This blog is my little 'get away', my vacation from my hectic life, both online and off. Like a trail ride on a spirited horse, it should add a little fun to my life and to anyone else's who happens to stumbled upon it. So, Rie's Ride is a trip to everywhere and to nowhere in particular. My favorite kind of ride!
I am now participating in a wonderful Writers' Workshop and our task for our next meeting is to write about something that no longer exists. The following is from my treasure-house of memories!
The Music Goes On
In the distance, the mournful cry of a peacock could be heard punctuating the laughter of children and the underlying murmur of adults. A gentle breeze drifted through the warm summer evening, caressing everyone with the scent of the park’s pine trees, grassy lawns, and the slightly earthy aroma of the lake. With the exception of several youngsters gleefully running around the perimeter of the semi-circular stone amphitheater, everyone was seated on the faded green park benches, eagerly waiting for the concert to begin.
In stately single file, the musicians emerged from behind the statuesque arborvitae trees that formed the backdrop of the concert stage. The bandmaster appeared last, walking slowly up to the podium as a hush finally settled over the crowd. With great ceremony, he lifted his baton and with this action, the musicians raised their instruments with careful, precise deliberation. On the downbeat, wonderful, glorious music filled the air, snapping everyone to attention with the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner." Needless to say, the entire crowd rose to its feet, hands across their hearts. It was official: the concert had begun!
My own chest swelled with pride at the thrilling strains of the music because that was my father up there at the podium! The leadership of the band fell to him once his own father passed on back in the early 1950’s. Watching him lead the musicians, I could not have felt any prouder!
This is what it was like growing up for me in Newburgh, NY. Once a busy seaport on the mighty Hudson River, Newburgh became a refuge to many America-bound immigrants who arrived first in New York City. Escaping the maddening hustle-bustle of the big city, they moved up-river to communities such as Newburgh, where life proceeded at a much slower pace, and where it was far less crowded. Of those immigrants, my grandparents were two who migrated to America from Italy. Along with them, they brought the gift of music. A graduate of the Rome Conservatory of Music, my father’s father, Grand Dad Giacomo, was a Doctor of Music. Every person in our family, from his generation on down to my own, became a musician of some sort. It was as natural as rain for my family to hold summer concerts – and to march in every parade the city ever held. With most of the band members being of Italian-Catholic descent, this also meant participation in wonderful processions in the summer time, to celebrate the feast days of Sts. Cosmo-Damiano, San Gennaro, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Growing up in a musical family had its good points and more difficult points, too. Every holiday and feast day meant work for us. Parades meant marching in all kinds of weather. Memorial Day in Newburgh could either be bone-numbing cold, or as hot as the middle of summer. No females were allowed in the marching band, but that didn’t mean my mother and I got off Scott-free! We had to help transport musicians from the parade’s end back to the starting point, or to our band rehearsal hall, where their cars waited for them. Also, my mother was the Uniform Concierge and Music Librarian; so, her work continued all year long. In those days, uniforms were lent to the band members so it fell to her to launder them and keep them in good repair. She also kept the music neatly correlated, not an easy task at all. Having married into a musical family, she accepted her role with grace and good spirit. As for a really good point, I don’t think I ever missed a single parade while I was growing up – and I had ‘ring side seats’ for all of them! Ditto for our wonderful concerts in the park!
My family also had our church’s music under its direction, with my father being the Choir Director, his eldest sister the organist. Needless to say, most of the rest of us family members were members of the choir as well. With the exception of my grandmother, this meant double and even triple duty for all of us on holy days because we sang for every high mass. Almost as a reward, a grand and sumptuous feast awaited us back at my grandmother's house, which we all looked forward to with great anticipation. To the day I die, I will always remember the cloying scent of the candles in that church, undercut with the pungent odors of Frankincense and Myrrh, then followed by the delicious aromas, mouth-watering food, and warm camaraderie at Grandma’s.
As for the concerts in the park, they stopped a long time ago, right after my own father passed away. The park is still there, green and lush, with its ducks, geese, grass and flowers. The amphitheater lies silently neglected, slowly giving way to the build up of years. The calls of the lonely peacocks still hover in the air from time to time, but all else is hushed, with the exception of automobiles’ horns and noises, faint yet ever-present, in the background.
