"And with this glass, this too shall pass, when fortune turns her wheel..."
In honor of my cousin's mother (it's a tangled, tangled family tree, and if she is my aunt, she's not just my aunt...), who passed away last evening.
Nancy was the one in the family who could feed my horse habit when I was younger. She took my cousin, Trina, and I on countless overnight horse shows, mostly to regional Arabian shows. She didn't always have horses either, but we were all happy to sit in the stands and watch the shows. Trina left home for Florida at 16, and eventually Nancy joined her there. I have not seen Trina in 9 years and it has been much longer since I had last seen Nancy.
As a horseless horselover, you learn to make do with brushes of glory. A relative takes you to a horse show, she buys an ancient Arabian of the temprament to not mind when two children drag it around for walks. Sometimes you find riding lessons. Othertimes you settle for pretending your bike is your horse. And every single month, the best day is the day that Horse Illustrated arrives in the mailbox.
Horse Illustrated is a magazine about horses that served up general horse information. It catered to both English and Western riders. Each month's issue also focused on a specific horse breed. The centerfold pulled out into a poster of a horse of that breed. I never got very good at actually riding a horse during those years, but with each magazine my wall gained another poster, and I learned a little bit more.
Reading was the only constant in my horse addiction. I saved every single issue of the magazine got, and renewals were a constant on my Christmas wishlist. Once I recognized the plot of a short story published in the magazine as being a cut down version of a book I had just read. A few months later, the magazine admitted it had discovered the child who had written the story had lifted it from this same book, barely bothering to change character names. The character Jessie was called "Chessie". I remember the article called "A Horse is Not a Someday Thing", which argued that children needed their horses now, not later. A little biased, I am sure, and I don't remember any of the supporting argument, but I remember being utterly convinced the author was so right my mother wouldn't possibly be able to say no to a horse now.
I read every part of that magazine. The classifieds were where I first learned of a two week horse shoeing school in Kentucky, and this is how I decided I would become a farrier. I had no idea whether I would enjoy that work or not - but it was the only job related to horses I could think of and so Farrier became my standard reply to what I wanted to be when I grew up. At the end of each issue, the back page was reserved for reader photographs of horses doing cute or interesting things. Horses trying to sneak a bite of ice cream from an unwatched cone. Horses wearing Santa hats in December. Horses with kittens perched on their backs. So many different horses each month. So many people besides me who had exactly what I wanted.
After 8 years or so of constant subscribing, I eventually grew out of Horse Illustrated. I had a brief period of time with my own horse that ended poorly, and the centerfolds, marking years of dedication, came down off my walls. I kept at horses with decreasing passion for another few years, borrowing rides when I could, and focusing my energy on 4H activities that required horse knowledge but not necessarily a horse instead. I had plenty of knowledge, and I did well at that. I never found breed identification to be troublesome in any 4H quiz I took, from the local horse show to the National Hippology contests. Sometimes when competing at these events, I could still see the illustrations or photos on the pages of the magazine where I first encountered the information I was being tested on.
Before I left for college we held a yardsale. I kept my bridle, and some saddlebags, gifts from a 4H leader. I kept the horse books, Centered Riding, The Encyclopedia of the Horse, and a dozen others, all of which are in my library still, clearly worn from use. The rest of my equipment, the Breyer horse models, and the stacks and stacks of Horse Illustrateds, went for less than 20 dollars to a tiny blond homeschooled girl. This was before ebay. Now the Breyers would pay for a nice trip Bar Harbor for a few days. But only another 8 year old girl would ever see the value in a stack of old magazines.
Nancy was the beginning of making my passion bearable. She made no comment when I reread any of her magazines instead of doing normal things like play outside. She probably got it. Her own daughter, my cousin, was training horses for money by the time she was 15. Trina has always been fearless and able to relate to the world by just doing. My relation to everything is through the reading I've done. I'm not done posting about magazines, yet, but both Nancy and my first relationship with a magazine deserved a post of their own.
