Another 4H Story

Soldiers Angels gave Jesse a kewl soldier this time around. She has been emailing him and sending him packages for a couple of months. The other day, she got a package from him. He had sent her a T-shirt designed by a soldier in his company. This morning Jesse wore the T-shirt and posed for these pictures. Keep in mind that the motorcycle shot was posed. Jesse does wear her gear when riding.

Since I told you about 4H Horse Camp, I thought I would tell you another funny story. Hopefully I have not told it before – you know I’m getting older and more forgetful.

We were a part of the Colfax County 4H, which included Cimarron, NM, as well as Springer and Raton. Kids from the whole county participating in horse camp. We knew the kids from other towns pretty well from participating in other 4H events. There were several young ladies in this group. Sharing the large dorm room, sleeping in bunk beds, fighting over showers and mirror space helped us to get to know these girls even better. For whatever reason, I decided to play a trick on the girls. I short-sheeted their beds while they were out riding at Horse Camp, which was not easily done since they did not make up their beds very well. That night before "lights out" the girls were doing the typical teen-age talking thing, but did not get into their beds until the lights actually went out. All was quite. Then I heard the shuffling of bed covers and the creaking of the bunk beds. Then I heard one little girl get out of bed, find her way over to the other’s bunk, and whisper, "I can’t get into my bed; I think someone short-sheeted my bunk!" The other little girl whispered back, "Yeah, I can’t get into bed either!" There was much whispering and giggling at this point, but I remained quiet. The next morning the "outrage" was well voiced, yet the girls seemed so excited that someone had played a trick on them – I continued my silence. This went on all day long with the girls trying to figure out "who dun it." One of the other mothers came to me a little worried about the situation, so I had to ‘fess up that it was me who had short-sheeted the beds. Then the mom laughed and loved that I had played the trick on her girls. She "let it slip" that I had been the culprit, and the girls wanted to play a trick on me. With all the whispering and giggling, it was not hard to know they were up to something. I even figured out the "when and where" but did not want to spoil their fun. I played along. They covered my bunk with paper-towels and toilet paper while I was out. I appropriately found the mess and acted outraged. The girls loved it. From then on, I had to be on guard at all the 4H events – so did they.