Still, I have a wealth of memories to hold on to and to cherish. For me, the music goes on in my mind and my heart, and it always will.
View of Newburgh in 2009. This is the area called The Newburgh
Landing, down by banks of the Hudson River.
The USMA at West Point, NY, lies just to the south of the mountain
Oh, happy day! There was a break in the snow and ice storms long enough for me to actually go to the Senior Center this week. Talk about irony! I no sooner find a bunch of folks -- all under one roof! -- that remember first-hand The Beetles, Love-ins and Sit-ins, and disco, than I was stuck in my house for one entire week, thanks to fouled up Weather Management. Hey, it's all OK. We can only do what we can do, right? Right.
Anyway, for my entry to the Senior Center activities, I tried my hand at the Writing Group. After all, I've been writing a good many years, with much of my work appearing on my web site for the past 15 years; so I figured what the heck, I'd fit right in. From their last meeting, the topic my group-mates chose to write on was "Animals", as in pets, both past and present. Naturally, since this was my first meeting with them, I had brought nothing with me of my writings. Or, so I thought. As each member read his or her story or essay, the room filled with warmth, smiles, and at times, tears. Very talented people, my group mates' writings suddenly inspired me to remember something: I had my cell phone with me, so ergo I had access to my blog, right here on the mighty Web!
Suddenly, all eyes were on moi.
"Do you have anything by chance, Marie, that you would like to share?" asked Audra, our leader. I have a sneaking suspicion today that at that moment, she might have been thinking, "Of course she doesn't, so it's safe to ask!" However, I believe I burst her bubble with my reply.
"Yes! As a matter of fact, I have access to my blog on the 'net, right here on my cell phone!"
Everyone smiled and all of their voices chimed in with requests for me to read something from my blog.
Oh, my goodness! What to pick?? I've done stories here on my pets, including Roxy and Max, my horse and dog, respectively. And, of course, a myriad of critters from my backyard -- not to mention those at the wildlife clinic where I volunteer. What to choose, I wondered. Almost panicking, I opted to find my very first story here, going back to when I began this blog. All I know is that it was quite a few entries ago!
I found it. It's not so easy scrolling around when you are fiddling with a tiny computer screen the same size as a compact mirror! But, eventually I found my first entry, which if you have been following my blog, was on "Wicky the Wat". If you haven't read that series of writings, go back to the beginning of my blog and read them! It took me about 10 or 11 entries in all to finish the tale of Wicky the Wat and it will remain near and dear to my heart, always.
But, for my Writing Group, I only got about 2/3 of the way through my first entry when I realized something. Two of the men in our group were turning almost beet red, trying to hold back laughter! Three of the women were giggling behind Kleenex's, held politely up to their noses and mouths. The leader's eyes almost bore holes into my own, as if to say, "Please tell me -- you have GOT to be kidding! A rat??!" The third man in our group, a guy of about 83 was snoozing away, his head making little bobbing movements. I was impressed he was up, out of bed and out of his house at all, so his nap didn't faze me in the least!
"Er...all I can tell you is that to understand the story, you need to read the whole thing and we don't have nearly enough time today," I answered. With that, everyone began asking me for the URL to my blog! Even though I felt somewhat honored, I also felt a tad embarrassed. After all, what they were about to read was something truly 'out of the norm' for most people's experiences.
I could only hope and pray they'd be happy to see me in two weeks, when our next meeting convenes. I guess I'm going to find out, huh?!
I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that all my life I’ve been out of step. It’s either been that I was too young, or at one point in my life, almost too old. For what, you may ask? Let me explain…
My mother had the bright idea to enroll me in kindergarten at the tender age of 4 years, 7 months. At that age, 5 months can make a big difference, but be that as it may, I started school nearly half a year short of my fifth birthday. It seems that I was ‘smart’, a word they used to use years ago – today they might call it ‘intellectually advanced’ – and so, I did kindergarten virtually standing my on head. By the time first grade rolled around, I was intellectually bored almost mindless, but emotionally it was a whole ‘nuther story! I just couldn’t get the hang of things and always seemed about five steps behind the rest of my classmates socially, which in essence, I truly was (if you count each month as a step). They would sneer at me with derision, calling me a baby and I hadn’t had the social moxie enough to plaster someone square in the nose or face with every child’s standard, cure-all response: “So what?!”
