Saturday mornings were special. It was mom’s house cleaning day. She would take the cushions off the couch to vacuum underneath them, the pillows and bedding all came off the bed. We would get the dinning room chairs from the adjacent dinning room. We would put the cushions on top of the chairs and get dad’s belts from the closet next to the bedroom that was off of the living room. We would throw a blanket over the pillows and cushions and hold it on the dining room chair with dad’s belts. We would climb up on our horses and watch: Captain Kangaroo, My Friend Flicka, Fury, and Sky King. The horse shows were our favorites! We wanted a horse in the worst way. We would drape a blanket over the tv as the picture tube grew dim. Mom was great to let us make tents over the dining room table or we would use the clothesline outside to make a tent!
Sometimes mom went to the grocery store and Linda remembers dad knew our Saturday morning routine and let us tear up the living room in front of the tv!
We had a friend, Shelia four blocks from us. She had a pet raccoon, Poncho. We liked watching Poncho wash his food before he ate it. Once in a while they would give him something to eat and he would wash it and it would be something that melted away and Poncho would be looking all over for it! We were warned not to stick our fingers in his cage or he might bite!
Shelia loved horses too. And we would play we were wild horses. Mom and dad would warn us never to put a rope around our neck when we were playing horses. We could only tie it around our waist. Shelia did a great horse’s whinny!
When we walked to school, we had make believe horses we rode and we named them and would recite a list of our horse’s names and descripions. One of our favorite names was Buttercup or Buttermilk. Who ever said that horse’s name first; it was theirs and the other sister couldn’t take it. We would name off all our horses and get into arguments as to who had such and such name first. We had a special way we road our horses to and from school. I tried to remember how I might describe it. We would put one leg out in front and then push off with the other leg. It was kind of a stiff legged trot or canter depending on how fast we wanted to get to school. The school was about four blocks away and that included the railroad track that divided the town in half. It made the trip to school much faster and more fun than a walk to school. Fury was another popular name. Butter Cup or Buttermilk was the name of Dale Evans horse. And of course Trigger, Roy Rogers horse was at the top of the list, too. It was a favored name too! What carefree days those were!