Susan Larson's Blog - Posts Tagged "growing-up"

During the week of Dec 9-13k that “Sam” is running free on Kindle (there’s an image!) Sam has consented to interview his biographer, me.

S: Why did you take so long bringing my biography to the waiting world?
B: Cut me some slack, I was singing opera and stuff.
S: Why are there so many human beings hogging the attention? I don't think you put me into enough scenes.
B: You have the title role. You had a large circle of acquaintance, people you liked. People you hated. I needed to stuff them all in.
S: What inspired you to write this poignant and tender book?
b: You did.
S: And what were your major influences?
B: You were.
S: No, I mean your literary influences.
B: Anna Sewell, who wrote BlackBeauty, Felix Salten, who wrote Bambi, and L. Frank Baum wrote about a talking horse named ‘Stampedro’ in “The Yellow Knight of Oz." Stampedro like you, was cantankerous. These are all stories where the animals talk.
S: How does my biography compare with these classic works of literature?
B: Well, you talk too. Are you trying to embarrass me in public?
S: Sorrrry. I just want to be immortal, like Black Beauty, Is that too much to ask?
S: What was it like when we met for the first time?
B: You were not what I expected. I was expecting a pony.
S: Well you weren't what I expected either. I was expecting to go to, you know, to the Alpo factory. So how did we join up?
B: We had a lot in common. We were stubborn and mistrustful at first. It could easily have gone the other way.
S: You were a considerate rider though. I always appreciated it when humans wanted me to do stuff, that they asked me nice. I am not a fan of being bullied.
B: Me neither. I remember trying to bully you a few times, when I lost my temper.
S: And how did that work out?

I raise some questions in my book “Sam (a pastoral)” about how we treat animals and each other. Ruthie, my young heroine, loses her temper and takes it out on Sam. She tells no one, but the guilty feeling that the horse will always remember the abuse and never trust her again, is eating away at her. After a bitter fight with her sister about the human and animal slavery, Ruthie asks her Dad to clarify this question for them. Here are a few bits Dad’s philosophy.

“When you face facts you see that Fear and Hunger are the only forces in the world. There’s no such thing as love. Nobody, man nor beast, works because he loves it. I get up and commute to the office every day because I am afraid of getting fired and going hungry. If I could arrange things to suit myself, I wouldn’t have a wife and kids, ha ha, and right now I’d be asleep under a palm tree in the South Sea Islands, with a few lines out to catch fish for dinner….



"Every animal in the world–and we are animals too– is driven by Fear and Hunger and nothing else. Is that good? Is that bad? It’s just reality. Sam obeys you because the whip and the bit give him pain, and he fears pain…that’s the way the world works, for all of us….”

Ruthie absorbs several ideas from Dad’s lecture. First, that her Dad does not love her or want her. Second, that kindness doesn’t matter. As she lies sleepless in her bed that night she thinks:

I could yank Sam’s mouth and beat and starve him and it wouldn’t make any difference. I just believed all that gushy oh-my-pony-loves-me stuff so I could get to ride. What Dad said was true. Sam was my slave.

"Sam" on Kindle is offered until Dec. 13

I raise some questions in my book “Sam (a pastoral)” about how we treat animals and each other. Ruthie, my young heroine, loses her temper and takes it out on Sam. She tells no one, but the guilty feeling that the horse will always remember the abuse and never trust her again, is eating away at her. After a bitter fight with her sister about the human and animal slavery, Ruthie asks her Dad to clarify this question for them. Here are a few bits Dad’s philosophy.

“When you face facts you see that Fear and Hunger are the only forces in the world. There’s no such thing as love. Nobody, man nor beast, works because he loves it. I get up and commute to the office every day because I am afraid of getting fired and going hungry. If I could arrange things to suit myself, I wouldn’t have a wife and kids, ha ha, and right now I’d be asleep under a palm tree in the South Sea Islands, with a few lines out to catch fish for dinner….



"Every animal in the world–and we are animals too– is driven by Fear and Hunger and nothing else. Is that good? Is that bad? It’s just reality. Sam obeys you because the whip and the bit give him pain, and he fears pain…that’s the way the world works, for all of us….”