So, I continued throughout my school life in the top percentile of my class, and bearing the additional burden of being ensconced in accelerated classes and programs. By the time I graduated high school, I already had accrued approximately 10 college credits, thanks to a revolutionary program instituted in my last year of school. It seemed the world was my oyster and it was nothing but clear sailing ahead toward a career that promised a life full of rewards and success. However, I was by this point a full year and a half behind my classmates emotionally, and with Italian parents who wanted to keep me close to home and hearth (and out of trouble) seemingly forever. All my peers were 18 or over and able to drink (thankfully, New YorkState’s law on this has long since changed) and party and stay out until after midnight. But, not me. At barely 17, I was ‘too young’. This led to long and bitter battles between my parents and me, but somehow I was always on the losing end of things. My college friends teased me mercilessly, and as I meandered through the musty hallways with my head hung in shame, I bore their taunting with as much grace as I could muster.
I did the only thing I could think of to even up the score a bit: I found a boy who was crazy about me, and we formed a relationship. This was truly the beginning of a very long, tortuous journey for me which included my dropping out of college, and getting married (and later on, divorced) at far too young an age. The only saving grace was the birth of my four children, all of which I had by the time I was just 23. Again, I was way too young for such a weighty responsibility. But, I had my youth on my side, as I realized years later. Being such a young parent, I had the energy of the Gods and was able to go non-stop virtually around the clock for days, weeks, and months on end. These days, if I can manage going through the day without at least a little cat-nap, it’s almost a miracle!
At any rate, we were the youngest family in the neighborhood where we bought our first home. My older neighbors would cluck their tongues and shake their heads at the ‘noise and bother’ of the new young family on the block. Again, I felt like a pariah and slightly on the outside of things. But, I persevered.
Many years later, as my kids advanced through their own school years, I had the somewhat disquieting experience of being one of the youngest parents around. I didn’t really appreciate it fully then, fool that I was, but actually most of my kids’ friends’ parents were 5 to 10 years older than me. They, too, tended to treat me as if I were a kid myself. I used to ask myself, “WHEN am I going to be ‘old enough’?” Silly youngster that I was! It was coming….just waiting for me….right around the corner….
Well, my children went on, grew up, went to college and/or married and had kids of their own. Only this time, I had the distinct advantage of being one of the youngest grandparents around! NOW, it was starting to be a bit of fun! Still young enough to really enjoy my grandchildren, I can continue to cope with my own grown kids’ problems and pitfalls, and to realize with relief that they are all eventually going to learn from their own experiences.
Not so long ago, my second husband and I moved into our new home (we were DINKS – ‘double income, no kids at home’) and for the first time in my life, I was almost, but not quite, in the ‘too old’ category! Everyone around us was busy raising their families; but I went on to enjoy my home, my gardens, activities, and my comparative freedom, much to their longing glances and consternation.
I will never forget my 30th. high school reunion. I looked around me and saw my peers looking about 10 to 20 years older than they truly were, and worse yet, acting like it. Some had the audacity to look at me with a kind of derision, as if I were doing something purposely to make them look bad! But, I wasn’t doing anything of the sort: I was just being my age – which I began to realize at long last, with delight and more than a bit of pride, that I was almost a full two years younger than the rest of them!
So, guess what? It may have taken me a lifetime, but I not only caught up to them, so to speak, but I remained what I always was: younger than them! Because my life was full of problems that I had to learn to overcome (not the least of which is osteoncecrosis, a disease where bones and joints are dying or have died and have been replaced, and then a full- out battle with cancer), it toughened me and gave me resiliency. Instead of wearing me down, my challenges only made me rise up to meet each one. And, I discovered, this is the true ‘fountain of youth’, the ability to persevere and never to quit, no matter what life throws at you.
Very happily, I can now say with glee and a huge grin that I am almost ‘too young’ once again. I just joined our local senior center this week and, as I expected, I am one of the youngest there (age to join is 55 and up).
I would LOVE to send out one of those “Christmas Letters” to my friends, but honestly, I don’t want to bring anybody down! This one couple we know has sent us a Christmas letter every year for the past 12 years and frankly, they are so depressing that for a while there I was considering changing my religion, or worse, moving and not leaving a forwarding address!
