Recollections of an Amateur Art Critic.

Who'd a Thought....

In my early days as a 'Rich and Scientific Horseshoer' --- tongue inserted in cheek; I was married to a photographer, artist...one of those people that own what I always called 'the third eye.' Meaning that they seemed able to work in most any medium and transform the animate to the inanimate without ever losing the life found in the subject studied.  Me? I stumble over stick figures and am only credible if I confine my drawings to the abstract. So no matter how it turns out, I can find some ridiculous way to explain its meaning. Yeah...hard to keep an audience for long.

Our collecting was, of course, eclectic.  No surprise there.  Was fortunate in those days to own two bronzes by Pierre Mêne.  As follows: 

Pierre Jules Mêne (25 March 1810 – 20 May 1879) was a French Sculptor and animalière. He is considered the pioneer of animal sculpture in the nineteenth-century.

Mêne produced a number of animal sculptures, mainly of domestic animals including horses, cows and bulls, sheep and goats which were in vogue during the Second Empire. He was one of a school of French animalières which also included Rosa Bonheur, Pierre Louis Rouillard, Antoine-Louis Barye, Auguste Caïn, and François Pompon.

His work was first shown in London by Ernest Gambart in 1849. Mêne specialized in small bronze figures which explains why none of his works exist as public statuary. His work was a popular success with the bourgeois class and many editions of each sculpture were made, often to decorate an increasing number of private homes of the period. The quality of these works is high, comparable to Barye's. Mêne also seems to have enjoyed a longer period of success and celebrity than his contemporaries. He is considered to have been the lost-wax casting expert of his time, later surpassed only by Auguste Rodin.

Only trouble with Mêne's works was that they were extensively counterfeited by re-casting. In fact, so popular was his work that it is estimated that for every original piece, 500-1000 copies exist, mostly produced between 1860 and the beginning of World War I.  I often thought about having mine authenticated (a difficult process involving precise measurements -- copies were appx. 1/16th inch larger by volume.), but decided, at least for me, that art is about appreciation, not value.  So I just basked in blissful ignorance and enjoyed these magnificent pieces.  (Blissful ignorance is learned by regularly listening to horseowners.)

Later, I added Chinese screen prints and combined them with Victorian-era hand-painted lithographs, an odd combination that somehow seemed to work...well, actually I don't know that, but it was MY house and if somebody objected, they could go down to the barn and study the sublimity of horse turds. 

Course, being married to an artist helped...for you see she could forgive my needs for certain farriery tools in exchange for her needs for what she referred to as 'supplies.'  I think we all know this sort of woman. I didn't get her diamond studs for Xmas...I got her an industrial-grade band saw. Because she suddenly decided to restore and re-carve these guys:
 

The moral of the story?  None really, other than art manages to survive even when the marriage does not.  Yeah, she got the earrings too...eventually.  But I do remain amazed and somewhat humbled by this celebration of the horse.  A party that has lasted for over 6000 years.  Not sure a Ford Pick-Up will ever make the same claim.

Beginning to think there is fishy business goin' on....

Another test run.....

Cribbers...gotta love 'em....

From: "Mare, Foals and Ferraris:"

"So along comes this horse into our perfect world that really isn’t perfect. Instead of our simply noticing the horse has a few questionable habits, we immediately accuse the poor beggar of having vices. According to federal law, a vice is a Class B felony, normally resolved by the perpetrator doing a five-to ten-year stint at a penitentiary, which is not a real productive way to get a horse to the races. Most racing secretaries don’t write races for fifteen-year old maidens that never won one and are ridden by a jockey and a parole officer. Besides, the prisons are already overcrowded with perfect human beings as it is.



I like to refer to vices as aberrations, minor deviations on the equine path of life. Most are relatively harmless and only irritate people because of that perfection thing. I try to impart that philosophy on Jesse whenever she starts exploring my emotional closet. It’s that chromosomal obsession women have to fix something – usually a man. Why more women don’t go into the remodeling business puzzles me. I guess fixing a patio just doesn’t rank up there with 200,000 years of defective genes and the chance to turn Homo defectus into a Cocker spaniel.

