The best horsemen are the shortest ones, you see. If you can leap to mount your steed, long legs are only a burden, then!

Much to my ever-incense chagrin, my brawn and height rendered me nearly incapable of performing the tricks any competent Cossack knew. This put me behind my normally endowed peers. I envied those lithe, springy lads!

I once attempted to "slip under the saddle" to impress some of the older men who watched me (and to impress one of the pretty granddaughter of one of the men) but ended up tumbling under a tangle hooves of my horse and barreling down with a mouthful of steppe ground.

The only field I couldn't be bested in the saddle was lancing.

It demanded a sound, iron-like grip on the handle you secured under your arm and in the grip of your hand- and it was vital your center on the saddle remained fixed, like a lynchpin. When I was in the saddle, my leg muscles riveted my body to that horse and leather.

Only an act of God could shake me from that saddle. 

For once, I was grateful for my strength when I first practiced lancing.

It was a skill I could finally master with my lumbersome self.

The only drawback I can grouse about was that whenever we set for a mock-lance practice on the field, the other boys, (I learned later from a drunk friend years later) would draw straws who would go against me in practice.

So my peers generally feared me and feared my strength might send them to an early grave if they were the sorry soul paired sparring with me.

I resented that when my friend revealed this.  But in hindsight, how I can blame those boys? I ‘d be scared of myself too!

I think I'm more like a draft horse than anything else. My peers were like those sleek, lithe parade horses who have names after colors and adjectives. 

Even my appetite in my youth was voracious.

Yes, before Lent, I smuggled those pancakes, soaked in butter,  and would wolf them down before a schoolmaster wielding an all too-eager crop would catch me. 

Meat, I was especially fond of. I could swallow a cutlet the size of your hand with only two bites. As I grew older, food lost its charm and pride made me hold back- a man can't be a glutton and be thought highly of.  Still, I can swallow a cutlet into two bites.

Of course, it's clear my peers feared me.

I can never remember being bullied- and if I had to bully my way, it took little effort. I can't remember ever dealing a blow to any of my peers. All I needed was to stand straight and glare at them- then they eagerly complied with a good dose of intimidation and nervous laughs.