Giving Free Rein to Male Image Search

Like a lot of boys and men, I grew up much influenced by the more obvious forms of the “male image.”

As a 6-year-old, I was constantly playing Army, lugging a plastic gun around the neighborhood, looking for fascists. A little later, I got a cowboy style “Fanner-Fifty” six-gun and holster, which I wore slung low, and practiced many hours at the quick draw and attendant deadly, squint-eyed stare. I was good.

Of course, there was the Steve Canyon jet helmet that turned me into a fighter pilot, a child’s plastic bow and arrow set that transformed me into Cochise, a battalion of miniature plastic tanks that gave me a taste of Pattonhood, a large plastic knife that brought to mind Tarzan stabbing the alligator underwater (my brother played the gator), gladiator helmets and swords that returned me to the glory of ancient Rome, plastic Civil War weaponry that magically changed our suburban Tustin household into a tragic Shiloh of the imagination.

Being a hero was mandatory, easy to do and affordable. More or less, it kept you out of trouble. None of the neighborhood parents, in those far-off days, worried that by buying their kid a toy six-gun, the kid would actually turn out to be a gunfighter, though I suspect that a lot of those boys would--in their hearts of hearts--rather be gunfighters than perform the dreary jobs they hold as adults. Who wouldn’t?

As I reached high school, my male role models suddenly went from the imaginary to the real. What a letdown.

Gone were the days of Army and the Old West. Forgotten were the fury of Cochise, the trials of Hercules, the glum existential resolve of Sgt. Saunders on “Combat.”

Instead, I was supposed to canonize the quarterback of the football team (a moron with a fair arm), and, well, what? Dream of the day when my skinny body, thin neck and wobbly knees would catapult me to stardom on the gridiron, in a patently boring game revolving around punts and real estate? Sure, there was Muhammad Ali, but I was too small, too weak, too white, and Sonny Liston terrified me.

The world of college and pop culture did little for my male image search. To play it straight and emulate my literary heroes, I would have had to become a dead genius, two criteria I had little chance of meeting as an undergrad with a healthy body and mediocre SAT scores. Anyway, Joyce was a great writer, but he had bad eyes and carried around his wife’s underwear in his pocket.

Turning to the counterculture, I could certainly wear flannel shirts, grow my hair and affect a stoner’s countenance but could never remember if “Heart of Gold” went C-F-G or F-C-D and, truly, I wasn’t much drawn to being a miner anyway.

At some point, most adults realize that it’s too time-consuming to live their lives while trying to be somebody else, too. But that burning desire to step into the hero’s shoes never really goes away, which is what led me a few weeks ago to the Club riding school at Sycamore Trails Stables in San Juan Capistrano, determined to learn how to ride a horse.

With a little time on my hands of late, I’d been keeping out a keen eye for an interesting frame in which to put myself, a fresh context, something challenging, something new, something . . . manly. Happily, I had been given two riding lessons as a birthday present by a good friend, one of the Club’s apprentice instructors, Donna Shabdue.

I made the appointment, struggled into a pair of cowboy boots and drove out to Sycamore Trails. Heretofore, my experience with horses had been comprised of two events--one unhappy and one tragic.

As a 10-year-old on Grandma Mae’s farm in Ohio, I’d mounted a barnyard pony that simply walked over to the fence and rubbed me off like I was a piece of chewing gum stuck to his side. As a 30-year-old, I watched a horse up in Mendocino County throw and trample to death its rider, a young girl named Julie.

This time, I was given Hudson. Hudson is 17-plus hands, 20-something-years-old and was saved from slaughter not long ago, then taken to Sycamore Trails and fattened up. His reputation is as a gentle and tolerant animal who can abide fools like me. At our introduction he regarded me with huge soulful eyes and an expression of uncensored distrust. I ran my hand down his neck, truly amazed at how strong this animal was. We brushed him down, saddled him up and led him to the arena.

My first idea, once on horseback, was wow, that’s a long way down. I recalled Thomas McGuane’s remark about how for a rider, after age 30, the ground just keeps getting farther away and harder. I kept hearing my wrist bone snap. I grabbed for the saddle horn, but there was none, Donna having decided I should begin English style. Hudson glanced back at me like a getaway driver looking for cops.

Donna regarded me with amusement and announced that I was about to “enter the Outer Limits,” something about losing control of my seat, then proceeded to lead Hudson in a circle around her while I sat atop the brute. I asked her how many students got thrown this week and she said just one, from whom Donna had extracted 25 cents for the offense of falling. I offered her a tenner if she’d make sure I didn’t. No deal.

Around me whizzed 10-year-old girls having fun, a concept that abandoned me the second Hudson began moving and Donna ordered me to sit up straight, put my hands on my hips and not look at the ground. “Look at the dirt, and that’s where you’re going,” she said comfortingly.

I mastered the walk in a few minutes, not falling off. Next came the trot, for which I was allowed to hold onto these little cloth handles on the saddle pad, and pray. The seated trot went pretty well, but the other one--the posting trot--can be a bit punishing if you time the fall of your hips to coincide with the rise of the animal’s back. One envisions the eunuch’s options.

I was given the reins. For a few moments during the posting trot . . . the kind you do up on the irons, in rhythm with the horse . . . I got a taste of how a true horseman feels. I was tall in the saddle. I had a thousand and some odd pounds of horseflesh nominally under control.

Before me stretched not the parking lot of Sycamore Trails Stables and suburban Orange County, but the open prairie of the West, bad guys fleeing up ahead, my best friends galloping alongside and we’re all dressed really bitchin’ like in “The Long Riders,” heading for a saloon staffed by corsetted ladies who will smile adoringly at us when we dismount and tie up to the hitchin’ post, then allow us to drink whiskey, play poker and shoot card cheats until closing time. What a life!

Unfortunately, Hudson chose this moment to hit the brakes, rear and prepare to attack another horse that had come into his space. My Old West, male-image reverie was shrunk to the unheroic fact that I was only a nervous dope yanking the reins of poor spooked Hudson and holding on for dear life. He steered around the invader, and I got off as soon as I could, proud--and thankful--that I had survived.

I’ve yet to schedule lesson No. 2.

I’ve given some thought lately to the idea of quitting while ahead. The thought has come that I’m too old for a career as a horseman, that perhaps I should just stick to the tasks at hand. I can write a paragraph, do the laundry or read a book as good as the next guy. But where’s the fun in that?

Already I can feel the lure of trying it again, leaving the routine of the everyday behind and lighting out--atop Hudson, boots a’glistenin’ and dust flying in the wind of our gallop--for the territory.