Cribbing is a good example of an equine bad habit. Derived from the Queen’s English, the term attempts to explain how some horses grab the ‘corn crib’ (which is basically a food repository), in their teeth and belch in reverse. A corn crib is nothing more than a feed manger – horses don’t do formal dining, so it’s just a box where you throw in the food and clean up the slobber later. That of course demotes most farm managers to something like a busboy at a pie-eating contest. Blame it on the Brits – they always come up with terms that if pronounced with enough nasal discharge somehow sound terribly important, if not totally inaccurate. Horses don’t eat much corn. In England, oats are called corn, probably because England is too cold to grow corn, which brings up the issue of the Boston Tea Party. You see, the British also couldn’t grow tea either because of the cold, so they traded opium for tea with the Chinese figuring that once the habit got going, negotiations would be a lot more one-sided than they already were, allowing for a more aggressive approach for the third leg of their commerce – kidnapping Africans to sell to white people. England sort of specialized in the import and export of bad habits. Boston had to dump the tea since most kidnapped Africans couldn’t swim and well, Chinese dope fiends were in short supply. We actually preferred the French more than the English because mostly they just shopped for clothes. Of course I’m still not sure what the English call corn. Probably wheat. Maybe Canada. I don’t have a clue. However, once independence was assured, we decided to race our horses in the opposite direction – counter-clockwise. You know, don’t slam the gate on your way home.


Horses normally eat hay, oats (corn), barley and grass. Every so often they go for farm manager’s shirts, small BMWs, a farrier’s favorite baseball cap, dirt, rocks and the careless cat. For special treats, they prefer apples, carrots, bananas, grapes and a pint of Guinness. And as I addressed earlier, the appetizer menu includes fence posts, expensive trees and plywood. They prefer interior plywood – something about the glue. Definitely an eclectic diet. And here I thought Guido was the only culinary school dropout.

I don’t think cribbers get enough credit for thinking up the habit. I have never met a cribber who wasn’t smarter than the average horse. After all, most racehorses sit around all day in a stall waiting for something to happen. Usually, nothing does. Maybe a rat runs by, or somebody stops by to sit on their backs, but otherwise it is pretty dull. Some horses get regular visits by rather attractive grooms (girls) with a manure fetish, or more likely, Manuel from Barcelona who gave up maiming bulls in favor of perforating horses with a pitchfork. So, they lock their teeth on the stall door, make a really obnoxious sound and swallow some air. Compared to compulsive vacuum cleaning or getting arrested in a Reno hotel room with your ‘niece,’ the habit seems pretty harmless. But it definitely isn’t perfect. And there’s always the problem of where all that air ends up."

Resolutions for Deranged Farm Managers...

Emphasis on...Resolve:

     Around a farm there are always a lot of things that need to be resolved.  In fact, there are so many of them that they could easily be spread out over six or seven years.  Sort of like depreciating a truck.  Thirty-percent the first year, ten-percent each year afterward and in five years the problem is completely gone.  Not only is it gone, but it generated a refund from the IRS in the process.  Naturally, that was before tax reform.  Nowadays, they would disallow the problem, penalize you an additional bad habit and insist that you only declare resolutions under five-acres in size.  I suppose that they could also conclude that any person with that many problems has little time to run a business.

 

     I don’t think it is totally hopeless.  Tragic maybe.  But after a long year or so of trying to raise horses in the rainforest, managing an urban renewal project financed by subterfuge and counterfeit paperwork while dealing with the vagaries of humanity and the heart in general, I still believe that some resolutions can be met.  I am going to start with these:

 

1)      I am not going to let Doc breed a mare that is worth less than his lawnmower.  She is going to have to find her own date.

 

2)      The next time a horse knocks down a fence, I’m going to declare it ‘environmental revisionist thinking ’ and leave it that way.  I have no idea what that means and nobody else will either.

 

3)      I am never going to lose my temper with a yearling again.  (Well, maybe.)

 

4)      The stallion will learn some manners.  I’m sure I can hire somebody mean (or terminally ill) to deal with that one.

 

5)      Maybe consider moving my bed a little further from the window.  Just a foot or so.

 

6)      I will live to see a vet bill under $500.

 

7)      I’m going to find a cat with some degree of loyalty and table manners.

 

8)      I will deal with the manure pile before it decides to deal with me.

 

9)      All halter breaking will take place in-utero.

 

10)   I’ll hear a trainer say, “You know, you could be right.”

 

11)   I am going to check my rubber boots for slugs before I put them on.

 

12)   I am not going to get my thumb caught in the manure spreader¼again.

 

13)   I will confess the whole sordid story of farm finances to Elaine.  (The boss's wife.), Actually, I’ll send her an anonymous telegram from Mexico.

