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Merry Fricken Christrmas - Bahamian White X-mas Thu Dec 23, 2004

I'm sitting here typing this, stripped to my boxers. I am soaked to the bone, my skin is all frozen and itchy. For some reason frozen flesh feels hot when its thawing out.

I started the day by shovelling the long laneway. I could hire old Alex down to road to blow it for $20 a pop. He has this huge tandem tractor with a snow blower that can heave a Volkswagon a quarter of a mile. But I don't get much exercise and shovelling keeps me in shape. As I am finishing up, the cell phone in my pocket rings. It is my former boss and best friend who lives a few miles away. He asks me confidentially if I am alone, and could I come and see him.

I tell Mum that I am leaving for a half an hour or so, and start to navigate the unplowed roads. However the big Jeep just rips through the yucky white crap. I pull down the laneway to bossman's horse farm. I see him down by the barn with a young blonde Belgian draft horse tied to the hitching post outside the barn.

It turns out that he got a phone call from my Mum's woman's group at church. Mum confided to a lady there that before she dies, she would like to take a ride in a one horse open sleigh like the song Jingle Bells. Well that statement lit a fire under the ladies.

I swear that Mum gets more attention here and is a minor celebrity for the first time in her life. Bahamians are kind of rare, and most folks here still have the 1970's view of the Bahamas where it was a real glitzy place where James Bond hangs out. Every one is looking out for the 'poor' Bahamian lady, dispossessed by a hurricane, forced to come to a cold country leaving everything behind. Yeah right !! Mum has a bigger circle of friends here and her life has been one exciting ride since she came. But Mum secretly likes the attention.

Well, this lady in Mum's group knows an old farmer Orville who happens to have a one horse open sleigh, properly referred to as a 'cutter'. She asks Bossman Ken if he could arrange a ride for Mum on his property since he has a huge farm and is a horse kind of guy. Ken explains that all of his horses are either for the equestrian ring or polo ponies. He doesn't have on that is 'broke to harness', or knows how to pull a sleigh. However if this lady can round up a draft horse, then Ken will trailer the horse, keep it at his farm for a couple of days, and we can all have a one horse open sleigh ride on Christmas day.

Ken was already planning a surprise gift for Mum, and it is indeed quite generous and thoughtful. Mum borrowed Toby the border collie a few months ago to help herd the goats. It was just a loan. Ken is going to wrap a dog dish with a red bow, and make Toby a permanent present to Mum and Miss Knowlton. The generosity almost brought a tear to my eye, because Toby is a one-in-million smart dog, and the little bugger has even wormed his way into my heart. The black and white rocket of a dog is sometimes the only one who is glad to see me in this house when I come home.

Well back at the horse farm, Orville's bachelor brother who is just as old as Orville has a frisky Belgian gelding who can pull the sleigh. Ken takes the trailer to pick it up, and the guy says that the horse is kind of green because he hasn't pulled for a while and he has just been trained. Along with the horse came about 40 miles of leather straps that somehow fit into a harness for the damn thing.

Ken called me over to help figure out the harness and to conduct a test ride. He had a diagram that he downloaded from the internet on how to harness a draft horse and how to hitch it to the sleigh. We are untangling the heap of leather straps and fitting over the horse in different permutations and combinations until it seems right according to our diagram. We finally have the horse fitted and he looks like we were getting him ready for an S&M session with a dominatrix. The horse is getting impatient and stamping his feet as us as we frig around with the leather straps over, around and under his body.

Finally Ken unties him from the hitching post. We have to back him between the two puller poles on the front of the sleigh. Well the damn horse wont back up. Untying the horse from the hitching post was the first mistake. His second mistake was letting me hold the long driving reins in my hand. Then he tries backing the horse in between the poles of the sleigh. The horse wont do it. Ken heys and haws and yells. The horse is a stubborn cuss. He tells me to slap the reins on the horses back to get his attention.

As soon as I do it, the horse jumps and takes off, without the sleigh. I am holding onto the reins. There is no damn way the horse will stop. The horse starts going faster. I am yelling and pulling on the reins. The horse breaks into a trot. I can't run that fast. Ken is shouting not to let go of the horse. I lose my footing. The horse is dragging me around by the reins behind him. He goes through Ken's front yard. The horse doesn't like me hanging on, so he gives me a drag through the cedar hedge. Then he sees the open road to Ken's back forty, and takes off.

Ken says as he is watching the horse go down the road, he sees a big cloud of snow and loses sight of me. Of course, I can't see a damn thing. The snow is stinging my eyes, covering my hair, and filling my pants as I am being dragged. About 100 yards down the road the horse finally stops. I am covered in snow, and Ken is busting a gut laughing. He says that I look like a black snowman. I am soaked from head to toe.

We finally hitch the horse and we take him for a toot around the farm. He works well. I leave Ken to put the horse away. As soon as I walk through the door at home, Mum asks me what happened. It never occurred to me to have a cover story. Of course I can't tell her that I got soaked being dragged up the road by a one-horse no-sleigh. I tell her that I fell into a snowbank at Ken's. She doesn't believe me.

I sure as hell hopes that Mum appreciates her one horse open sleigh ride, because I am shivering here, contemplating a long hot shower to warm up, and drying the limp money that was in my pocket on heater. Merry Frickin' Christmas everyone. With all of this white stuff to shovel and contend with, maybe Christmas on a beach is the way to go and to hell with Byng Crosby and his damn dreaming of a white Christmas.

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