For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 06, 2012

This was drawn over thirty years ago, before the safety nazis took over and turned everything into “Nerf World.”

Back in the 60s when I was in my 20s, I rented a horse to ride in Central Park, NY. I was nervous being so far up and I wanted the horse to slow down. Then the horse went too slow, so I signalled it to go a little faster. At thet point the horse stopped and turned his neck around to face me as if to say, “Look. Bud, will you make up your mind!”

and there goes Michael’s back in the last panel.

Am I glad I grew up with horses before people like your daughter’s teacher got into it (helped by the rise of sue-happy, smothering parents and things like insurance). The things my friends and I used to do with the ponies when I was a kid would curl your hair. And boy, did we have fun.

Yep…50 years ago I got on a horse for the first time and the animal sensed the rookie I was and ran like a bat out of h…l. I hung on as best I could , but, when I fell off my mouth hit his knee and broke three of my excellent front teeth. Needless to say, that cost me lots of grief and money. No, in those days, helmets were not required but…they definitely should be now.

There’s a balance between common sense and smothering the life out of something. After all, life itself is a fatal game!

grew up on a cattle ranch…wore chaps to protect from theprickly pear and mesquite thorns…other than that, nothing,and we survived quite well.

why do some people think everyone must protect them… I bet most of the people reading these comics grew up in a time when you took care of yourself and learned from it.

even with helmets you can be paralyzed(spelling?)

Sensibilities change. On a slightly different note, many used to ride bicycles for hours during the day with nary a helmet in sight. Today that might be called “bad parenting”. But then it was simply riding your bike. I don’t know that what we do today I’d exacly call bad. But seems to me that it’s all part of our “zero risk” mentality. It’s not necessarily bad to want to reduce risk. But at some point, one has to ask when reasonableness ends and paranoia begins.

thanks, rshive, for the moderate response. I grew up riding bareback and running loose in the woods, and I’ve been more careful with my own kids—and I’m afraid it’s made them too timid and helpless often.

Good luck on getting that horse to do anything besides eat grass Michael! My experiences with horses have taught me that when the head goes down to eat, you might as well be sitting on a very tall chair – not going anywhere! Than again, I’m extremely inexperienced and the horses probably knew it.

I told this one before in one of the comment sections, forget which, but here goes again: When I was in fifth grade, we could rent a horse for half an hour for a dollar. Once I was riding a horse and when it turned back to its home stable, it started trotting instead of plodding. I bounced further and further to the side, and finally fell off, landing on my behind. A week later, while sitting in class I found that I could barely read. I worked on the word “beginning,” sounding it out one syllable at a time (moi, who was into Sherlock Holmes and the Lad of Sunnybank Farm books). When I got to the end of the word, I couldn’t remember the beginning. At lunch I mixed up friends’ names and couldn’t think of a word for “bag” or “sack.”

I just told my teacher that I felt kind of sick and she let me put my head down. No way was I going to tell Mom about it, because I knew she’d take me to the hospital. The next day I was fine. I really lucked out.

I have seen hard hats shaped to look like cowboy hats.

That would be because you don’t watch rodeos?

I agree with rshive-common sense could save a lot of grief and as someone who did 3 day eventing I always wore my helmet cause I value my head!

You make a good point Night-Gaunt49, but this is a little harsh for a forum where children visit. The importance of your message gets lost in your anger . . .

Sheesh take it easy man! Haven’t you ever heard of the “Soup Nazi”? Or is that bad too?

Does anyone else notice that horse looks more like a pony? Michael was given a smaller animal—-and probably a very gentle one given the fact he is a ‘city’ boy.

As otherwise indicated, in modern vernacular, “Nazi” has become synonymous with someone who is fanatical about rules. Perhaps not the best metaphor, but it has become popular.

I know we all tend to reminisce about our own childhoods – no bicycle helmets, no safety pads. yet we survived. But so much could have gone wrong. I don’t actually have children, but if I did, there are things I did in my youth that I would not want them repeating.

And I am pretty sure Michael’s aunt and uncle know that horse to be a gentle, patient creature.

Dumbest animal on EARTH!!!

Re training a horse to obey reverse commands: I hear that used to be a trick used to thwart horse-thieves.

This is 8 years before April was born. Too bad.

1. I rode my pony bareback, running under the clothes line no less, and Mom merely noted the fact.2. Horses are big, but on smaller ranches they often double as babysitters, as in, what visiting kids want to do. Thus those horses are quite placid around small kids, and this strip shows how placid. A cousin had this exact relationship with a horse his dad bought – Butch couldn’t get that horse to do anything! (I’m sure that short legs have a lot to do with the situation pictured here.)3. Coming back from irrigating (by shovel) my uncle raced me and my pony. Somehow I slipped off and fell in front of the horse, still holding the reins. That pony stopped before I did! Uncle Bud just put me back on top, and we went on home. No big deal.

Depends a lot on the horse…

We had a gentle old horse when I was about 8. We could climb on it and use it for a ladder to pick apples or apricots. If we fell off whole riding, the horse would lock its legs and leave skid marks.

Christopher Reeves was wearing a helmet when he fell…

Growing up, my family had a standing reservation at the clinic. One of us was always getting stitches, bones set, teeth fixed, etc. Guess what? We not only survived, we had a lot of fun.

There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of available safety devices. People at one time rode around in their cars without seat belts. Children had child seats designed to allow them to ride in the car not to protect them, if they had them at all. Football was played without helmets and then with leather helmets. Very little padding. Now it is played by behemouths wearing body armour. Soldiers went into combat without body armor. No, if it is available it should be worn.

