You have probably never heard of zipping horses but I recall it to be one of the most fun things to do when in the car or pickup. By the way let's clear this up right now, a pickup is 3/4 ton and below while a ton pickup and up can be a truck but usually a one ton is a flat bed pickup, not a truck. Now we country folks have accommodated folks for a long time and let everyone call them trucks like Ford f150 truck. We know who is from the city by the way you talk. You think we talk funny but you talk funny too.
Alright back to Zipping. Now this has nothing to do with zip lining where folks get on a long wire and harness up and zip down the line and it certainly has nothing to do with a horse on a zip line. However it does have a lot to do with counting horses. You see when we got to go to Grandma Annie's in Oolagah (birth place of Will Rogers and it is right close to Aunt Erlene and Uncle Harley's place on the Oolagah lake) for entertainment we did not have ipads, iphones, or even a radio, we talked about things and zipped horses. Now that I think about it, would it make more sense that Kimberly Clark used the name for feminine hygiene (ipad) than an electronic company? Zipping horses or counting horses was a lot of fun and being the youngest I was always disadvantaged as Debbie and Larry were faster than me. But if I was lucky enough to sit behind Dad he would reach back and tap my leg when he saw a horse and I would ZIP without even seeing one. Mom did not get too involved in this game but typically Dad liked to help Debbie the most as he kind of favored her. He always told me that she was such a well behaved child he would do about anything she asked. He loved her a lot.
At times there would be several horses on a hill or around a corner and everyone would see them at one time and then the fight was on. We had to negotiate how many each person got. For example, if a person saw all of them first but only said, "ZIP ZIP" technically they only got two points and of course when you see 10 at a time it is next to impossible to figure out who did what with everyone Zipping louder and faster. It became a frenzy and OH it was so fun. Another aspect of the game is that if you remembered where the horses were last time we traveled to Grandma Annie's you had an advantage.
Those drives were a lot of joy to our family and we learned a lot of life lessons about value of family and love of the country. We laughed and talked about where to turn to go to Grandma Annie's based on where we saw the turkey in the road. I don't know why it was such a point of conversation but it was fun arguing about just where we saw the turkey in the road as if it were supposed to be there every time we visited. You see back then we took the back roads which are the only roads from Grainola and Shidler on your way to Oolagah. There was no four lane or super highway and frankly we were happy that most roads started to have blacktop (that is the same as pavement) instead of just gravel roads. As we traveled the roads we would recall things we had seen in the past or talked about who we knew lived in a certain farm house. We just learned a lot about friends and family. Probably the highlight of every trip was hearing stories from Mom and Dad's past. There were hundreds of stories and I just wished we would have recorded them.
Well thanks for listening and, What do you learn in the Osage?
Gary@thepioneerman.com
Alright back to Zipping. Now this has nothing to do with zip lining where folks get on a long wire and harness up and zip down the line and it certainly has nothing to do with a horse on a zip line. However it does have a lot to do with counting horses. You see when we got to go to Grandma Annie's in Oolagah (birth place of Will Rogers and it is right close to Aunt Erlene and Uncle Harley's place on the Oolagah lake) for entertainment we did not have ipads, iphones, or even a radio, we talked about things and zipped horses. Now that I think about it, would it make more sense that Kimberly Clark used the name for feminine hygiene (ipad) than an electronic company? Zipping horses or counting horses was a lot of fun and being the youngest I was always disadvantaged as Debbie and Larry were faster than me. But if I was lucky enough to sit behind Dad he would reach back and tap my leg when he saw a horse and I would ZIP without even seeing one. Mom did not get too involved in this game but typically Dad liked to help Debbie the most as he kind of favored her. He always told me that she was such a well behaved child he would do about anything she asked. He loved her a lot.
At times there would be several horses on a hill or around a corner and everyone would see them at one time and then the fight was on. We had to negotiate how many each person got. For example, if a person saw all of them first but only said, "ZIP ZIP" technically they only got two points and of course when you see 10 at a time it is next to impossible to figure out who did what with everyone Zipping louder and faster. It became a frenzy and OH it was so fun. Another aspect of the game is that if you remembered where the horses were last time we traveled to Grandma Annie's you had an advantage.
Those drives were a lot of joy to our family and we learned a lot of life lessons about value of family and love of the country. We laughed and talked about where to turn to go to Grandma Annie's based on where we saw the turkey in the road. I don't know why it was such a point of conversation but it was fun arguing about just where we saw the turkey in the road as if it were supposed to be there every time we visited. You see back then we took the back roads which are the only roads from Grainola and Shidler on your way to Oolagah. There was no four lane or super highway and frankly we were happy that most roads started to have blacktop (that is the same as pavement) instead of just gravel roads. As we traveled the roads we would recall things we had seen in the past or talked about who we knew lived in a certain farm house. We just learned a lot about friends and family. Probably the highlight of every trip was hearing stories from Mom and Dad's past. There were hundreds of stories and I just wished we would have recorded them.
Well thanks for listening and, What do you learn in the Osage?
- Time is more important than quality time with family or another way of saying it is, "quality time is quantity time with your family"
- Take time to listen and learn about your history
- Mom and Dads have a lot of wisdom if we will just learn to listen
Gary@thepioneerman.com
No comments:
Post a Comment