Did you love horses when you were a kid? Me too.
The Part of my memoir reminiscences on the extraordinary love a child can have for these enormous, gentle animals? Why? Your guess is as good as mine and I hope this page triggers some fond memories in you as it does for me.
Publishing focuses on word count and allows little ink space for illustrations and photos, so I put some photos, illustrations, and slideshows here. Nutty Over Horses covers early childhood through the beginning of college, up to about 1972.
If you have questions, email me.
The Part of my memoir reminiscences on the extraordinary love a child can have for these enormous, gentle animals? Why? Your guess is as good as mine and I hope this page triggers some fond memories in you as it does for me.
Publishing focuses on word count and allows little ink space for illustrations and photos, so I put some photos, illustrations, and slideshows here. Nutty Over Horses covers early childhood through the beginning of college, up to about 1972.
If you have questions, email me.
Part One, Nutty Over Horses
A Council of Horses, Life Lessons Straight from the Horses' Mouths
And I will bet her bridal veil -- Will look just like a horses’ tail.
“Horses,” 1926, lyrics by Harry Reser
“Horses,” 1926, lyrics by Harry Reser
(excerpt)
If being Horse Crazy was an affliction, I had it bad. But why horses? Honestly, I don’t know... when I was a kid, horses were magic. I saw no difference between Pegasus, unicorns, and the scrubby ponies who lived down the street from my house on the last remnant of pasture inside the city limits of Aurora, Illinois. Late for dinner? I was feeding handfuls of grass to Cindy, a bay Shetland with black legs, mane, and tail, and Ginger, her golden chestnut filly, whose tiny white star peeked out from under her bushy forelock. Those ponies were my first equine contacts. Most summers, my Mom and Dad packed the three of us kids into the family car and drove to Nebraska to visit our grandparents. I loved that drive through rippling Iowa hills. Gigantic oak and maple trees dotted lush pastures Two storied, clapboard-sided farmhouses with front porches and swings sat next to towering silos and weathered gambrel roofed barns. If I had a pony, I’d keep him in a barn like that. He’d sleep in a box stall in the barn at night, bedded with sweet-smelling, golden straw, and I’d turn him out for the day. We’d ride every day through the fields, woods, and shallow creeks. |
But I didn’t have a pony. Perhaps that’s why, around age seven, I invented an imaginary horse. Inches tall, Buttons pranced through life with me on the palm of my hand.
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