 

14)   I’m never going to try to look smart in front of Jesse again.  Boy, that’s an easy one.  Wonder why it’s so far down the list?

 

15)   And, if it happens to work and she’s willing, I am going to ask that woman to marry me.  Or go steady, or¼still, I’ll have to quit smoking.  And maybe reconsider the advantages of a college education.  Who knows?  Might write a book or something.

 

From:  Well, you probably guessed that already!

 

Next time:  New Year's Resolutions for Cowboys on the Bozeman Trail

Nothing Left to Save...Oh. I'm Not Good with...

Children: A Knight's Last Salvation --

Damn, I was Hoping for One Last Desperate Maiden!

A New Year grinds its relentless path around this crowded planet; reluctant, yet driven by the infinite momentum of the unseen vastness of time itself.  All human crossroads pause here; on this reunion of the millenia…look to the left; the right –engage this moment in the manner of all moments, and by the mad laughter of the self-anointed lunatic, claim that this year will be the year to…
 

 

What?

 

 

I have dwelled upon the task, knowing full well the weakness of my aging resolve.  Perhaps it is time to embrace my redundancy, grant my guilt before the Courts of Fools and Romantics; allow this worldly Inquisition of Kings and Bishops to have that moment they have coveted for so long.  Cast the roaming wolf from my veins, denounce the Quest as a mortal heresy – pull Rocinante’s heavily worn iron shoes for the very last time.  Sheath the sword of mercy and justice…stand naked in my fading manhood before the early morning throng at some random Starbuck’s…defying the slut of their hearts’ desires to murder me one last time.  And make this death stick for a change.  No half-measures, no last minute pause of the blade.  No reaching for the Half and Half.  May you suffer your coffee black this time!

 Nah…

 

An old Kikuyu chief once said, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”  And I have often lamented that each living blade is the child of some future meadow.  This endless Serengeti that nourishes an enduring innocence that is the legitimate core of humanity…the soul that holds no allegiance to the mightier or lesser gods of our creation; for you see, children have no need for gods and temples of gold and stone.  They live by the sustenance of an unknown warmth, nurtured by the milk of gentleness and love, seemingly protected in a world full of fierce and sometimes angry giants.  And like dry sponges they begin to absorb the emotions of the water that churns around their feet – a cognition that all things are not as they once seemed to be.  And with recognition, comes uncertainty and for the first time, the child feels the suffocating hand of doubt.  

But of course, nothing is allowed to stay the same anyway.  A planet guided by evolutionary habits demands that organisms remain in flux -- the nature of thought itself under the constant shadow of extinction.  Miss one lesson and you are kept after class for a very long time.  So perhaps Knights too must change with the times.  After all, distressed maidens now have psychologists, dragons are in short supply or driven to extinction, tyrannical landlords are disguised as simple church-going merchants, while the warlords in their gilded castles own all the best horses and armor in the realm.  And the toiling peasants, long since duped into a catatonic stupor, trading away what little dignity they once owned for cheap toilet paper and diet-sodas.        

So who is left to defend?  Who is really worth defending?  What life is worth the life of a single Knight?  Ah!  But there is still the ancient art of chivalry – a codicil of men, that asks few questions, sees no good or evil other than in the thoughts and hearts of individual men, and grants all who pass mercy in the name of countenance and fair play.  A defender of innocence, the aging warrior that stands between the child and the unrelenting storms of all past miseries and deception…

 Hmmm…

 

And I don’t even like children.  And Rocinante…he bites them whenever he finds the opportunity.  And they smell funny.  Make noise.  Ask stupid questions.  Fart in public.  Call me ‘old’ to my face.

I suppose it has finally come to this it would seem.  Defending a mere hope.  A 50-1 longshot that a juvenile delinquent may one day become that ‘good king’ of the realm – the person who stands before all tyranny; of all stripes and says loudly, “Enough!”  And perhaps then, at that pristine moment, I can raise my sword for the final time and finally send Rocinante out to pasture.  Perhaps somewhere in France, near the ocean, without a single Starbucks in sight. 

Well shoot.  Better clean the tack anyway.  That day might be a few decades and many leagues down the path.  But as often happens, I first feel the winds of change arriving from some distance place beyond the horizon.  And the wonder of that, the maddening curiosity of those moments is what has always driven my horse  forward -- rightly or wrongly, but forward all the same.  Violence is not a disease -- it is a habit.  A bad one.  The giants of the world have the power to destroy.  They also have the power to teach.  It is then merely a matter of choice.     

