A horse named Blue, a dog named Boo and a Judge named Cheryl

So life went on at the river house for a few years or months or whatever it was with its ups and downs. We had our adventures in the woods and fields riding horses, breaking into the old Kroger estate and trying to sell the rancid tulip bulbs in front of the post office. Fights broke out; nights where spent in pick up beds under stars and around fire pits. Siblings getting lost in the woods for hours and hours; an aresole can explosion popping open my brother’s hand, nothing a little rubbing alcohol and a popsicle won’t take care of. There was the occasional horse bite or kick, a cow’s birth and always the permeating smell of horse shit. Still, my favorite of favorites of smells, right up there with bacon cooking. It’s said they aromas can take you back into time quicker and more intensely than any others senses and my experience that this is a true fact. It’s not scientific but based on the number of times I’ve driven passed a horse pasture and smelling that slightly sickly sweet odor has taken me back into time to a muggy July day around the horses of my childhood.

A lot happened in the big world too, Nixon got re-elected, my uncle got elected mayor, folks started coming back from Viet Nam, Fisher beat Spassky, Watergate broke and the Supreme Court legalized abortion and I’m pretty sure something happened on, near or around the moon. The Exorcist came out and I snuck into a showing at Hyde Park Square, shit my pants and ran out of the theatre. George Carlin was arrested for seven deadly words and my family discovered the beauty of light beers.  Yep, from where I was sitting it was a good year.

Weekend life out on the camp was just right for me, one day I’d be playing cowboys and Indians with real horses, hatchets (tomahawks) and b.b. guns, riding wildly bare back and bare chested, we would find ourselves building forts and river rafts, hiking in the woods, breaking into abandoned houses and building the occasional fire that’d grow out of control as we dashed off. The next day I’d be playing burned out hippy kid, trying to memorize the words to Harrison’s Bangladesh Album while eating spam sandwiches and drinking the remains of canned beers and watered down cocktails from the night before. I was mesmerized by the picture of that little kid on the front of the Album cover, I wanted to reach in and pull him out and share my canned meat and egg sandy on rye. I dreamt of getting a team of recon specialists and ex Viet Nam do gooders, going to Bangladesh and rescuing that little fucker, teaching him the ways of the west and capitalism. Dressing him in Chuck T’s, Levi’s and a cool ass oversized army jacket.    Idealism came easy to a kid that was nearly always stoned.

One grey day I found myself and Dad walking across the railroad trestle from Miamiville. We’d went over to get some bologna and a few scratch tickets and we stopped into the tavern to knock back a couple of beers while we were there. Oddly though, my dad seemed pensive and broodish as we crossed over the river. He was obviously engrossed in his own thoughts as he took the trestle tracks one by one and I tight-rope walked along one of the rails, arms out for balance, sea-saw occasionally on purpose to make it feel a wee bit more dangerous. It rained recently and misted a bit so the river was running faster and higher than usual but I was always okay as long as I didn’t look down to the running water 40 feet below me. The nerves of steel kid.

Once we reached the safety of the other side, he seemed to loosen up a bit and asked if I wanted to continue walking the track rather than work our way down the scree of the embankment and on to the river house. Of course I want to continue walking, it’s not often I have my dad all to myself. We chatted about how much he loved me and how he came back from California to be with us kids; about love in general and how sometime it’s a beautiful thing and how sometimes it isn’t so great and things just don’t work out. We talked about Cat Steven’s, why Jonathon Livingston Seagull had such a long name for a bird where chili came from and we decided that Colby Cheddar was the best cheese and not Limburger.

We shivered and talked as we meandered down those tracks towards the School House restaurant; it was a happy moment, a moment frozen in time because we shared so few of those moments. Sort of a Pearl Harbor moment, I knew exactly where I was, the shade of my flimsy red wind breaker, how soggy my Convers had gotten, the color of the shrubs and which direction the rain was occasionally spitting. It was a misty and grey walk, but a happy walk, we’d push each other off the iron rails and laugh as we fake wind milled our arms. An overgrown pasture was on our right separated by a rusted wire fence, barbed wire and small locust trees and over grown shrubs that haven’t been manicured since the Kroger family moved on and out... Suddenly two horses galloped up and stuck there heads through a break in the thicket, one was a huge white appaloosa with blue grey spot that seemed as if his groom forgot him. His hair was tangled and matted, burrs where stuck in his tail and the remnants of his winter coat. His name was Blue and his was a beautiful horse, well cut, well defined and real spirited son of a bitch. I also knew for a fact that he liked to drink beer. Blues companion was a well-kept, well trained Palomino of no distinction as far as I was concerned. Too much of a lady for me, I liked Blue. We stopped and petted and put our arms around the necks, sort of hugging the animals and I just sort of wished that all our times together could be more like this.

Leaving the horses behind, my dad gestured that it was time to start heading back home for dinner. Unexpectedly my dad’s conversation turned from light hearted and silly to a more serious note. He abruptly, out of the blue said “You’re mother is trying to put me in jail.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I lost my breath; I had visions of going to the Norwood Jail to see him, separated by bars, how long would he be in jail? Days, months, years, was a life sentence looming? First things first I thought as I composed myself.

“Why?! I said.

“I’m not sure son, money. She’s looking for money and I don’t have none.”

After such a special moment this news hit especially hard. My throat started to burn; close up, my eyes started to water as I struggled to fight back the tears at the thought of not seeing my dad for who knows how long. No more walks, bologna sandwiches, no more motorcycles, driving the car by myself, no more sitting on the bar stool at the Miamiville Tavern drinking straight grenadine and mowing down Vienna sausages. No more nothing. I was getting pissed and as I struggled to rationalize what could possibly happen ‘I figured my Step Dad must somehow be behind this. But there was nothing I could do, he was grown up and I was just a little kid.

My dad continued “I’m supposed to send her money every week and I just don’t have it, we had to go see a judge and your mother pulled this out to show him.” It was my dad and step mom’s Christmas card. They were standing in front of a royal blue slat fence with a bunch of dogs, cats and horses around them. I knew that card very well; I would sometimes pretend that I was in that picture too. Sometimes I would include my brother and sister but mostly it as just me. And I actually remember looking for that photo once and it being gone from where I kept my copy. That must have been the one that made its way in front of the judge. I knew the names of every one of the animals; Jeanne, Sunfire, Bullet, Diane, Eli, Boo, Jason, Chelsea, Spencer, Levon, Geronimo, Spike the cow and her calf Flipper. . “She told the judge I had enough to keep these animals but not enough money to take care of my kids, so I might be going to jail.”

I cried and wailed and hugged my dad’s waste as we stumbled along. I think maybe he cried a little bit too.

“You know, there might be one thing….” his voice trailed off a little.

I shrugged and tried to catch my breath. “What’s that?” as I wiped my eyes on an already drenched red windbreaker.

“Your twelfth birthday is coming up and the judge will let you decide who you want to live with, all the kids get to decide. You could come with me and the animals or your Mom and B. Then, I wouldn’t have to pay as much money because we’d be taking care of you here and I could probably catch up on what I owe and wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

Brilliance! And I realized I had a big decision to make.  And it was a big decision that merited a lot of thought, mulling over and scrutinizing Unfortunately I didn’t possess the necessary capacity for reason and logic to pull this one off. I didn’t consider asking a priest, grown up, older kid or someone with more life experience. I just wanted to go where the party was, a theme that would follow me later in life.