Each year, it was the same thing: their home-schooled (of course!!), piano-playing, karate practicing, Green Space champion award- winning, and smarter-than-any-kids-who-have-ever-lived children are nothing but divinely phenomenal. The whole family managed once again to travel all over the world, sometimes even two or three times in one year; either the husband or wife (or both) won an award for something, and it was nothing but blue skies and sunny days for their family, by gosh! It’s enough to give me serious gas, crossed eyes, and to make me consider turning in my membership card to the Human Race.
In my family, in any given year at least three of my four grown children are not speaking to one another. I consider it miraculous some of them have managed to learn speak the English language at all (REAL English, not that texting shorthand stuff – u no?) and that at least two of them actually know more words than merely, “I’m broke – please send cash”. As for travel, with my husband’s and my physical challenges, I seriously applaud him for his continually getting up in the morning and going in to work every day, day in and day out. He’s a chain-smoking executive with some ugly breathing issues, and has high blood pressure, a foul temper, and more arthritis in his body than he has bones! And, as for me, it’s a red letter day when I can crutch-walk to my car and actually drive for a few miles before my legs go totally numb from the pain (Yeah…I know. Only those of us with AVN know what I mean!) . “Oh, wow! I made it to Shop Rite and back!” Now, that’s newsworthy in our house!
As for winning contests or awards, my family is right up there jockeying for the top spot. I can just see it in my family newsletter:
“I beat not one, but two traffic tickets this year! My prize hosta plant would have won a local gardening contest, but it got turned into a tossed salad by a furious groundhog being chased by my over-zealous dog. My husband did not slap our well-meaning but foot–in-mouth young neighbor silly, the young guy who goofed and referred to him as ‘an older man’ Life was good to us in 2010!”
And, as for my kids and grandkids, well…what can I say? My kids have to answer for their own sins, mistakes, and what-not, but my grandkids are perfect! Now, I ask you: how can I put that in a newsletter? Who would believe me?? Hey…these people know my family! I don’t stand a chance in the bragging department, even if it is really and truly true that my grandkids are perfect! There just isn’t enough else to hold people’s interest or to make it digestible. So, once again, it was simple snowmen or Christmas scenery Christmas cards that got sent out by me this year. They are safe – they say it all and simply that all is right with my family’s world.
I suppose it’s true that family Christmas newsletters do serve a purpose, however. They might be the motivators that keep us striving for that elusive quality called “hope.” Each year I build up hope that someone in our family will do something simply amazing, something I can force down others’ gullets with a smug, self satisfied, “There! I told you so!” grin at Christmas-time: “Put that in your pipe, Santa, and smoke it!”
All I can do is simply wish others a wonderful holiday and just go on loving my family for who they are and for what they mean to me. If others can’t see the greatness in them without my having to say so, then that’s their loss. I know how great they are -- and just as importantly, they know how great they are -- and really, that’s what counts.
So, if this is your lot in life – getting those Christmas family newsletters which only missing feature is a diamond-studded, dripping, oozing 24 carat gold plating -- don’t let it worry you. If it makes others feel better seeing in print what they believe in their minds, then more power to them. If that’s what they need to do to convince themselves and make themselves feel good in their hearts, then in all seriousness, God bless them. As for me and mine, we admit we are human, and we are proud to be human. We will continue to take life as it comes and to muddle through somehow. We will take the bad with the good, toss out what we don’t need and keep the rest, learn from our mistakes, and then hope for the best. So far, it’s a system that has worked fairly well. It’s the only one we know and I can’t see writing that in a newsletter year after year. Besides, it’s not really ‘news’ – it’s just the way life is, and that’s good enough for me and mine. Honestly, if you don’t ‘get it’ or understand it by the age of 20, then you never will.
Please…put down the pen, and have a very Merry Christmas!
Once again, the world is marching along, doing its thing, and there I am, somewhere in the very back row. I’m so far back that by the time the sound of the beating drum reaches me, it is tomorrow already! I’m used to this because I am convinced that when God built me he installed a defective timer switch. It is nothing new for me to be out of step, in the wrong time -frame of things. I’m usually either far ahead of the crowd or so far behind in the race that I thought I was in the lead! Well, Life did it to me again, only this time it has now found a very clever way to steal my so-called ‘free time’ and it is making me work like crazy at having what I am loosely going to call “fun”. It’s about as much ‘fun’ as a recurring yeast infection! But, I digress…..
