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Shame, Blame & Regret
I was writing this story about Horse Pulling and remembered an incident which involving a Percheron belonging
to Norm Watson. It wasn't as much fun as watching a good Horse Pulling but maybe if I write about it, it won't
still make me feel like a total idiot these many years later. It was a moment when I heaped shame, misery and pain
on my young scrawny body and fragile soul.
All little boys want to impress their fathers, this is a given. There may be a few somewhere that don't but they
are probably in bad shape as people. I was no exception, but my father was hard to please so I knew I would have
to do something spectacular. Normally if I was stupid enough to tell him something I had done that I thought was
good, he would listen, hear none of the good and find something bad or negative. But I still tried for years.
On Sundays after church my father would sit of the verandah of the New Lincoln hotel with some of his pals and
take his ease. They would drink coffee and smoke black cigars as big around as the mooring ropes on the Queen Mary.
The New Lincoln was in the center of town on the main thoroughfare near the park. Thoroughfare, you may have guessed
is a little more of that hyperbole that I was so fond of, still am for that matter. Up the road at the other end
of the park on the High Road was Norm Watson's place.
I was there talking with Butch Watson about this and that. We were in the barn admiring his father Norm's matched
set of Percherons, Joe and Bess. I asked Butch if I could ride Bess. He didn't want to let me do that and said
a good number of things about both my sanity and personal habits that don't bear repeating. Well, Butch owed me,
and I was as bad-tempered as a sick dog in those days so he came around, but not without many dire warnings about
what was going to happen to me and to him.
It didn't matter, I had a plan and it involved that horse and my father and a feat that would surely impress the
hell out of him, finally. I climbed up the worn boards of Bess's stall, grabbed a handful of mane and jumped on
her back. She was so big my legs stuck straight out sideways. She turned her great head around to see what insect
had landed on her back, snorted and went back to chomping on hay. She had been around small admiring boys all her
life and I was just another.
Butch hooked a short length of rope to her halter and tossed it up to me, all the while moaning about all the terrible
things that were going to happen if he got caught. I seem to remember that his father was away doing whatever or
I would never have been up on Bess's back.
It was wonderful to be up so high. I was Sir Richard the Lionheart in full armor preparing to defeat the infidel.
I was scared and excited and determined. Butch open the stall and off we went to fight the good fight for honor,
glory and country and…
Bess moved so slow I could have run around her three times before we got out of the barn. Off across the barnyard
onto Main street we plodded, toward fame and the total admiration of my father, that most stern and unrelenting
man.
I wanted to gallop past the front of the New Lincoln Hotel standing in the stirrups shouting, "For King and
Country", but Bess didn't gallop and I didn't have a saddle. So I sat athwart the great charger and bounced
in the air a couple inches every second step.
We approached the front of the New Lincoln down the center of the street. To say that I was highly visible is a
massive understatement. I was excited and probably grinning like the village idiot. When we got to the front of
the hotel I waved my hand and shouted "Hi, Dad!"
He saw me instantly and stood like he had a bee in his shorts. His Blackstone Senior cigar and coffee were forgotten.
I didn't see admiration in his eyes at all. But my disappointment was short lived.
Someone, probably on his way to Westbrook, came up behind us. He didn't appreciate being delayed by a small boy
riding a huge horse, showing off for his father. He leaned on his horn expressing his total displeasure. It was
a very loud horn.
Bess being used to the quiet, placid life didn't like that horn either and bucked as hard as a horse of that size
can. It was enough. I went flying straight over her head and lit on the hood of a Buick Roadmaster that belonged
to the dentist. The last thing I remember was that row of portholes down the side of the hood.
I woke up lying in the street with a terrible headache and my father looming over me. He didn't say anything, as
usual. But he radiated disgust, and embarrassment. Why, embarrassment? I'll tell you why. I had screwed up in front
of his peers, of course, and they were a damned sight more important than I was. You see how a child equates things
and comes up with the saddest answers, right or wrong?
He put me in his Ford and drove me home silently. I sat, head throbbing, buried in the 'Slough of Despond'. I knew
it wouldn't do any good to try to explain. I was a very smart little boy, but it wasn't any help at all.
I kept waiting for the lecture. My father loved the sound of his voice and would lecture on any subject at a moment's
notice. Usually my brothers and I would have to stand at attention during these tortures. That the content of these
lectures almost never contained anything remotely interesting to a little boy didn't matter to my Father at all.
The lecture never came, just my failure and his obvious deep disappointment. A whipping would have been a lot better,
well maybe not. I always knew I was a smart person, so you'd think I could figure things out and not go off trying
such madcap stunts. But I learned something, something very painful, but I learned.
You can be smarter than Einstein but if your father doesn't love you you're nothing at all.
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