The wonder of an email came to the front last Sunday when a lady from Colorado sent me a message asking about my reference to riding polo ponies at Oak Brook as a boy. She too had ridden polo ponies there. I had to go way back to living in the Chicago suburbs when I was 12 years old. Back then I had a terrible thirst and desire to be a cowboy growing up.
We lived in eastern Washington State when I was in the second and third grades. We were very isolated from civilization at an electric power plant along the Milwaukee Railroad in the sagebrush. Three houses, their families and three steam engineers ran the small coal fired power plant around the clock that supplied the energy for trains on those tracks.
Our neighbors were big ranchers, the Peterson family. They never had electric trains growing up. I had three Lionel trains and those grown cowboys came to run them at our house. I got to sit on a broke pony at roundup. Neat trade for a guy who wanted to be a cowboy.
We left there because the change to diesel was soon going to close those power plants. Mother wanted to move back East. So we ended up in the suburbs of Chicago where we had chickens, rabbits and goats anyway, but no pony or horse. But by the time I was in the sixth grade and had discovered the polo grounds at Oak Brook.
Now today, mind you, a 12-year-old boy couldn’t work there. Maybe that is what is wrong with our kids today – they have no chores or jobs until they are 16 or 18 and by then they don’t want to work.
I found out if you helped the Texas cowboys caring for the polo horses that you got to ride them when they exercised them. That meant wheelbarrowing horse manure, washing and brushing the horses. But they exercised the horses on the bridle paths for several hours and that meant leading some too. Also riding them over to the grounds and then cooling them off when they came out of the game all sweaty and hot. It was big deal with lots of horse riding and fun. Plus the polo players would tip you a few dollars. So you worked and got paid. During summer break I was there at least three days a week.
This lady saw some comment I made about working polo horses at Oak Brook. She and her sister did the same thing a decade or so later. So we shared a few notes on those times. It was a fabulous summer deal, getting paid to ride horses and be around the cowboys who handled them.
Well today underage boys and girls can’t work there. What a shame.
My father came home one day and said we could move to Phoenix, Ariz. He had a job out there. No snowy cold winters and citrus trees in our yard. I knew all about Arizona, I’d read Zane Grey’s books. So I was all for moving there. A cowboy’s dream came true, we were going back West. And I had several horses there, worked on ranches, searched superstitions for the Lost Dutchman mine and really thought I was in heaven.
See what an email can draw up. God bless you and America.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
