What a wheel of a deal!

My mother is going to Louisville next week. She’ll be attending the Arabian National Horse Show, which will never again be held in Kentucky. For as long as I can remember, the Nationals venue has alternated between Albuquerque, N. Mex., and Louisville.

Mother attended her first Arabian National Show back in the early ‘60s with her friends, Etta Balch and Pearl Irwin. That year the Balches had a mare named Lisa who had placed highly enough at Regional shows, with veteran horsewoman Pearl at the controls, that she was eligible for the Nationals. At the last minute, Mother got a call----one of the hundreds she received over the years----from Etta.

They needed another driver to help transport Lisa to Albuquerque. Of course, Mother’s the gene donor for all of us who don’t mind taking off on a good adventure at a moment’s notice. Within minutes of Etta’s call, Mother was headed to IGA to pick up some new undies (always an essential for a trip) and other supplies for the week away from home. Within hours, she was on her way down the road with her two friends and the young gray mare. She’d never pulled a horse trailer, by the way.

Apparently, she learned fast. Without incident, they arrived in Albuquerque where gorgeous Arabians and their entourages from all over the nation had congregated. After a few days at the show, they returned with Lisa and a Top Ten ribbon for English pleasure. Mother later wrote a story about the trip for the local paper.

She probably doesn’t know it, but that story inspired me as a journalist. She knew how to write the all-important first line and nailed a good one. I always used that poignant story as a model for my own personal style of feature writing. Her tales of the grand time at the big show inspired more than me. My little sisters were listening too.

As the years passed, I had an opportunity to go to a national horse event---the Youth Horse Congress in Dallas, Tex. Like Mother, I came home and told the stories. My sisters were still listening. They took it to heart and in 1977 attended their first Arabian Nationals in Albuquerque as youth judges. I was their coach.

That team of Barbara, Laurie, Janice Wood Schoonover and Kim Lewis Cox set the precedent for a long line of local youth horse judging teams who, then under Barbara’s coaching, have attended and won lots of loot at Arabian Nationals in both Albuquerque and Louisville. We cannot forget the time when one of our own horses, Rishmah, and his loving rider and owner Laurie Tibbs took the trip to Albuquerque and came back with a Top Ten ribbon and plaque for Show Hack competition.

It’s been 30-plus years since that spontaneous trip our mother took to Albuquerque for her first-ever Arabian Nationals. This year when she goes to Louisville’s last-ever big show, Barbara will be taking her to lots of other horse venues in Thoroughbred racing’s hometown. It’s not as easy for my mother as it was back in the ‘70s to hop in a car and go. With her bad knee and her cane, she has to do some extra planning. To make the trip more comfortable, she’ll be taking along a fold-up wheel chair instead of a horse trailer.

That’s where the Senior Citizens’ Center of Sandpoint comes into the picture. We’ve learned that they have an assortment of wheelchairs which they loan out. It seems that people donate the chairs to the center when they’re no longer needed. Mother was told yesterday by staff member Barbara Spade to keep her chair as long as she needs it---even months or years, if necessary.

We’re all impressed with this wonderful community service, and I promised Barbara I’d get the word out because we’d never heard of it until this past week. Seems some junior citizen high schoolers were borrowing the chairs for their SHS Homecoming dress-up days as senior citizens. My sister Barbara asked them few questions about the source for their props, and the next day we were at the center picking out a chair for Mother.

So, if you ever need a wheelchair, you can contact the center and if you have a wheelchair you don’t need, you can do the same and donate. They’ll be happy to comply either way.

In the meantime, my mother will have wheels wherever she goes in Kentucky horse land, and one more time she can come home with stories that continue to inspire us all.

Thank you, Senior Citizens Center.