 

2014 -- Ending Violence is a Matter of Showing, Not Telling.     

Some great reviews...

Without reservation, I heartily recommend "The Littlest Racehorse." Juell has an encyclopedic knowledge of the racing industry and is a great storyteller. Helluva read!

*****

 

Mares, Foals &Ferraris: Recollections of a Farmer in the Sport of Kings (Paperback) A. Allen Juell's "Mares, Foals, and Ferraris" had me ricocheting between continuous chortles and great, guffawing, belly laughs until I had tears rolling down my cheeks. His always witty, often pithy, and sometimes poignant observations on his accidental career as a farm manager, and the inner conspiratorial life of thoroughbreds, their owners, and other animals (some human!) that share their orbit will take you by surprise, just as though you had run into Dick Francis and OE Sommerville Ross in the company of the gang from The Cuckoo's Nest. A magnificent first novel and sure winner for horsemen and non-hosemen alike, it will make everyone wish they had a cat of undetermined gender as an advisor and confidant while muddling through the maze of love, malignent farm equipment, and the inevitable tragedy that can change one's life in unsuspected and permanent ways. This is a must for the reader on your holiday gift list.

*****

The Littlest Racehorse (Paperback) I found this book to be an enjoyable mixture combining historical and personal events, real horsepower and heart. The novel crosses historical, young adult and general fiction genres as it recreates the confusion and tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis and its aftermath in the lives of everyday Americans, weaving personal crisis with the chaos of national crisis.

The story is a forthrightly-told account of horrific incidents and events in lives of two children, Emily and Josh, and the grownup people and situations they are forced to deal with. The story opens the morning of the Missile Crisis’ commencement, and immediately establishes rapport with the two children the novel’s events revolve around. Events trigger great change in the children’s lives, involving along the way a spurned ‘little’ horse that helps to bond them to a new life.

Family tragedy tests old bonds and brings new ones, and readers are brought along on a journey of change and regrowth ... finishing with conclusion that is both page-turning and heart-warming.

The book treats the subject of horses with mature understanding and humor ... not always glowingly but lovingly all the same. One of the book’s highlights is that readers are treated to an accurate and honest view of the horse industry.

Surprises in the book run the scale from twists and reversals of fate to the emotional high points that suddenly bring real feeling out. Mirrors to others’ experiences spring up in the writing. This is a layered work that meanders into unexpected places we recognize from another angle.

There is a style to the story and it not completely even; there are stories within the story that grow distinct and at times the mix becomes a tangle. The eddies form part of the experience ... as with life the story’s digressions and observations of reactions to events play a larger part than the events themselves. At times the author invites readers to find their own thoughts, not to simply read and record.

There is a lot going on in “The Littlest Racehorse,” between historical glimpses, realistic equine portrayals, and a faithful undercurrent of morality and meaning under examination. Those familiar with the author’s work will recognize Juell’s whimsical, sardonic tone and his sudden insights that become the purpose of the journey even as we are narrated through larger events.

The story changes pace and direction and comes back again, until the heartwarming end pages fire a series of scenes with real emotion and joy ... and you realize the characters have grown in your affections, and that you have not only enjoyed the characters’ story but have remembered forgotten parts of your own.

 

 

The author with his aging war-horse, Rocinante...leaving for somewhere.

 

Signed copies available: ajuell@live.com or PM via Facebook.

 

 

Gosh that sounds silly....

Thanksgiving revisited...

CHAPTER 30.

A BUNCH OF TURKEYS BITE THE DUST

Excerpted From:

     As the holidays approach, I tend to get a little retrospective.  Or maybe introspective, or even overly inspected by potential in-laws who figure they can avoid a messy divorce by killing one of the potential nuptials.  A few cold nights spent staring into the hypnotic flames of a fireplace converts quiet solitude into a stupid quest for the meaning of life.  The cat’s already figured it out anyway:  eat, drink and shred things.  Me, I think it’s carbon-monoxide poisoning precipitated by a wood stove left over by the Pilgrims.  Either way, the two of us sit and gawk at the flames, enamored by the warmth and all those unanswered questions the millennium have produced.  Eventually, he lays a claw into my thigh clarifying the whole situation.  This cat has connections that I don’t even want to think about.

