For the Love of Ponies!
“Mom! Gil’s getting divorced. You have to go out with him.”
“Denise, I don’t go out with recently divorced men and he has four children.”
“Yes, but he has a PONY!”
I was a single mom for 13 years and I didn’t ever date recently divorced men – too much drama for me.
A couple of Gil’s kids ages 5 – 12 had been taking lessons for a year or so at the barn where we rode. Gil always wanted to ride. When his kids started riding, he started riding too at age 39. He had a passion for riding and was at the barn almost every day.
When his oldest son lost interest in riding, he didn’t want to tell his dad. He offered to pay Denise to ride his pony. Soon after that his kids stopped coming to the barn. When the news went around the barn that he was getting divorced, there was his pony, Strider, and Denise saw an opportunity to finally have a pony. All she had to do was to get us together.
“Mom, I think Gil likes you.”
“Not interested.”
All through high school Denise worked at the barn. That’s where she met Matt, her future husband, who was working there too. They teamed up. He started talking to Gil, while she was working on me.
One day I went to pick her up from working at a horse show and the two trainers asked me, “So what’s going on with you and Gil?”
“There’s nothing going on with me and Gil.”
“Come on. You can tell us.”
“I just did. Nothing.”
“Well, there must be something going on. Denise has been calling him “Dad” all day.”
Ugh!
Denise got everyone in on it. Our trainer was putting us in lessons together. Little kids at the barn would ask me if I was going out with Gil. Apparently, everyone thought it was a good idea, but me!
At some point Denise told him, “You have to go out with my mom. She has no life.”
No life – single mom, two kids, my own accounting practice and I was president of a business organization. I wasn’t sitting home with nothing to do!
After about six months of relentless harassment Matt said, “He really wants to go out with you.”
I was having a weak moment. “Okay, give him my number.”
Matt did and Gil didn’t call me. Now this was really embarrassing.
He was probably annoyed by all this nagging just like I was. So I called him. I said, “Let’s meet for coffee to make everybody happy and we can get them to drop this whole set up thing.”
“Better yet. Let’s have dinner,” he said.
Denise got the pony.
Gil and I have been married for 31 years. We relocated from New York to North Carolina. (That was Denise’s idea too.) We have a farm with horses, llamas, alpacas, goats and chickens. He builds equestrian facilities and I continue to do whatever Denise tells me to do.
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FYI – Denise is the girl with the long blond hair from Jump the Moon, but Strider was not the pony.
She rode many wonderful ponies, but Me Too was her one and only heart horse.
