I remember when old Jake (who was tired of my Dad trying to get him off the sauce) told My Dad to “get down off yer high horse”.
At that age I didn’t understand why he’d say that. We only had ponies and they were not ‘specially high even for Welshes. One time when I was about four we had Dixie, a Quarterhorse – but that was in Alabama and Jake didn’t even know us then. How come he’d want my dad off a pony even when he wasn’t on one at the time.
As I got up in the middle school years, I grew to understand the expression, not only as the way Rich kids (who thought their snot wasn’t green) thought of me but also how I thought of kids who didn’t go by the exacting moral code that I had known since my birth.
When kids would want to snitch drinks from the Duck Inn, I would tell them how stealing was wrong and how it would only hurt the family that owned the tiny country store.
Kids would tell me to get off my high horse.
I was talking with my Dad about why some people didn’t do what was right and how many of these people never got caught and some unscrupulous folks got rich doing it.
My dad, reflecting on how folks didn’t quite understand why we always did what was right and why we spoke out against those that were wrong said this to me:
“When all you got is your high horse, it’s perty durn hard to come down off it!”