     Fall is tough because it launches itself midway between summer’s last exhale and the cryogenic handshake of Ol’ Man Winter, so successful in this state that he was able to take early retirement.  Some genius also fooled around with the clocks and I have it on good authority that it was a cartel of Candy Corn producers in Georgia and the American Dental Association.  It’s no accident that the meddling starts the day before Halloween.  An extra hour of sugar extortion is worth about $14 billion in annual profits, a third of which is funneled directly into the cavity industry.

    Even so, we don’t get too many trick-or-treater's visiting the farm.  The driveway is about a half mile long and runs through a primordial forest.  It is full of all kinds of lurking creatures and strange shadows, most created by our gang of wolves on a chicken hunt.  The dogs don’t normally collect children, but they might go for the Hershey bars.  Since Doc was a veterinarian, post-assault stomach pumping is readily available if their natural tendency toward bulimia fails them.  Still, only the bravest pirate, ghost or ballerina-bat-girl would ever make it to the front door.  Those that overcame the forest and the boogey man earned a cab ride back to the street.

      On a farm, molesting a clock causes dinner to be late.  Horses respond by immediately forming a revolutionary council, donning berets and storming the nearest radio station.  Since nobody knows what the hell they are talking about, the government remains secure.  Peace is restored by reverting back to Daylight Savings Time, which, unbeknownst to my gang of outlaws, means that I get to sleep in while they wonder what in the hell happened to their waiter.  One more piece of evidence as to why we’re at the top of the food chain.  We control time.

   

      In spite of the clock, projectile hairballs, and carbon monoxide poisoning, I do dwell on esoteric principles when they pop to the surface right before I finish my second beer.  Yeah, I’m kind of a lightweight, so the beer buzz arrives before the first bathroom trip.  Reincarnation is one of my favorites.  It’s the perfect compromise.  Golf every Sunday morning, prime rib instead of tofu and those trips to the beach that have more to do with blood pressure than a good tan.  Well, someone else’s tan.  It’s the perfect arrangement:  no guilt!  You don’t get it quite right in this life, then you get to come back and screw it up all over again!  No fifteen-yard penalties, no stern lectures from the big guy and no vacationing in purgatory.  Most importantly, no regrets about going to heaven and finding out that most of your friends took the second option.

      I have given reincarnation a lot of thought lately.  Two reasons really.  The first is that with my kind of résumé, a future career of any kind seems unlikely.  The second is how this job has aged me over the past year.  I’m pretty sure it is a mid-life crisis even though my doctor insists I’m only 24 years old.  I tell him I'm a Thoroughbred farm a manager and all he does is grunt and make copious amounts of notes during the appointment.  Finally, he tilts his glasses a little further down his nose and asks, "So...what do you think about the third race at Hialeah?  I'm thinkin' Twinkleears. She's 30-1 in the morning line."  Yeah, more Prozac.   

      Meanwhile, I’m deluged with television commercials for calcium tablets and oat bran while the salesman from Modern Maturity camps out at my mailbox.  Suddenly I see a crinkled old man, humped over one of those aluminum four-legged walkers, trapped in the middle of a crosswalk while the LA riot police battle with a horde of latte-crazed commuters with no air-conditioning.  I’m trapped there with an artificial hip, nitro tablets in the left shirt pocket and a few bored paramedics taking bets on when the old fart will drop.  Just the other day, while shaving, I was positive I saw one of those age spots – right next to a gray hair.  It turned out to be leftover gravy, but the image in the mirror wasn't lying.  The big thirty was just around the corner; another old stallion about to be driven from the herd and I hadn’t even decided on burial or cremation.  Old, flatulent, decrepit – forced to eat day-old bread and cat food.  Cat food?  Next thing would be that dreaded magazine subscription.  Ever thought about that title?  It’s the life-support-system-of-the-month club.  With each subscription, you get an oxygen tent, 50% off on colostomy bags and a video on four-way bypasses.  Never mind the special on sex toys.  Nobody ever orders them because dementia has set in – we’ve heard the word ‘sex’ somewhere, but can’t remember why or if we had that for dinner last night.  Hell, we can’t even find our teeth because we can’t see without our glasses and if help arrives we can’t hear the doorbell because we can’t find our glasses in order to locate our hearing aid which we’re pretty sure is sitting next to our teeth.  The closest thing to sex is the Pekingese down the hall that humps an orderly’s leg, or maybe it’s just a large rat eating Mrs. Eddington’s left foot.  Hard to tell with cataracts in both eyes.  A doctor finally shows up.  “Good news Mr. Reynolds, it’s not Alzheimer’s, just senility!  Mr. Reynolds?  I’m over here, Mr. Reynolds.”

