this and that

Hello... could you see your way clear to leave me a comment? Maybe some suggestions, whatever moves you. Is this stuff boring? Just a quick comment SO IT DOESN'T FEEL SO DAMNED EMPTY HERE. Thank you, we now return you to our regularly scheduled program.

Little old Morgantown, WV is undergoing a real boom time now. I don't understand why, really, but everywhere you look there are big construction projects underway, shopping centers, housing of all kinds, huge hospital remodeling and expansion, a huge power plant. If someone hadn't been back to Morgantown in, say, 6 or 7 years, I think they would be shocked. I don't know where all the $$ is coming from, but I sure hope it doesn't dry up before they're finished. My parents used to live in a development where the owner tried to add a bunch of townhouses, and for all the years they lived there, those townhouses sat off to one side, half completed, and ever so slowly fell to rubble. The brambles and scrub growth now has even obliterated the foundations. Anyway, I found the sight of those failed plans sad. When I see ancient farmhouses all tumbled down and derelict, at least you can imagine them having once had families in them who were grateful for the shelter offered. Half constructed stuff leaves me with more of a sense of waste and futility.

I looked up the registration papers for my three horses. Blondie is the oldest, of course, as Willie and Maybe are her kids. I bought Blondie when she was 4, at the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus Ohio, in 1986. I was, at the time, unemployed, having lost my research assistant lab job when the professor for whom i worked decided to trade academic research (ie, getting federal grants) for the security of doing research for Ciba-Geigy, a pharmaceutical firm, where the money is great, but your freedom to pursue a given line of research is greatly curtained in the search for a rosier bottom line. Financially, not the optimum time for a major equine purchase. But I digress. I went to the show in Columbus, saw an ad and went to see the mare, gave them a deposit, and returned to Morgantown to get my horse trailer and return to Columbus in the wee hours of the morning to load Blondie. Bless her heart, I know it was a tiresome noisy 5 hour ride to WV, but she traveled like a trouper. When she was nine I took her back to the original owners and bred her to First in Command, a champion Paint stallion; Willie was the result. He is a solid bay, no Paint markings, just a white strip on his nose, and so is registered "for identification" purposes. He's a little high strung, but sweet. Two years later Blondie went to a small town nearby where a guy with a a nondescript stable had a gorgeous Paint stallion, Amigo, with a famously cool steady disposition. The result was Maybe, who is a blue eyed Paint who was so spooky by 6 months of age we took her to a trainer with instructions to either settle her down or sell her down the road. Much to my surprise, after 3 months, she came home a different horse. I could catch her in the field and halter her, tie, groom, clip, blanket, and work around without her trying to throw herself at the gate or rear and strike. When it came time to break her to ride, she went back to the same trainer, and we were well satisfied. At the time. Now? Well, I'd say she needs a little remedial brush up on manners.

Anyway, as I said, I looked up their papers because every spring we have this debate about how old they all are, and it turns out that Blondie is 27, Willie is 17 and Maybe is 15!!

It doesn't seem possible. All those seasons, all those trips to the barn, the nickers and the careful sniffing Blondie does when I go in her stall, the eager way she eats, how protective she was of the little ones.....That all happened DECADES ago! Blondie is not just "aged" but ancient! Assuming no upsets, though, she could live another 5 or so years. However long she has, when she leaves it will leave a hole in my heart. She was there through some very bad times for me, and although people with only house pets think it is strange to get so attached to a horse, I am heart tied to her, to all three of them.

Here they are,,, Blondie (waving "hello" with her tongue), Willie, Maybe, and then a huddle of the Three.