Ruthie absorbs several ideas from Dad’s lecture. First, that her Dad does not love her or want her. Second, that kindness doesn’t matter. As she lies sleepless in her bed that night she thinks:

I could yank Sam’s mouth and beat and starve him and it wouldn’t make any difference. I just believed all that gushy oh-my-pony-loves-me stuff so I could get to ride. What Dad said was true. Sam was my slave.

"Sam" is free for your Kindle or Kindle app until Dec. 13.

I raise some questions in my book “Sam (a pastoral)” about how we treat animals and each other. Ruthie, my young heroine, loses her temper and takes it out on Sam. She tells no one, but the guilty feeling that the horse will always remember the abuse and never trust her again, is eating away at her. After a bitter fight with her sister about the human and animal slavery, Ruthie asks her Dad to clarify this question for them. Here are a few bits Dad’s philosophy.

“When you face facts you see that Fear and Hunger are the only forces in the world. There’s no such thing as love. Nobody, man nor beast, works because he loves it. I get up and commute to the office every day because I am afraid of getting fired and going hungry. If I could arrange things to suit myself, I wouldn’t have a wife and kids, ha ha, and right now I’d be asleep under a palm tree in the South Sea Islands, with a few lines out to catch fish for dinner…."

Dad continues:

"Every animal in the world–and we are animals too– is driven by Fear and Hunger and nothing else. Is that good? Is that bad? It’s just reality. Sam obeys you because the whip and the bit give him pain, and he fears pain…that’s the way the world works, for all of us….”

Ruthie absorbs several ideas from Dad’s lecture. First, that her Dad does not love her or want her. Second, that kindness doesn’t matter. As she lies sleepless in her bed that night she thinks:

"I could yank Sam’s mouth and beat and starve him and it wouldn’t make any difference. I just believed all that gushy oh-my-pony-loves-me stuff so I could get to ride. What Dad said was true. Sam was my slave."

"Sam" is free for your Kindle or Kindle app until Dec. 13.

“Sam (a pastoral) is about a horse of no value, who has had it with most of the human race. Sam, the horse, is rescued from an uncertain fate by a child who is starting to believe she has no value. Somehow this unlikely pair works out their issues, including:

1. Talking back, make that screaming back, at her family when they belittle her most cherished dreams.
2. Refusing to be bridled.
3. Refusing to let go of an idea once it enters her head, especially if horses are involved.
4. Refusing to be shod.
5. Sticking to her notion that the first rule in animal care is care.
6. Sticking to his notion that the first rule in human care is care.

By the turning point in this book Sam is doing the rescuing, because his child, Ruthie, has lost all sense of herself. Her father has left the house for good; as a parting shot, he blames Ruthie and Sam for the breakup of the family. Shattered by guilt and consumed with rage, she plunges into a dark winter of the soul that is mirrored by the worst weather their neck of the woods has seen in years.

Sam stands by as Ruthie acts out in all sorts of awful ways. He forgives her tantrums, and pulls her out of her funk and back into the world of the living as spring arrives. More challenges wait in store for the devoted pair, as Ruthie struggles to regain herself and to practice her own and Sam’s notions; that the first rule in the care and feeding of either humans or animals, is care.

(author: Susan Larson)

Sam arrives

Cousin Billy’s van pulled into the barn lane bright and early, at eight o’clock. Billy let down the ramp and led Sam out. Actually, Sam exploded out in one giant leap and never touched the ramp. He was quivering all over, bug-eyed, high-tailed and high-headed. He looked quite a bit uglier– and oranger– and wilder– than I remembered…

We led him out to the pasture, and in and out of his new stall a few times, and along all the fence lines, reading the how-to-settle-them-in-to-their-new-home instructions in “A Horse of Your Own" as we went...

