The other day, one of my best friends from childhood tracked me down after 48 years of noncontact, displaying admirable perseverance and unexpected detective skills. Shortly thereafter, a girl I met in the sixties called to tell me some articles I had written years ago and passed on to her recently had brought a smile to the face of a man hard to amuse. She also scolded me for no longer writing. Ergo, I've decided to be a little more visible and productive, hopefully on a weekly basis. This column will undoubtedly metamorphosize a few times before reaching formulaic status, if it ever does. So, with that....
When we last left you, King White was suing the Charlatan for $40,000. That he was awarded $80,000 by an outraged Gainesville jury lends credence to the old adage "He who represents himself in court has a fool for a client." We would have continued the magazine under a different title but then the Subterranean Circus came along. The store turned out to be so lucrative (and so much fun) so quickly that, for a person who had always been poor as a church mouse, there was little choice to be made. The business lasted from 1967 to 2000, when the anti-paraphernalia laws became so onerous it was no longer very profitable or very much fun. Fun has always been a major consideration to me. Anyway, by then I was in the horse business.
There are two kinds of people in the thoroughbred business. The first is people who have been doing it most of their lives and have a pretty good idea what they're doing. The other kind is me. And others like me, who, due to good financial fortune, find themselves jumping onto an alien planet, with no particular knowledge of the geography or the language. You figure it out as you go along, until you go broke. Or, in a minimum of cases, succeed. If you are lucky enough to be successful early (like me), there is the colossal danger that you will then think you are very smart at this (like me). You will be wrong. If you make many mistakes in the horse business, you will become very poor, very quickly (like me).
Fortunately, at a low point, came two horses who bailed me out, Vaunted Vamp, winner of 21 races and $420,000 and Juggernaut, winner of $225,000, including two $100,000 stakes races. When these kinds of things happen, the thoroughbred business becomes great fun. And you know how I feel about that. So the beat goes on. This is the time of year the new horses, the two year olds, go to the track, so there is great anticipation and hope. There is an old adage in horse racing...."Nobody ever committed suicide with an untried yearling in the barn." I think that's accurate. And I think that, once immersed in this business, only death or insolvency will let you escape. And I'm not real sure about insolvency.
Old College Magazine joke (from 1965):
A young man about town approached an office supply counter and asked the cute young thing, "Do you keep stationery?"
"Well, up to a certain point," she replied, "Then I just go all to pieces."
That's all, folks.
