it's a tough job ...

Like the other reporters and editors at the T-G, I've been running around to walking horse stables, inteviewing owners and trainers, and writing stories for our big Celebration special.

Unlike most of the other reporters and editors, I've been loving every minute of it -- especially since I hijacked my husband's vehicle and get to do this in air conditioning!

I was one of those horse-crazy girls. I got my first walking pony when I was 10 and traded up for a walking horse when I was 12. I've been thrown off, stepped on, bitten, kicked, head-butted, snotted on -- just about any painful and degrading horse-related incident, and I was there.

I wouldn't trade that childhood for a lifetime in the Bahamas.

I'd get up at dawn, saddle Shadow and hit the road with other horse-crazy girls. We'd terrorize the neighborhoods, get Cokes at the Sonic, explore the disappearing wilderness around Ledford Mill, and stagger home at dusk, smelling of horse, sweat and leather.

It's sad how times change -- I wouldn't dream of letting my youngest, almost 10, go haring off into the world on the back of a contrary four-legged beastie. Yet, 30-mumble-mumble-years ago, that's what I was doing, and the worst thing that ever happened to me was walking three miles to get home because I didn't hang on to the reins when I got tossed.

I had my mare until my sophomore year in college. She got out of a field and hit by a car and had to be put down with two broken legs. It destroyed me -- she was the last link I had to my father, who had died five years before.

I've already warned my husband -- when we win the lottery, there will be horses. In the meantime, I get to satisfy the craving by visiting the barns and playing with the champs.

Maybe next time, the editor willl assign me another tough, grueling, horrible job like this one.

Maybe covering a chocolate taste-testing, or interviewing William Shatner when he comes to town ... Or, gasp! I might have to cover Lane Davies' performance in "Sweeney Todd."

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.