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Blog 5 january

Blog 5, January

I’ve been the guest at a number of elementary schools with requests to talk about my book BARBARO, AMERICA’S HORSE. Most recently, I was at Littlewood Elementary in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida. For those of us who wonder how the 5 to 10 set will fare when they take the adult stage in the next decade—relax. I saw wonder, patience, tolerance and passion-- and not just in the kids but in the staff as well. Kids lined up and hugged the sidewalks in displays of respect and discipline as I was escorted to the auditorium by a staff member. A child who was walking past on the sidewalk immediately made a bee line for that staff worker, and they each spontaneously embraced, sharing a hug that was not just warm but genuinely caring. What a revolution! Each was from a difference race. In fact, in the auditorium, I imagine half the globe was represented by at least one student from a different birth nation.

A week later this appeared:

Dear Shelley Mickle,

Your story of Barbaro was so detailed that I felt like I was Edgar Prado. (That’s a compliment.) Books shouldn’t always be a happy fairy tale. Because not everything is. But this book not only is real but still a fairy tale. Not your dream fairytale ending, but a happy horse, not suffering or hurting, but yet the world says it was a tragic ending. I think it wasn’t. He isn’t hurting anymore. I like writing books and people like you inspire me. Thank you. Thank the world for a new beginning in animals. Let a tragic ending be good to other animals, so they get a happy one. Again, thank you. Sincerely, Erin.

This letter was only one among many I received.

Now for a “memory mash”:

This story was told to me in passing by someone who was a friend of the person it happened to. Passing along slices of life that create their own architecture in becoming a story is the least we can do to offer as gifts.

Sandwiched

My friend Bill is a card-carrying member of the Sandwich Generation. By that I mean he’s at the age where on one side he has unmarried children in their 20s and on the other side, a widowed father in his 80s. And last week, Bill said he felt like a Ruben sandwich—you know that’s the one where they put corned beef and sauerkraut on rye and press the pee-doodle-squat out of it on a grill.

It started on Monday. Bill had just gotten home from work when his son, who’s 23, knocked on the front door and said he wanted to introduce him to someone. By the way his son said “someone” Bill knew it was a girl and, beyond that, a girl his son was hot on. In fact, Bill said his son’s eyes were downright busy with a look brought on by either early love or full-blown lust. Anyway, when Bill met the girl, he said, yep, he knew exactly what his son had in mind.

The girl waited in the living room while Bill pulled his son off into a backroom for a private little chat. Right off, Bill’s son said,” I want you to know, Dad, she’s moving in tomorrow. We’ve decided to live together.”

Now, Bill knows that’s the way of his son’s generation, yet the idea doesn’t sit real well with him.” Look son,” he said, “you need to think this out.” Then Bill pointed out that living together wouldn’t really teach his son anything about being married. He next spelled out all sorts of complications it could lead to, such as getting to know too much about each other, blowing away all the mystery, and also sharing a closet where SHE could borrow all of HIS clothes while HERS wouldn’t do much of anything for him.

And IF they did split up, who would get what? Finally Bill ended with, “Don’t you want to wait, and if this DOES turn out to be the real thing, well then—just get married?”

Bill’s son turned around, said nothing and drove off. But before Bill could decide what THAT meant, his 83year-old father drove up, got out of the car and said, “Son, I want you to meet my fiancée.” He then rushed around to open the car door, and a lovely woman in her early seventies stepped out. Bill swallowed hard and invited them in for a glass of iced tea. But as soon as Bill got his father’s fiancée settled in the family room, he pulled his father into that same back room and said, “Look, Dad, don’t you wanna just live together?”