I’m talking about this fad/craze, gray hair- producing and time-consuming game called “Farmville.” Oh, don’t let the cutesy name fool you! There is nothing “Ville”- like about this game! “Ville” denotes to most of us a cozy little burg, somewhere out in the blue sky, green grass country where people square-dance, bake each other pies, cheerfully call out “Howdy!” to each other, and raise one another’s barns – all very comfy-cozy, right? Don’t you believe it! This game is designed to make you worry, fret, lose sleep, and to permanently attach your computer to your hip (or lap, depending on the model) and never, EVER be without it because, God forbid, one of your crops might be ready to harvest!! And, if you’re not there to harvest them, look out!!!! They will wither! So what, you say? So, you’ve just blown a whole bunch of your Farmville bucks (fake) money on wasted crops.
And…if you are truly serious about this game, you will take that plunge and start trading in your fake play money for the REAL THING. You will ‘feed’ your Farmville venture with real money because you want to get ahead! Yup, you heard me. This sneaky game really does expect its players to BUY what they call “farm dollars” so that the players can build bigger, better, more productive and more lavish farms! What a devious plan!! I want the guy who wrote Farmville to come manage my non profit organization! All this time, I’ve been doing it the hard way, asking people to please donate to our cause. Little did I know that all I had to do was to offer them a game, for Pete’s sakes, where they would actually spend real money, so that they could get ahead and prosper – all online, of course, and in a fictitious endeavor at that! How deliciously, deliriously, and decadently devious! And here I thought giving my members an online library of more than 3 gigabytes of information on our rare disease, as well as a fully interactive web site, was a ‘bargain’. Nope. What most people want these days, I am finding out, is to create the GWTW version of Tara without the hassle of fighting a civil war! And....here is the best if not sneakiest part: the game players actually DO help each other!
How ingenious! I ask you: who wants to be a bad neighbor? Not most of us, so we will help fertilize or pick crops, brush farm animals, and harvest trees of their fruit for each other. So, it is not just a singular person playing a singular game. It is an entire community that is being built, person by person, farm by farm, day by day, and literally hour by hour. I know, because like an idiot I got caught up in this and feel as if I am being swallowed up alive!
I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. A couple of our volunteers were unexpectedly MIA over the past year or so and I found out from some of their “neighbors” (people on our mutual contact lists who also play Farmville – it’s like a HUGE spider web of people, but if you’ve been on a computer recently, I don’t have to explain what this is like) that they were busy playing games such as Farmville, or FV for short. I remember thinking, “What?” How could a game take up so much time and energy?? Well, let me tell you: I found out! I’ve only been playing about 1 month and what happened today told me that I need to STOP. Stop right now, before it is too late --and before I lose myself in a make-believe community or, worse yet, that I give in to the urge to actually buy some of those Farmville dollars! I got news for you – this is never going to happen! I’ve worked too long and too hard for my money and there is no way I am going to spend it on an online game when there are games for free, all over the web. Besides, I have real work to do, and people to take care of. FV, step off!
It all came to a screeching halt for me today when in my early morning haze (that is, before my second cup of coffee for the day), I accidentally planted about 40 plots’ worth of cranberries, poinsettias, and some other gunk, without stopping to realize when I’d have to harvest them all.
“Oh crap!” I chided myself when I realized what I had done. At least two of the crops would mature in about 4 hours and I had planned to go out this morning. So, what did I do? I went out, anyway. And was a nervous wreck the whole time!! I could not wait to get back home in time to harvest my crops—or I’d suffer the loss of about $2,000 of my fake FV ‘money’. And, I’d look like a poor farmer to all of my FV neighbors, to boot! And, for all I know, I’d take them all down with me, too!
HOLY COW! That did it for me! I harvested my stupid cranberries and what-not, and on purpose, did not replant anything else. My little Christmas village house thing still doesn’t have its lights, and that’s OK. It’s only Dec. 7, after all. HEY…wait a minute!! There I go again! See what I mean??
Still, I do have about $104K in fake FV bucks, and found myself wishing for that one more additional neighbor so that I could enlarge my farm’s area (Yep…they get you there, too! Fake money isn’t enough – you need to have a certain number of neighbors, too!)
