Nov-Dec 2009 Klaxon - Midwestern Council of Sports Car Clubs

Beware the pony czar ... and stuff by Hal AdkinsAll these appointed governmental “czars” that have been foisted upon us in recent months — many ofthem apparent bottom feeders according to their resumes and past and present associations — arenothing new to me as I had my first dust-up with assigned authority run a muck way back when I wassingle digits in age.About the best thing that could happen to us town kids was to have your parents rent a pony for aperiod of time during the summer. The next best thing was to have a neighbor kid’s parents rent one ...or maybe that was actually the best thing after all, as you would not have to do the feeding, wateringand shovel stuff.So the neighbor kids’ dad got them a pony with an attitude problem for a month. Actually I think thepony had issues his entire life, but nasty attitude or not, we were all having a ball, the ponynotwithstanding, taking turns riding this surly beast around. And when I say around, I don’t meanaround town or even the neighborhood. Oh noooo! We rode it in a rectangular pattern around a gardenin their backyard as that was the only place allowed. This undoubtedly further ticked off the pony. Wellit was better than pedaling our bikes, although it required much the same energy to get the animalmoving, and peace, harmony and a spirit of cooperation in sharing the rides, for the most part,abounded ... until SHE showed up.SHE was a cousin of the neighbor kids and for one afternoon was thrust upon us by the dad. SHE wasvery polite and charming when adults were around in an Eddie Haskell, “Leave it To Beaver” kind ofway. As SHE was older than the rest of us, maybe 12, the dad put her in charge of the Nasty PonyRide domain — even though we had gotten along without her influence perfectly well all the time beforewith very little parental yelling out the window to remind us to keep the pony watered and that weshould be shoveling stuff and not slinging it at each other.After the adults were out of earshot, SHE took over and laid down the law on how we had to qualify fora ride. As the newly appointed Pony Czar, we did not, of course, call her that but before the day wasdone we came up with a situation appropriate nickname for her that not coincidentally involved