A few weeks back, I was tooling around the internet and wandered on to Veganville (make no bones about it we’re Vegan), a blog owned by a long lost friend from 25 years ago. She was having a contest in the sodium is your friend series, that involved The  Dick Van Dyke Show.  Being a B&W sitcom fan I knew the answer, but was torn about taking vegan cookies from an actual vegan reader, because I am the exact opposite of a vegan (McDouble with small fries, that’s $2.14 please). So I had Mr. Peabody enter (horses are the epitome of Vegan) and he took an honorable mention and won some cookies.

When I got Mr. Peabody, he was nameless, had no papers, no history and we spent several week trying to name him. An alleged ranch horse from Texas (Tex, Dallas, Houston), but not really being sure of his history it could have been Rest-Stop, Fire Hydrant or Phone Pole. He was very spooky so Little often came up, and he had those blue eyes so Frank was always in the mix. When he wasn’t covered with mud he looked very neat, like he was wearing a suit, and being big Seinfeld fans, Mr. Peterman (see Little Jerry the Goat) was a strong contender. During this naming period, a few people in the know, told me how smart this horse was and Mr. Peterman morphed to Mr. Peabody, the genius cartoon dog with his boy Sherman, and so Mr. P was named.

The eye rolls from the barn folk were palpable when they were told his new name, but we had a nameplate made for his stall, and it was official.  A funny thing happened; within months there was only Mr. Peabody. When I played in the barn Gymkhanas, the cheers from the fans were Go Laura, Ride-em Emma, nice job Denise, and Gooo Mr. Peabody. During my English Riding Period last summer (yes, there are pictures) while Sarah and Jen won ribbons it was  Mr. Peabody who won the pink (this time he rolled his eyes).

I would hear whispers of “he owns Mr. Peabody” from the 12-16 year old girls I rode against, and the constant questions did you bring Mr. P? and how’s Mr. Peabody? and of course where’s Mr Peabody? One of the people who ran the show, would actually ask me, How’d you do Frank?, which would have been great if my name was actually Frank!

My wife and I got back from our leisurely drive in the country on Friday I went into the barn and I saw a box in front of Mr. P’s stall. Seeing how I haven’t written about finding Mr. Peabody with a shock collar around his neck at a past boarding facility, I was confident it wasn’t a pipe bomb. It seems that the Martha Made a Mint vegan cookies (which Mr. P LOVES), were delivered, by our mailman, not to our mailbox, but right to Mr. Peabody’s stall.

If this keeps up, I’ll have to get Mr. P a bigger halter.