I need to get back out in the real world, I think. Back to the old drawing board; back to trying to figure out what my membership in my own non profit organization needs or wants, or would like to have. And all I can do now is pray that the answer isn’t “Give us a game like Farmville!” Oh, God! Anything but that!!
“There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt
You hear me mention my horse, Roxy, quite a bit both here and on my organization’s web site. I thought you might like to hear how Roxy entered my life, because, let’s face it, it’s not everyone who owns a horse! And, what does a 50+ y/o woman need with a four-legged hay burner, anyway? Trust me in this one: no one was more surprised than I was to suddenly find our family’s number increase by 1. Except for maybe my husband. He says this one was entirely on me, but judging by the grin he gets on his face every time I tell him about Roxy’s latest escapade, I know he’s secretly glad she is ours, too.
The year was 2002, and it was one of those milestone types of years for me. We had just moved to Pennsylvania two years previously, but I had not had the chance to get out much and learn my new surroundings. You see, my mother lived with us and she needed full time care as she was suffering from terminal lung cancer. So, for my first 2 years here in PA, I was more or less confined to my house. Even a trip to the food store meant I had to have someone come and stay with her for that hour or so that I was out. I relied heavily on the Hospice workers for their help.To make matters worse, for our first few years here, my hubby worked away all week long and only came home on the weekends. So, I was not able to get out and meet people. The feeling of isolation was often crushing for me, but I was more focused on taking care of Mom than worrying about my own social life. However, almost all too soon, in the early spring of 2002, Mom was gone. Suddenly, I was totally alone in a strange new city and had to start all over again. Filled with great sorrow, there was no one at home for me to take care of, or to converse or interact with. I felt as if I was totally alone in the world, and it terrified me and made me feel quite useless.
That’s when I started going to the back fence of our yard and watching the people ride their horses in the neighboring field. It all looked like so much fun! In another part of my blog, I mentioned how I met Cora Jean, and how she let me take a ride on her horse. One day, Cora introduced me to Cowboy, the man who ran the stables, and he invited me to come on over. I felt so stupid! I could barely walk, thanks to Osteonecrosis and two recently implanted artificial joints, but I was so lonely that I decided to take a chance.
Cowboy could see how much I loved all animals and how the horses just fascinated me. He urged me to come over any time that I wished, and I could tell that he meant it. He totally ignored the fact that I walked with a bad limp, and he treated me just like anybody else. It was almost as if he couldn’t see that there was something wrong with me, that it didn’t seem to matter one way or the other. Then, one day about two weeks after our first meeting, he asked me a question:
“How would you like to learn how to drive a little horse cart?”
I thought he was nuts! I mentioned how difficult it was for me to walk, and asked him how on earth I could ever learn something so complicated. He just smiled and said, “Marie…you can do anything you want, if you want to bad enough.”
Something inside of me just kind of snapped. I thought: Why not? There was nothing and no one at home for me to get back to or tend to, so why not? We agreed to meet the following morning for my first ‘lesson.’
Within two months, I had learned how to tack up a horse to a cart, and to drive him all around the barn, the fields, and eventually, out onto the streets. My first little horse was really Cowboy’s own Shetland pony, named Dakota. Dakota and I shared a special bond. No one really paid him much attention because he was so small and wasn’t’ “flashy” enough for them to ride (or strong enough, for that matter). But, for me, he was just perfect. He would pull the little pony cart with me at the reins just as proudly as he could, probably glad to have a ‘job’ to do. He felt useful. And, I began to feel not quite so handicapped any more. I was one of the few people Dakota didn’t kick at, or try to nip. In fact, he would actually smile at me – I swear!
Then, it was August. The whole gang was going up to the horse auction at New Holland, in Lancaster county, real Amish country. New Holland is also infamous for being an animal slaughter house as well, where people would buy horses and cattle at the auction and then sell them for slaughter by the pound. For many horses, New Holland was the very last stop. It is also where horse people would go to buy horses for their own purposes, either for pleasure riding or for working on a farm. Cowboy wanted to buy a couple of new horses for his farm, and he invited me to come along for the ride.