      I skipped the third beer and got on the phone.  “Hey Jess.  Got a question for you.”

      “No.”

     “It doesn’t involve horses, just a quick question.”

     “It better be quick.  I’m in bed.”

      “Are you sick -- you need something?  It’s like 6:30.”

      “I’ve got horrible cramps.  You know.”

      Great!!  There is hope!  It’s not menopause!  “Geez, I’m sorry, anything I can get you?”

      “No.  My doctor said I should go on the pill.  She said it would reduce the severity of them.”

      “Really?”  I was suddenly somewhere between heaven and a transmission problem.  “Listen, do you think I look older, or like getting decrepit or something?”  I didn’t dare explore the ramifications of birth control.  I’d write Ann Landers in the morning.  Wow, her doctor was a her.  Every doctor I had ever seen was an old fat dude that always said, “Cough.”  I knew it was a hernia test, but shit?  Even if I had pneumonia…?

     “What?”

      “I found some gray hair.  I was starting to think that life is kinda skipping away.  Maybe it’s the job, I don’t know.”

     “You’re twenty-four, sometimes going on twelve.  You look fine.  You could even look cute if you wanted to...I mean...never mind.  And it’s slipping away, not skipping.  What’s this about?”

     “I could look...cute?”

     “I want to take a nap...please?”

     “Cute?”

     “Polo shirts.  Good-bye!”

     Back to reincarnation.  Most days, I’d like to come back as a rock.  Sort of sit around the Himalayas and watch mountain climbers run out of oxygen.  Other times I have a certain desire to be an opossum.  It’s such a simple existence – you are born, make a beeline for a busy highway and boom!  Off to life number three.  Not even enough time to develop a bad habit or two.  But, given my experience, I think the best option is to come back as a broodmare:  a fat, expensive one.  Oh, you were thinking maybe Nijinsky?

     Some folks might question such a choice, opting for something like Julia Robert’s mirror or Tom Cruise’s lips – maybe the obvious, a stallion, but just maybe they are missing the point.  Most broodmares live a pretty corrupt life.  They start by being born a female, which I guess is a prerequisite for the job.  Once that part is finalized, they go through the usual pre-puberty junk; make-up, frustrating boys, getting their ears pierced or some other part of their anatomy.  Then, it is off to college, the equivalent of two semesters at Vassar, only sweatier.  You know, twice around the track and then fall back on your upscale family connections.  Or, in the odd case, actually win a big race named after a governor that managed to die before the grand jury got hold of him.  That really seals the deal.  Five minutes after the photo shoot, the mare develops a walk like Matt Dillon’s sidekick – and no, not Miss Kitty, but off to the farm just the same.  Either way, that forces everybody in upper management to do the sensible thing:  they pack her bags, cancel the Mint Julep party and try to get the broad married off before American Express figures out why the payment is late.  Miss Potential has a brief and fiery romance (not the kind the Surgeon-General had in mind), and is plopped, with somewhat glowing hormones, into a forty-acre field with her name on it.  And she doesn’t even have to come up with a damage deposit.  There she sits for eleven months, sigma delta whoopee as a graduate of the Peter Principle – the severance package already tucked safely in the bank.  If I could sprout an ovary, I’d get in line, but I think I’m stuck with the rock request.

     Oh, the stallion choice?  Two problems.  First, you spend most of your life being led around with a stud chain under your upper lip by a guy holding a baseball bat designed to curb your enthusiasm.  Secondly, if your first crop of foals are duds, then you get demoted to a ‘teaser.’  I’m already in that kind of a relationship so turning it into a career doesn’t seem like a smart choice.

     Now I know that Shirley MacLaine has her own ideas on reincarnation.  Working out past conflicts, traveling up and down the existential ladder, really complicated stuff.  She could be right, but then again, she could be wrong.  And as much as I’d like to come back as General Patton’s favorite jeep, it might be a lot safer in that forty-acre field.  I’ll get back to you on the labor pain thing.

********

     November concludes with something called Thanksgiving.  It’s a holiday that supposedly focuses on positive thoughts, copious amounts of cardiac-flawed food and the death of 280,000-odd birds that as a group, are far too stupid to figure out that an oven is a bad place to hide.  “Hi, this is Foster Farms, wondering if you guys could drop by for cocktails?  Great!  Hey, could you pick up some stuffing?”  The snickering comes later, not to mention the cranberry sauce.

