I had no idea there were any horses in Burien but somebody told me of one tucked into a corral in a cul- de-sac up near Lake Burien.

So I talked Elsbeth into driving around till we found him. It was a horse all right, standing alongside a fence with a lonely look on his long face.

I had no idea who owned him or how he got there so I got out of the car quietly, took a long distance picture and sauntered over to the fence and the horse looked at me and his eyes blinked and he shouted at me, " Jerry, Jerry, where have you been? It's me, Jake. Don't you remember me? We were best buddies growing up. We did everything together. And we swore to each other we would get back together after we died."

I was stunned and said, "Jake, is that really you? You came back as a horse? A swaybacked horse?"

"Yep, it's has been tough. My owner has a heavy wagon. He drives around the streets gathering discards and buying and selling them in the neighborhood. I pull his wagon. It is a tough life."

Then he noticed Elsbeth sitting in my car and said," I see you have a beautiful wife. You lucky guy"

I was proud and said," Yep, I am lucky and I do remember our pact but if your owner knew you could talk maybe he would treat you better. I will find him and tell him."

He said, "No, old friend, please don't tell him I can talk. He will have me hollering JUNK-- JUNK."

So I agreed to keep it a secret from his owner and noticed Elsbeth beckoning me from the car so I went to see what she wanted.

She was just tired of waiting.

Then I told her of my reunion with my old friend.

She was so pleased for me and said, "I hope you had the good manners to invite him to the house for lunch. The rain has made our front yard grass really high."