The whole group of us went up that day. As we walked through the holding pens, an idea began to take hold in me. I spotted several lovely small horses, bigger than Dakota but not as big as my friends’ horses, and found myself wishing I could own one. Cowboy realized how I was feeling and began to help me look. I found a handsome little pony, called a Hackney, with delicate bone structure and about 3 and a half feet tall at the shoulder.
“Nah! You don’t want that one,” he said with a tone of disapproval. “He’s too small and couldn’t ever pull a cart through the city streets.”
So, we walked around some more. Eventually, we came to this horse with a huge rump – and who stood about four feet tall at the shoulders. This horse was solid! She was anything but ‘fine boned’ and had a chest on her almost a foot and a half wide.
“Now, this is a pulling horse!” Cowboy announced with confidence. “Just look at her muscular chest and flanks!” Sure enough, she was huge, mass-wise. “She’s what they call a Welsh Cob pony and they are meant to pull,” he finished with satisfaction.
However, to me she looked like a small moose! I wasn’t so sure. In fact, I thought she was far too big for me and I wasn’t that impressed with her at all.
Then, she turned around and looked at me. As God is my witness, I will never, ever forget that look! It was sad, confused, and almost pleading with me, as if to say, “PLEASE! Get me out of here!” That’s when Cowboy and I noticed the sold sticker on her backside. Her number tag had a line through it, signifying she had been sold. Even worse, the line through the number was in red – meaning, she was destined for slaughter.
“Wait right here! I’ll be right back!’ Cowboy said, breaking out into a near-run. I stood with the horse and gently petted her. Her eyes never left mine and they contained so much gentleness and sadness that they nearly broke my heart. Then, she began to rub her head against my arm ever so gently; and I was completely and totally hooked. But…she was sold, and I couldn’t have her.
Or so I thought.
“Marie! We can buy her!!” Cowboy yelled at me across the crowd on his way back to me.
Without even thinking about it one second longer, I decided to buy this horse! She cost me only $100 more than the previous buyer paid for her and almost before I realized it, I was a brand new horse owner! There was a flurry of activity that ensued as we prepared her for the ride home. Fortunately, one of Cowboy’s buddies was there with his trailer and offered to bring her on home for me.
Since I live in the Roxborough area of Philly, I called her “Roxy’s Brown Sugar”, or simply Roxy for short. It fit her to a “T”. From the day we brought her home, Roxy and I were a team. Within one month, she was already pulling the cart. Strangely enough, my walking improved, too! Going down to the stables every day, I got the exercise I so badly needed. When Roxy was out in the field and I came down to the fence line, she would run lickety-split over to the fence the instant she realized I was there. I visited her every single day, rain or shine or even snow when winter arrived! We were simply inseparable.
The following spring, I was once again in the hospital getting another joint replaced, this time my left knee. My riding crowd friends told me that the whole time I was in the hospital, Roxy would not come out of her stall. She was way off her feed and would just stand facing the corner of her stall, refusing to pay attention to anyone or anything.
When I came home it was only about one week before I painfully and slowly made my way down the yard to the fence, only to find Roxy not in the field. Cowboy spotted me and called out, “Marie! Call out Roxy’s name!” This, I did. We heard this loud whinney from within the barn – and Cowboy ran to go get her.
Out of the barn she came trotting as fast as her legs would take her – and she ran right up to the fence where I was standing. I tossed her the apples I had with me and she started eating them up like crazy! The two of us remained there, me in my yard and she in her field, for the next hour or so, until the pain overtook me so badly that I had to go back in and lie down.
We have been together ever since, even though she now lives about 35 miles away from me. Her new stable and farm is just gorgeous and she is very happy there. For both of us, the weekends are when we each come alive as I go up there every weekend, almost without fail. I talk to her as if she was a person and, I swear, she understands every word! Our relationship is very unique as we are connected at the soul. Of that, I have no doubt at all.
I can’t help but feel that Roxy was meant to be in my life. She came to me at a time when I felt lost and alone – so very, very alone – and was in such great emotional and physical pain. In all truth, I think we more or less saved each others’ lives.
As for my hubby, he also loves her and he recognizes that she and I were meant to be a team. She has given far more to me as an individual, and to us as a couple, than we could ever give to her. She was one of the craziest, most extravagant decisions and purchases I’ve ever made in my life and I thank God every day that I took that chance.
