A Primer For Life
Thoroughbred horsemen like to tell you that nobody ever committed suicide with an untried yearling in the barn. There’s a lot of truth in that statement. Broadened, it means that a life filled with hope, excitement and joyful workdays will carry you over the meadow and through the woods to the ultimate winner's circle. Your horse will sometimes stumble, your jockey err and you will lose races. But you’ll win some, too, and a single win in a forest of struggle will brighten many days.
First, of course, you must have a horse, a raison d’ etre, and a direction to look toward. Choose your candidate wisely. He need not be the largest horse, the best conformed, endowed with the finest pedigree. He need only be the horse with the most spirit, the greatest desire, a driving will to win.
Take your time with this horse. Teach him what he needs to know. Pause with him when he is not ready, strike when it’s time to attack and you will someday win the prize. The most glory resides in the winning, of course, but there is glory in the training, too. The day-to-day effort to get better. The learning what works and what doesn’t. The camaraderie of the stable. The bonhomie of the backstretch.
Spend your life in encouraging climes. Surround yourself with riders, grooms and hotwalkers who whistle a happy tune. Keep your eye on the prize. And never bet everything you’ve got on a longshot.
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| In the photo at the top of the page, Bill, age 48, is with his mother, Marie, at Hampton Beach, N.H. (2) Bill at the the beach with his Dodge Mirada, age 42. (3) With stepson Danny Ogus at Calder Race course, age 50. |
Down On The Farm
In a rare morning lull at the 1984 Subterranean Circus, co-worker Rose Coward and I were discussing amore, an important subject to Rose. “I think I'm going to wind up with my vet,” I told her. “I think it’s Fate.”
“Oh, that sounds like a great idea,” she scoffed (Rose was never one to withhold her opinion). “What have you got in common outside of horses? She’s a straight-arrow, no interest in sports, works 12 hours a day and tilts to the dark side of liberal arts vs. math and science. Sounds like a can’t-miss dream match.”
“Well, I didn’t have anything but fashion in common with Harolyn,” I replied. “Yeah, and look how that turned out!” she laughed.
“Hey, we had a ten year marriage,” I protested. “That broke my old record by seven years.”
At the time of the conversation, I was still seeing the charming Betsy Harper, soon to be in the wind. Betsy had become so enamoured of Miami during our trips to the races, she decided to up and move there. After a respectable mourning period, I picked up the phone and called my vet, Siobhan Ellison.
“I’m out here at the barn waiting for the mare to foal,” I advised. “It probably won’t be tonight, but who knows? Anyway, I’m getting nervous about eating every night at the ptomaine palace down the road. What have you got for dinner over there?” It was such sophisticated savoir-faire that wilted the resistance of maidens everywhere. “I’ll see what I can find,” she promised. I could just imagine her heart jumping for joy.
Siobhan had recently built a nice little house in the country on five acres of land in tiny Fairfield, just 15 minutes from my farm in Orange Lake. She was in her last year of servitude in a four-doctor large-animal vet practice and was soon to go out on her own. I learned that this career was not always the stuff of James Herriot’s charming meanderings in All Creatures Great and Small. Siobhan was called out in the dead of night for emergencies in sketchy backwaters that made your skin crawl. She was often met with unhandled horses and criminally dull owners, country roads more suitable to Zimbabwe and problems ignored for so long that salvation was not an option. She was nothing if not plucky, working her way through the wreckage, however daunting. It was decidedly not a job for Little Miss Muffet.
Due to the long hours (10 a.m to 10 p.m.) at the Circus, dates with Betsy Harper—or anyone else—had been restricted to two or three nights a week. Betsy called the non-dating period “dark days,” the racetrack jargon for those days when there was no racing. After about a month-and-a-half, Siobhan let me know dark days were unacceptable in her neighborhood and there would have to be an accommodation. I thought she had a reasonable point. I moved into her little house in 1985 and have been there ever since. Having had two unsuccessful marriages, however, I told her there would have to be a very long tryout period before I embarked on that ship again. She was unconcerned. Finally, after 31 years of moderately good behavior, we married in Las Vegas in 2016. It seems to be working out. She’s even willing to go on annual vacations now, regularly attends softball games at UF and diligently walks a mile with me in the nabe each morning. For my part, I attend her weekly yoga classes, hand-mow the yoga grounds religiously each Sunday and occasionally lighten up her speeches and instructional papers with my well-known hilarious anecdotes. So far, so good.
I’ve been looking around for Rose to trumpet my great success in marriage despite her sarcasm and very long odds out of Vegas. I have not been the best of partners in my long history of erratic relationships, though I must insist that at least I provided everybody with a heaping ration of fun. Sometimes, it just takes awhile to get the job done right. After 35 years, I’m comfortable that the promise in Siobhan’s wedding ring is safe. “Always,” it says. And always it will be.