     We all have this image of the Pilgrims – overdressed, somewhat plump people that seemed to get their clothes at K-Mart.  They always had a few Indians standing around looking passive, but intent on butchering the whole bunch after dessert.  The Indians weren’t stupid.  Quaint perhaps, but they had already met the Vikings so they had a fair idea of what to expect from tourists.  They also knew that this bunch of idiots didn’t seem to know the difference between an ear of corn and a parakeet.  Sadly, the Pilgrims persevered through that first winter, quite contrary to what the Indians had hoped.  Next thing they knew, the place had been renamed Manhattan and sold to Donald Trump.  The Indians never could fathom the real estate business.  It was like selling the sky.  The land had no intention of going anywhere, so why would someone need to own it?  Or build a fence around it.  Was the land going to escape?  Run away perhaps?

     Chief Joseph of Idaho’s Nez Perce described it best:  “The white man comes to my house and wants to buy my horses.  I say, ‘No, I need my horses.’  So he goes to my neighbor and buys my horses from him.”

     Dynasties do come and go.  Most don’t go quietly.  The quiet departures are those accomplished through population transfers.  They get less media attention than outright genocide and manage to accomplish about the same thing.  It is how a majority becomes a minority without ever leaving home.  Goes a long way to explain why Tibet has a 54% Han Chinese majority.  Beijing’s response?  “Oh, they’re just migratory labor.”

 

     So, the problem is not enough buses.

 

     One day the great American dynasty will join the ashes of the long dead pharaohs of Egypt’s great kingdoms.  Archaeologists and anthropologists will be left to pick through the rubble, noting with astonishment that this civilization had 187 different kinds of cars.  Nothing else, just the cars.  And nobody knew where they drove off to.

     The only bright spot in American expansionism was when Custer scratched his head and said, “I think we have a problem here.”  Well, it was probably more like using the ‘F’ word as a noun, verb and adjective in the same sentence, but I’m trying to keep my ratings intact.  “Holy something!” is quite likely a more accurate declaration of the situation at hand.  I’m pretty sure a lot of turkeys can relate to that image especially if they hang around Wal-Mart the week before the big day.  But that’s the bewildering part about American culture – we seem to be always celebrating somebody’s bad luck, even our own.  What’s the difference between Thanksgiving and Pearl Harbor Day?  And who honestly believes that George Armstrong Custer got a bad deal?

*******

     Jesse was still working at shotgun Earl’s down the road, no doubt plotting my embarrassment at some future sale.  That in itself was almost a given, since the owners of her place of employment didn’t have to invest large sums of money preventing a divorce that had no likelihood of happening anyway.  Doc was into preventative medicine:  a few Cadillac’s, the revolving account at an upscale jewelers and gassing up the old 727.  Cheaper than three guys with briefcases.  Ah, but there was more.  An affirmation that odd couples seem to make the best couples.  Depending of course on just what kind of odd you find appealing.  So given that…

      …I decided to ask Jesse over for Thanksgiving dinner.  By phone.  They’re safer.

      “You’re going to actually cook something?”

     “Yeah, four or five rats, those green beans in the freezer, maybe pheasant if the cat comes through.  I’m thinkin’ of something traditional, you know, forage around the old farm and see what I can catch.”

     “The green beans?  They were in the freezer when I met you.  What’s this foraging stuff?  Safeway’s right down the road.”

     “Well, I thought Thanksgiving should be about giving thanks, enjoying the bounty of the land.”

      “You’ve been watching the Discovery Channel again.”

     “Actually, Walt Disney World.  You know, I only get a couple of channels.  What about that turkey farm over the hill?  We could pick out a bird, whop its head off – like the old days.  Sounds kinda like something people do on a farm.”

     “Sounds kind of sick.  Besides, who’s going to eat the thing?  And you’ve got way too much of this farm thing going.  ‘Ol’ MacDonald’ raises racehorses.  We’re in the entertainment business in case you haven’t noticed.  Is your family coming?”

     “No, I’m saving them for Christmas.  ‘Sides, I don’t do family stuff.  We’ll eat it.”

     “I’m a vegetarian.  What about your sister?  Seems I heard somewhere you had a sister.  And that trip to eastern Oregon?  The old lady in the shoe?”