Re helmets:Ever been to a demo derby? A typical driver will take maybe 20 to 30 or more hits in one night. I’ve been to several, and noted that maybe only one in three will someone have to be taken out in an ambulance.But yet, two cars hit on the highway – someone yells WHIPLASH!Because demos wear helmets? Helmets help prevent concusion, and possibly a cut from a flying object.Whiplash is caused by the weight of the head being tossed about on the spine. Now, wouldn’t a helmet add to the weight of the head and make whiplash more likely? By this logic, every demo derby should generate several whiplash cases. But they don’t – why?

Horses have a mind of their own. They can be real gentle and sometimes dangerous. Michael should have had his aunt right there guiding the horse, because the child doesn’t really know anything about them.

It is good to use safety equipment if you are still teaching them they can still get hurt just less severely. There has to be balance, teach caution, to do things safely, but don’t make scared little wimps out of them.

gmartin997 said, about 10 hours ago

I haven’t rented a horse since the 60’s when I rented a horse from a local stables I discovered had been a circus horse. It would rear up like Lone Ranger and Silver if you touched its sides just right, and I loved it. But, after my ride, four cowboys came running out of the stables and beat that horse mercilessly with leather straps. I yelled, “What are you doing?” They said they were trying to break the horse from what he had learned in the circus. I never went back. I should have reported them to the ASPCA****************************************************************

Those people were cruel. A circus horse should be retired or else sold to someone who won’t rent him or her out to unsuspecting riders, even if the ride seems fun. It was also dangerous for an inexperienced rider.

My intro to the world of horses and riding occured around 1975 and involved a shetland/welsh – no saddle, no helmet – I was about 5. Going uphill I’d slide off his rear and going downhill I slide off his neck. Suited him fine – he’d just and eat whatever was handy until I managed to pick myself up and clamber back on. For my 20th birthday I bought myself a horse and started doing endurance races.

Hey, I’m not a horse person. Never have ridden one in my life. I’ll take your word for all the data that was gathered in Canada.

But what I do think is that one pays a price for everything one does—whether that something is “good”, “bad”, or indifferent. the price may not always be money; but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there. Reasonableness to me means that the price is worth the gain for a great majority of the affected population (not just 50.1%). Personally,I don’t tend to like rules that are promulgated with a very small population in mind. With the “zero risk” mentality, sporadic violations tend to be portrayed as frequent and imperatively controlled. And often ever-tightening rules tend to produce more violators and not improve safety.

I think we all know crazy types who violate common sense rules and have come out OK. My wife is a textbook example of a safety law violator caught in the middle of things. Our state has a shoulder harness requirement. But also somewhere in there is the requirement to wear “according to manufacturer recommendations”. If she does that, she’s not supposed to use a shoulder harness—period. So she doesn’t. She relies on the lap belts and air bags. With the new air bags, this isn’t a problem. But older ones were sufficiently strong in opening that they would have hurt her worse than anything but a high speed head on. We tried to have a switch put on the air bags in one of our older cars; but nobody would do it—even the only place in our area licensed to. For a while, we were in the position that most of the “safety” featuresin her car made her less safe. So I’ve got a bit of exposure to well-meaning stuff causing problems.

Okay Mike,if you know how to ride a horse,then you should learn to pull up the reins and prevent your horse from grazing. Ah…. I remember reading today’s strip back in 1983. I was 12 back then. Oh, if it were done today, Mike would be wearing a helmet.

Staying on the subject of horses, but off this strip: Dan Blocker, the late “Bonanza” actor (Hoss Cartwright) and I (now) are of comparable size. I do not ride horses any more. Last time I rode was while on R&R in Australia in 1970. When I did rid, I admit to being a rank amateur. Today, when I see a horse (from the other side of a fence) i get the feeling that it must be looking at me much as I believe Dan’s horses looked at him, “You have GOT to be kidding me! Oh, my aching back! already! Please, Dear God, let him pick someone else to get on! Pul-eeze!”

When I was very young, my Great Grandmother (I am told) had an old plow mare, who was put out to pasture and retirement. She also had a stinking rooster that hated my guts. One day, the rooster caught me without an adult around, and chased me. I ran under that mare and scared her. She brought her hind legs up, and when they came down, one grazed me. The other came down square on the danged rooster, and (as Jerry Clower used to say) “killed him grave yard dead!” The mare was nuzzling me on the ground when Granma came up, and I’m told we had a great chicken dinner that night. Still have a slight scar on the side of my head. Maybe it came from that mare.

tjcurr, I have the same problem. It makes me sad that I can’t give my kids the freedom I had when I was young, but I think that nowadays, responsibility weighs more heavily on parents’ shoulders. Even during pregnancy, we are constantly told what to do (and what not to do under any circumstances!) so as not to endanger our children. If something does happen, society is quick to point the finger.

I grew up on horses in the 40s, 50s and 60s, riding mostly bareback. No helmets back then…I was lucky if I wore shoes! Then when I was in my 30s I learned to jump. I started wearing helmets then. I have been teaching jumping for 30 years and wouldn’t dream of letting a kid jump a horse without a helmet. But when we just go out trail riding, we don’t wear helmets (too danged hot in AZ).

I believe in using helmets in high risk sports, and I require ALL my beginning riders to wear them because they are much more likely to take spills. I am 70 now and always wear a helmet when working in the ring, even though I don’t jump any more. (Arthritis!) I usually don’t wear one when trail riding, although on certain mountain trails I wear one.

@rshiveIn 2002 I was rear-ended by a semi in my Ford Escort. I was wearing a seatbelt and shoulder harness and walked away with a little whiplash and 4 stitches in my scalp where the door post buckled in and cut the top of my head. The semi-driver was not wearing a seatbelt and was airlifted out and had over 100 stitches.

Several years ago, there was a cartoon entitled THE OHSA COWBOY: With the horse fitted with roll bars and towing a pollution control device. Sorry I don’t have it handy.