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| The Ageless Wonders, whooping it up at Cedar Key. |
Latter Day Saint
No, not the religion. We’re not big advocates of organized worshiping here at The Flying Pie, we have more of an Every Man For Himself outlook. The sainthood refers more to a gradual manipulation of the dial from a spirited boyhood to a chaotic adolescence to a rowdy young adulthood to a hellbent middle-age and onward to the relative serenity of the present.
Over time, you learn you don’t have to woo every pretty girl you see nor make millions of dollars nor risk life, limb and bankroll on dubious enterprises. You discover one day that you are not indestructible. You finally accept Dirty Harry’s dictum that “A man has to know his limitations.” You realize that the most valuable thing you have in this life is Time.
One day, you look around, smile at your good fortune and take a moment to survey the playing field. Does somebody need a kind word, a leg up, a light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe you decide to be that light. Maybe you finally discover that simple acts of charity can be the most rewarding aspects of Life. Maybe the nuns were right about something, after all.
In 80 years, you lose some physicality, but you gain wisdom. By 80, you know what works and what doesn’t. After 960 months on Earth, you’ve been around, you’ve learned the value of things, the joys of friendship, the importance of being reliable. After 4160 weeks, you keep a keen sense of humor in your pocket to help reflect on the foolishness you encounter every day.
You have always had a code, a vaguely defined belief system in the better instincts of man, but sometimes this code was inconvenient to your selfish pursuits. Now, you have made accommodations, polished it up and put it front and center on your mantle. First, you speak the truth, whether it benefits you or not. Second, you keep your word regardless of any obstacle. Third, you keep watch over your family and friends and step to the fore when the need arises. Instinctively, you know the rest.
None of this means you should be less the individual. None of this says you’re not allowed to be erratic, even eccentric. Nobody is permitted to tell you not to dance in the streets or dress like Tina Turner or pose for nude pictures on your 80th birthday. There is no curfew for old folks on occasional madness, just a quiet guide to avoid broken bones.
Celebrate your suitcase full of accumulated cleverness. Travel as often and as far as your body and bank account will allow. You’ll love Paris in the winter when it drizzles, you’ll love Paris in the summer when it sizzles. Go to the beach. Cavort through the mountains. Take one more look from the rim of the Grand Canyon, one more sunset ferry from Sausalito to San Francisco.
It ain’t over til it’s over. Yogi Berra said that.
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| Above photo, Bill works out at home before his gym days, age 46. Below, in Soho, NYC, catching the street scene at 60. |
When You’re 80….
When you’re 80, you stop and take stock of things. How much remains in the larder, and what should you do about it? The depot is relatively busy at 80, with 40% of men and 57% of women still around, but the tracks are wobbly, the hills are steep and the bridge is occasionally out on the way to 90. Only 4.7% of Americans arrive there safely and many of them are listing to the side. When you’re 80, you make hay while the sun shines.
When you’re 80, poignancy reigns, your emotions often swell. Is this the last time you’ll visit old Fenway, drive through Big Sur, stop for another look at Yosemite’s Bridalveil? You’re a little irked that the world will go on without you, but you laugh and slap yourself on the head.
When you’re 80, you’d like to see the planet turn to the light before The Big Finish. You want to know your wife is secure, your children are prosperous, your friends are well and the Gators have finally discovered how to play defense. You do what you can to make sure your beloved home will never become a landfill.
When you’re 80, you reflect on the places you’ve seen, the wonders experienced, the people who’ve made your universe colorful, the women you’ve loved. You enlarge the bright photos and dismiss the disagreeable ones.
When you’re 80, you give thanks for a marvelous youth, an incredible adolescence, the courage to risk what you had to get where you wanted to go. You appreciate having matured and lived in a singular time of art and music and freedom unlikely to be repeated as long as the Earth spins.
When you are 80, you smile at the cosmos for blessing you with the antennae to discover the perfect wife and friend, a woman of intelligence and humor and compassion and honesty who has undoubtedly played a prominent part in keeping you alive this long. The worst pain and sorrow is in finally leaving her.
When you’re 80, you walk your coffee cup down to the driveway gate every morning, flip the lock and listen to the three chirping beeps which assure you all is in readiness for another day. You look to the brightening firmament, lift your cup and recite those four magic words to noone in particular---“Thanks for another sunrise.” And you tread smiling into the light.
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| Bill at 80; old soldiers never die, they just fade away. (photo by Jaime Swanson) |
That’s not quite all, folks. We hope.
