny that thou bear'st love to any,

Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

But that thou none lovest is most evident;

For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate

That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

Make thee another self, for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

 

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Sonnet 10

Sonnet Nine by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet IX

by William Shakespeare

 

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

That thou consumest thyself in single life?

Ah! If thou issueless shalt hap to die.

The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep

By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.

Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

And kept unused, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits

That on himself such murderous shame commits.

 

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Sonnet 9

Sonnet Eight by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet VIII

by William Shakespeare

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother

Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

 

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Sonnet 8

Sonnet Seven by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet VII

by William Shakespeare

Lo! In the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract and look another way:

So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,

Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

 

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Sonnet 7

Sonnet Six by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet VI

by William Shakespeare

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:

Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

 

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Sonnet 6

Obstacles by Dane Allred

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Bright Space

Obstacles

by Dane Allred

Why are there so many obstacles?

If life was easy, would we value all the experiences we have had in life?

We can only grow and achieve if we are challenged.

But there is a reason we are here.

There is something we are to do today,

This week,

This month,

This year.

This lifetime.

You may think you don’t know what it is,

But it floats in your mind and pesters you until you do what you know you need to do.

It’s not always what we want to do.

We are given a lifetime of opportunities to live purposefully.

When we choose one thing or another,

We are navigating our purpose here by our choices.

Some of us have many more opportunities than others,

But that shouldn’t stop us from making the difference we can make.

When we keep the positive uppermost in our thoughts and actions,

We will see results.

They may not be the results we want,

But we also learn every time we fail.

In this world of abundance,

We’ll know better how to accomplish what are striving for the next time we are given an opportunity.

We can have a purpose and also live on purpose.

When we live life on purpose, knowing what we want to achieve,

We have more than a goal.

We have massed the forces of the universe behind our intention

And we will reach it.

Or we won’t.

But then there will be another choice for us to make.

And when we listen to the cacophony of negativity

It is easy to get discouraged.

Are we looking to help those who need our help,

Or do we selfishly think only of ourselves?

Do we let the weight of trouble in the world

Stop us from accomplishing what we can

While we can?

Obstacles are put in our way to help us learn to navigate life.

We were all together once in the Bright Space,

And together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

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Needlephobia

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Dane Allred's World of Hurt

Needlephobia

I am a baby when it comes to needles. I try to convince people I have an actual phobia by explaining how much longer it took for me to give blood than my bride to be. But my sister is the needle master. She has had a liver transplant, but the strangest thing she had to endure was a weekly gamma globulin shot when she was young. Her white blood cells were low, and she had to get this peanut butter thick shot every week.

This is where my fear of needles begins. When she would get the shot, I was usually in the waiting room listening to her scream. I was in the waiting room because I only got to see the needle once, and I must have looked like I was going to pass out, because I never saw her get another shot. But seeing that one shot was enough.

Imagine a turkey baster miniaturized. That's what the hypodermic and the needle looked like to an impressionable young boy. Then, after you’ve filled it with peanut butter, try to imagine getting that thick glop through the needle and into the skin of the victim, I mean, patient. It resides just under the skin as a huge bump of medicine waiting to be absorbed by the body. I have never had one and hope I never will. Anyone I have talked to about gamma globulin shots tells me it is one of the most painful shots you can get.

To make matters worse, now that I have this mental image of the torture device firmly etched into my feeble brain, I get to sit out in the waiting room and imagine what is going on in the next room. And I have a good imagination.

Each week, as she endured the torture of the shot, the needle got bigger and bigger in my mind. The concoction got thicker and thicker, until you have the quivering mass of flesh I am today with a genuine phobia of needles. The doctor knows better than to let me see the needle, and so does the dentist. They discreetly hide it, hoping the big baby sitting in their office won't faint dead away.

Another needle incident happened when I was probably nine or ten, and an incredibly painful sore appeared on my side next to my right hip. Technically it was high on my hip, but it would be correct to state that I had boil on my butt. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone for several days. I just thought I had stabbed myself with wire or something.

A boil is an accumulation of infection, pus and other impurities your body is trying to expel. This time it just happened to be my butt that my body chose as the site of the expulsion, but it could have been worse.

But (!) I finally had to tell my mom, and actually show her part of my butt. I was humiliated, and I think she could tell, since she sent Dad to the rescue.

What happens with all of these impurities your body wants out is that they accrete just below the skin in a painful mass that resembles a giant pimple. Some of the mass was hard and felt solid, but mostly the stuff crowded into this small space and pressed for escape. The pressure built and the pain increased as we all wondered what to do.

Dad tried squeezing it like a pimple, but that just made things worse - it hurt even more and didn't want to pop.

So of course, the only thing to do was to lance it. This will be my Dad's answer to a painful toenail later also. I have already detailed my fear of needles, but to watch my own father put a sewing needle into a hot flame just before he intends to stab it into me sent my heart racing so fast I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack.

Now that the needle was sterilized by the flame, and also red hot, Dad decided it was time to take care of business. He lanced the boil without further ado, and squeezed all of the contents out with a large amount of blood. This is what I call true love. Until you have had a boil lanced by a parent you may question their sacrifice for you. After lancing a boil, there is no other demonstration necessary.

It immediately began to feel better, and I still have a small scar from the operation, it was one of Dr. Allred's many successes. He later branched out into giving shots to calves and horses, and I was happy to be spared the pain.

I know it’s silly, but just don’t let me see the needle.

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Love's Gentle Rain by Dane Allred

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Love’s Gentle Rain

by Dane Allred

The gentle rain of our love

Is no torrent to wash the earth bare

But it dots our lives with needed moisture

To see us through the glaring sun of life.

So light the gentle rain falls

We scarce can notice it.

Rather than annoy, it reminds us

With its soft caress of our true love.

When rain does fall into our life,

Let it always be

The gentle rain of love.

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SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS

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