     “Since when?  And I might point out that honesty and Oregon aren’t mutually inclusive.”  Only good comeback I’d had in months.

     “Which when?  And I don’t want to rehash that.”

     “The vegetarian when.”  First signs of crinkling here.  The nose.  I can actually hear it over the phone.  It’s a male skill – one of the few.

     “Since my cramps got so bad.  The doctor said too much protein might be a problem.”

     Oh God, the cramp thing again.  Why couldn’t it be a bicep?  She uses this menstrual process like a turn signal.  “Okay, so Emily and I’ll eat it.”

     “She’s on a diet!”

     “She’s a shark for God’s sake!  She eats bugs!  What about Diet-Coke Sue’s Pit bull?”

     “Shot by the Humane Society last month.”

     “Oh yeah.  Sad deal.  What about your mother?”  Damn.  I hate it when anger and enthusiasm get together.  Makes the line go dead.

     “Let’s not go there.  You want to murder a turkey, be my guest.  I’m going to cook some eggplant.  You can come over if you want.”  Click.

     Eggplant?  One of those purple footballs with a bunch of Kleenex inside?  No giblet gravy, no wishbone to break, no quart of Pepto-Bismol afterwards?  That’s not a holiday, it’s sacrilege!  Besides, what’s the turkey going to think?  Last rites, halfway to the gallows, at peace with the world – then boom, the rug gets pulled out!  The poor bugger will be in therapy until next November.  It’s not fair!

     Over the years, I have gathered up a lot of stuff to be thankful about.  Skipping the eggplant has just been added to the list.  Most have involved physical carnage and a severe lack of personal discretion.  Okay, so it’s a 50/50 split between women, power tools and horses, but I’m still pretty relieved about the results, just a bit confused about who’s grading the exams.  I’ve been hit by a train, fallen off a motorcycle a few times, out of a car at 45mph (that was in the ‘woman’ category – a 70/30 split of opinion on whether I got to stay), a minor thing with a roll-over accident involving a ’57 Chevy, a console TV (first one that had color) and an Irish Setter.  The dog was driving.  Then there were the ‘tree falling’ episodes, a couple of minor drowning’s and a small problem with plugging my transistor radio into the dryer outlet.  Still a little confused about drowning twice.  Not sure if it’s legal since drowning is normally a fatal activity.  I think the confusion lies in the fact that they invented CPR and didn’t bother to check with the English department at Yale for a new adjective.  Something like, ‘nigh upon drowning,’ but saved.

     I also discussed Paulette, so the only remaining question is why I am sharing this.  I guess it’s Jesse.  She has a way of dragging confessions out of people.  She missed her calling.  She should have gotten a job as either Father O’Malley, or lead fingernail puller on a federal interrogation team.  Or, maybe both – get to the truth and then confirm the confession with a pair of pliers.  I guess that explains the look in her eye sometimes.  I’m dating a mercenary who eats eggplant.

     A lot of my recent near-death experiences have naturally been associated with horses.  Or caffeine.  Most are well documented by the hospital up the road.  A few went unreported since they would have led to prolonged incarceration.  Like the yearling with its head caught in the gate.  He was the one with the motorcycle gang attributes.  I first pictured him as the ‘Flying Nun,’ racing toward heaven with me in tow, but he merely backed up, depositing the gate on my head.  I could picture the headlines the next day:  “Horse Kills Man with Gate, Then Itself.”  Pictures at eleven.

     I guess, given the state of the world, I should be thankful.  War, famine, genocide, dislocation.  The very fiber of life ripped away whether it happens to be a holiday or not.  And here I’m having a conflict over turkey versus eggplant.  I guess I could try the purple stuff, but I’m going to keep some Tabasco sauce handy.  Or maybe hide a ham sandwich in the truck.  And the turkey?  Okay, I’ll get him a bus ticket to Canada.  Maybe he can ask for asylum.
 

     ‘Tree falling episodes?’  When I was pretty young, I tended to fall out of trees a lot.  Usually around nine or ten o’clock at night.  We were pretty lucky in that there were at least seven different emergency rooms around the area to deal with tree fallers.  Mother liked to share our business I guess, since we never went to the same one twice.  Usually it was minor stuff – a broken arm, maybe a rib, a few stitches or something.  I was a sleepwalker, she told them.  Fooled her.  I was awake the whole time.

     Eggplant?  God.