Horsetrionics: Horseshoer of Leisure -- Until I Tried to Get a Visa Card

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Horseshoer of Leisure -- Until I Tried to Get a Visa Card

In the banker's office one fine morning. I was feeling smug. Too smug. Thought it was time to get one of those Gold Cards!

Loan Oifficer: Strumming through a pamphlet entitled: Adjusted Salary Expectations in Isolated Trades. "Farmer, framer, ferry boat captain, furrier...you're not a furrier? Hmm. Furniture finisher, fraud investigator...well, no farrier. Just what is a farrier?"

{A lot of conversation omitted here as a cheap commercial teasing device. My publisher swears by this tactic.}

As I left his office, I pocketed the booklet on Adjusted Salary Expectations in Isolated Trades. It was published by the American Banking Information Clearinghouse in Elgin, Illinois. The loan officer was right, farriers weren't listed. But if I had applied as a magician, a road-reflector technician, an ice-cream man, or a greeting card author, I would have been issued a card. There was even a card with a $500 limit for 'people currently incarcerated by the United States government.' But no farriers.

1 comment:

Fran JurgaDecember 9, 2011 at 11:22 PM
I wonder if that booklet is online these days and if farriers have made it yet?
Based on the colors of my credit cards, farrier magazine editors must not be listed, either.
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About This Book

"While I never gave up on Don Quixote, I often gave up on myself." Mares Foals & Ferraris.

Seems most of my life has been spent in the company of horses, or thoroughly depraved Jack Russell terriers. Sure, there were also some incredible friends, a few wonderful (troublesome) women and the experiences one can only garner by stepping off the edge of this very forgiving planet. For almost 40 years I wrote about the misadventures of horses and horse people, who were in many ways, the most unique collection of talent and compassion still left on this rock. And along the way, I managed to do just about everything possible with a horse, short of marrying one. Don't laugh. I lived in San Francisco -- a city that never runs short on possibilities.

But I also was a child of war. Many wars it seemed in a world that by all accounts should have long ago exhausted the need or value born of unbridled conflict. And with each war, another generation carried on that desperate legacy of despair -- as if some accounting is always owed on that dark ledger of self-righteous history. Children of children of children, taking up the gun because conversation has grown weak, or stale, or suddenly foreign to the few remaining ears left in the audience. And no, naivete is not one of my virtues, though thankfully, humor is. So the book is basically a serialization of columns first penned in the 1980's for The Washington Thoroughbred. Yes, a little stumbling romance, a few words on living on a dysfunctional planet...but mostly how the horse can a lead a person back to trust.

The book is a one-year compression of those forty-odd years managing and breeding racehorses. In certain circles this literary technique might be frowned upon, but having three US presidents, Rambo, Maynard G. Krebs and Paris Hilton all together in the same book -- even the same chapter, well, how much fun is that. Besides, farming can be a little dull at times. Ever watch grass grow?

The Littlest RaceHorse opens in October of 1962...the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A time of incredible uncertainty, where tomorrow was no longer a given. And two kids are literally tossed into the tumult created by those events. Losses and gains -- at the heart of it, a horse seemingly doomed by the peculiarities of his birth. And that is all I have to say about that!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Horseshoer of Leisure -- Until I Tried to Get a Visa Card

1 comment:

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