In honor of my cousin's mother (it's a tangled, tangled family tree, and if she is my aunt, she's not just my aunt...), who passed away last evening.
Nancy was the one in the family who could feed my horse habit when I was younger. She took my cousin, Trina, and I on countless overnight horse shows, mostly to regional Arabian shows. She didn't always have horses either, but we were all happy to sit in the stands and watch the shows. Trina left home for Florida at 16, and eventually Nancy joined her there. I have not seen Trina in 9 years and it has been much longer since I had last seen Nancy.
As a horseless horselover, you learn to make do with brushes of glory. A relative takes you to a horse show, she buys an ancient Arabian of the temprament to not mind when two children drag it around for walks. Sometimes you find riding lessons. Othertimes you settle for pretending your bike is your horse. And every single month, the best day is the day that Horse Illustrated arrives in the mailbox.
Horse Illustrated is a magazine about horses that served up general horse information. It catered to both English and Western riders. Each month's issue also focused on a specific horse breed. The centerfold pulled out into a poster of a horse of that breed. I never got very good at actually riding a horse during those years, but with each magazine my wall gained another poster, and I learned a little bit more.
Reading was the only constant in my horse addiction. I saved every single issue of the magazine got, and renewals were a constant on my Christmas wishlist. Once I recognized the plot of a short story published in the magazine as being a cut down version of a book I had just read. A few months later, the magazine admitted it had discovered the child who had written the story had lifted it from this same book, barely bothering to change character names. The character Jessie was called "Chessie". I remember the article called "A Horse is Not a Someday Thing", which argued that children needed their horses now, not later. A little biased, I am sure, and I don't remember any of the supporting argument, but I remember being utterly convinced the author was so right my mother wouldn't possibly be able to say no to a horse now.
I read every part of that magazine. The classifieds were where I first learned of a two week horse shoeing school in Kentucky, and this is how I decided I would become a farrier. I had no idea whether I would enjoy that work or not - but it was the only job related to horses I could think of and so Farrier became my standard reply to what I wanted to be when I grew up. At the end of each issue, the back page was reserved for reader photographs of horses doing cute or interesting things. Horses trying to sneak a bite of ice cream from an unwatched cone. Horses wearing Santa hats in December. Horses with kittens perched on their backs. So many different horses each month. So many people besides me who had exactly what I wanted.
After 8 years or so of constant subscribing, I eventually grew out of Horse Illustrated. I had a brief period of time with my own horse that ended poorly, and the centerfolds, marking years of dedication, came down off my walls. I kept at horses with decreasing passion for another few years, borrowing rides when I could, and focusing my energy on 4H activities that required horse knowledge but not necessarily a horse instead. I had plenty of knowledge, and I did well at that. I never found breed identification to be troublesome in any 4H quiz I took, from the local horse show to the National Hippology contests. Sometimes when competing at these events, I could still see the illustrations or photos on the pages of the magazine where I first encountered the information I was being tested on.
Before I left for college we held a yardsale. I kept my bridle, and some saddlebags, gifts from a 4H leader. I kept the horse books, Centered Riding, The Encyclopedia of the Horse, and a dozen others, all of which are in my library still, clearly worn from use. The rest of my equipment, the Breyer horse models, and the stacks and stacks of Horse Illustrateds, went for less than 20 dollars to a tiny blond homeschooled girl. This was before ebay. Now the Breyers would pay for a nice trip Bar Harbor for a few days. But only another 8 year old girl would ever see the value in a stack of old magazines.
Nancy was the beginning of making my passion bearable. She made no comment when I reread any of her magazines instead of doing normal things like play outside. She probably got it. Her own daughter, my cousin, was training horses for money by the time she was 15. Trina has always been fearless and able to relate to the world by just doing. My relation to everything is through the reading I've done. I'm not done posting about magazines, yet, but both Nancy and my first relationship with a magazine deserved a post of their own.
posted by Bellanca43 | 7:53 AM
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