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Proud as a Pilot Who Patched the Windshield With Duct Tape

Published October 8, 2005

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

The evening after Rick of Rick’s Rodent Ranch told me that jumbo rats bite and gave me a new bridle to replace my old one because it was wearing out, I sat down to put it together.

When I tried to swap the bit from Woody’s old bridle to the new one, I discovered it wouldn’t fit. The cheek pieces that hold the bit were too wide and stiff to fit through the rings in the bit.

I sure wasn’t going to carve away at it like a Boer with my Leatherman.

So I made tea.

When things go wrong or I need to think, I resort to tea. I break out my old Optimus gas stove, brew up a cup, and survey life through the swirl of brown.

Halfway through my Lipton, it dawned on me that if I steeped my bridle in hot tea I could soften the leather enough to make it pass through the bit.

Bernie Harberts softening a leather bridle in boiling tea on an Optimus stove in Apache, Oklahoma, 2004 — Tea time.

It worked.

A few days later one of the conchos fell off. The conchos are what keep the bit fastened to the bridle.

I was tacking up Woody in the Apache Warriors infield. I’d slept in the left field dugout. The bit was in his mouth when it just fell out and hit the ground.

Hmmm. I searched and searched but couldn’t find the missing concho fastener. No dice.

So I grabbed a pair of sunglass frames off the foul line. It was one of those cheap brass wire jobs. I cut off the left eyepiece and wired my bit back on with that.

Bernie Harberts repairing Woody's bridle with sunglasses frames in Apache, Oklahoma, 2004 — Shady bridle repair.

Then I rode into town proud as an airliner pilot who’d just saved the 747 by patching the windshield with duct tape.

I rode Woody up to the Apache Farmers’ Co-op for some grain. Full of swagger, I bragged about my slip-shod repair.

It must have shocked them because Keith McGraw gave me the grain for free and the fine folks even repaired my bridle.

This time with twin matching conchos.

And Loctite thread fastener.

(Thanks Keith and Debra and Barbara for the grain and the concho and the silver dollar!)

More on the Atlantic to Pacific mule ride.

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