Finally we turned Sam loose to investigate on his own. He did another complete tour of the pasture at a high-prancing trot, sometimes screeching to a halt, nostrils whiffing, eyes flashing blue, looking. He looked at the twelve Holsteins he shared his new home with; he looked at Connnor’s Holsteins in their pasture a half mile away; he looked at Byron mowing his hay, a little late in the season, down-hollow.
The only thing he ignored was us.
Pretty soon Byron chugged up on his tractor, parked it in the lane and walked out to meet us.
“Seen the van come up. Thought I’d take a look at your new pony. Built to last, ain’t he?”
I just nodded and watched my horse thundering around the pasture.
“You ride him over at Billy’s? How’s he go?”
“Goes good, Boy Jeez. Stops good too.”
“All you need.” Byron watched Sam some more, chuckled a few times, rubbed the back of his neck, then climbed up on his tractor and chugged back down to his haylot…

“When can I ride?” said Evvie.
“It says here we’re supposed to let him settle in for a day. Tomorrow. Or the day after. Then we’ll put the bridle on.”
How was I going to put the bridle on, was what I was thinking…

These words may be the worst and most murderous message one can deliver to another human being. In “Sam (a pastoral)” my novel about horses and humans, those words are never said. But the protagonist, Ruthie gets a the unspoken message from her Dad: he would have liked a better kid than the one he got.

When I was young, many folks thought that being harsh and judgmental with your children was something you did for their own good. Belittling them, telling them what disappointments they were to you, toughened them up for the inevitable hard knocks awaiting them in the real world. Cuddling them produced adults who were soft, gay, dependent on food stamps, whatever. Today, at least among liberal thinkers, what was once a popular child-rearing method is called ‘abuse.’

In “Sam” there is a quiet, bucolic chapter called ‘At the Horse Show.’ In this chapter Ruthie, having bought and befriended the homely, cranky horse Sam, she leaves him snoozing in the barn and goes to see a local horse show. She is happy that she’s no longer feeling left out and jealous– she has a horse now too, and he is wonderful in so many ways.

She forgets all those wonderful ways the moment she sees the pretty, graceful, shiny ponies the other kids have: their braided manes, silky tails and sleek clipped coats. The ponies she used to dream about; just better in every way than hers.

She goes home and tries to pretty Sam up. She trims the mops of hair off his fetlocks. She cuts off his beard and whiskers. She braids his mane and hacks off half the hair on his tail, trying desperately to turn him into some other horse; but the task proves impossible. By the end of this fruitless makeover session, which Sam enjoys immensely, she reaches a wise conclusion: Sam is OK just the way he is.

Later in the book, there is a deeper echo of this story, as Ruthie and Bea Pilcher sit in Bea’s kitchen talking about the breakup of Ruthie’s family, and the terrible burning rage that has devoured her life ever since. Bea reaches over and pats Ruthie’s hair and tells her she wished she had a kid like her.

This is the beginning of Ruthie’s return to herself. Somebody has said to her, you may be in a bad place, but you, you are OK just as you are.

Four little country Hollows. They seemed like an endless universe for a couple of runaway kids– and their tireless, rampageous doublewide trash horse– to range around in. What is so memorable bout those hollows?

Farms. Woods. Freedom. Ancient trails that led somewhere or nowhere. Neighbors who liked to see us when we paid calls on horseback. Some creepy secrets. Everything we needed to find our hero selves.

There is something magic about your view of the world from a horse’s back. Your head floats a little higher off the ground and you feel a bit lordly. You can look all around you too, because you aren’t the only one watching the road.

Deer and other critters gaze mildly at that big centaur coming their way, and they don’t skedaddle unless you talk. The world of nature enfolds you, and you start to be an animal for a blessed while.

You dare to turn onto those strange and alluring trails that you stumble across, even if the sun is sinking. One of you, if not both of you, always knows the way home, even in the dark.

Going back to my neighborhood as an adult, I see how tiny it really was. Of course it has changed a lot. Much of the land is now posted. Old houses are torn down and modern ones are built. Kids ride Quads or snowmobiles now, and the wild critters run when they hear them. But some of my neighbors have stayed on. We talk about the old days, the old places, the mighty deeds, the mighty steeds now all of them gone to their long homes.

I have travelled the world. I still remember my little magic corner of it, and how it was when I claimed it as mine. I’m really glad I wrote it all down in “Sam.”