When I grow up I want to be Lindsey.

She was my host and driver this weekend. She’s about five feet tall and shrinking. She’s probably around 80. She’s been a widow for several years and lives with her dogs, cats, horses, and donkeys. She’s wild!

She drove me around in a gigantic pickup truck. She could barely get in it. She uses a huge nail placed through the hole in the key to give her enough leverage for her arthritic hands to turn the key. Once she gets the truck going she gleefully puts it in 4 wheel drive and heads off down the jeep trails cackling all the way. She said it was good for the truck since “it doesn’t get a lot of exercise.”

She used to handle foxhounds and still judges them. She’s an ex-eventer so I know when she was younger she was even more fearless/crazy. Everyone underestimates her at first. When this tiny, stooped, white haired lady approaches someone new they slow down their speech and talk louder. Then she answers them and cackles loudly and they reassess her.

I learned about her redneck neighbors including the ones whose daughter is living there with an ankle bracelet on because “she tried to run down the father of her youngest child – with her truck!” She laughs.

“Did he deserve it?”

“They usually do!” Cackle

She talks about her feeble neighbors – “They’re an older couple.”

She drives her car or golf cart down the sand road to get the mail every day. The road is too bad for the post office to deliver to the driveway. If she doesn’t get her mail the neighbors come to see if she’s alive. That amuses her too. She has to let them know when she’s traveling.

She was full of infectious joy. I want to be her.