| Old Dan the Horse | | | | As I lived there off and on for the first five years of |
| ((A Minnesota, 1950s Poem) | | | | my life, for the most part, until I was close to |
| (A Minute Chronicle, in Poetic Prose) | | | | six-years old, during the beginning of the last summer |
| Through the fence, I'm feeding Old Dan the Horse, | | | | I had started Sunday school, went to kindergarten |
| with hay; | | | | both near the Kitty Corner Center (living there four |
| I can hear him crunching away, ripping it alongside his | | | | to five days out of the week); one the weekends |
| teeth- | | | | my mother would pick us up, and take us to our |
| A gluttonous sound indeed, as his sides extend in, | | | | grandfather's home, where she was now living (in an |
| then out... | | | | extended family situation) and we'd kind of visit, until |
| Our lives-(a horse and a boy) are a farm and a | | | | Grandpa made some kind of deal with my mother to |
| fence; | | | | let us all live with him, as his other children got |
| Behind us are weedy pastures, cows and wild | | | | married and left, one by one, which he had eight |
| flowers. | | | | children, and my Grandmother had died of double |
| Old Dan, is Old, his life is almost over, mine just | | | | pneumonia, some seventeen-years earlier. |
| beginning. | | | | One of my main memories of that time was when |
| Hard lines run though his body, he is like seven old | | | | my mother came to pick me and my brother up to |
| horses pacing...! | | | | take us to our new abode for good, I mean for |
| (Now, fifty-five years have past, I can now | | | | good [that is how I thought of it back then anyhow]. |
| understand Old Dan) | | | | That was one of those great moments in my life, |
| No: 2057 (11-18-2007) | | | | we don't get many of, but the few we get, we |
| Old Dan A Legacy | | | | never forget. I had to leave a project of some kind |
| It really started with Old Dan. But he really wasn't old | | | | at my school to get back to the farm on time so I |
| when I first met him. I was eighteen-months old | | | | would not miss my mother, and boy I just stopped |
| when I first went to a boarding farm (so I called it | | | | everything and I left-I didn't want to leave my |
| back then and still do) called Kiddy Corner, in North | | | | project it was almost finished, and I knew I'd not |
| St. Paul, Minnesota - back in 1948-49. My brother | | | | return the following week to finish it, and take it |
| (Mike) and I would be the first of five-kids to | | | | home, but I just up and left, just like that, after the |
| experience this new employment, and form of | | | | teacher heard my mother was at the farm waiting, |
| watching children whom would grow to thirty-children | | | | and told me so; thus, I ran, I mean to tell you I really |
| in time - years later the name that would sprout | | | | ran, ran and ran some more to get to my destiny; I |
| from this new center for children would be called | | | | left it behind and ran, and ran and ran. I always |
| "The Day Care Center [s]"; yes, everything started | | | | thought about that molding I left behind, but never |
| from this, as we all know, it has to start someplace. | | | | recreated it. |
| But J.R. (Janet Riddler) was really the woman who | | | | And when I did go, I mean, actually leave the place, |
| started all this in the United States; she really was | | | | the farm, with cloths in hand, never to return, I had |
| the first. She ended up in court more times than she | | | | to leave Old Dan behind, a horse I got to love, know, |
| could count times because of this new and | | | | feed, and he even kicked me once. He was ten |
| un-regulated care center business; she would tell me | | | | years old at the time, I suppose in animal years he |
| years later because of envious County Employees, | | | | could have been between 70 and a 100. And yet, I |
| and neighboring people wanting to shut her down - | | | | didn't know at the time, but I'd return eight-years |
| many things of her struggles to maintain her business | | | | later for a visit, stay ten-days [way too long, but it |
| (I believe this simply because I had a rental business | | | | was free, one of them things: for old time sake, |
| with 21-families, and most of them, all but one that is, | | | | Janet gave my brother and I]. But he wasn't old to |
| went out of their way to cause trouble, little people | | | | me then either but of course he was, I just didn't |
| like to feel big, and so they use such people in the | | | | want to believe it. He was a youthful horse I got to |
| process, thinking those who made it, killed or stolid or | | | | ride as a kid, and somehow always remained that |
| did something rotten to get it, it's their greedy nature | | | | way; funny, even though I know that he was old, |
| to do so, not all folks are like that, just 90% of us); | | | | very old, he died at about 21-years old I think (that is |
| after her husband had left her, she needed income, | | | | old in horse years). He was never old to me, he was |
| and so on her small farm she opened up a day, and | | | | my first riding horse, and I'd ride much in the |
| overnight center for children, I suppose you could call | | | | following years. I fed him grass many times through |
| it: A Day Center, today that would be proper. | | | | the wooden fence. He was very tame, loving. |
| But she stuck with it - all the way until she got quite | | | | Certain things, animals, people, like Old Dan stay in a |
| ill, that being some twenty -years or so. She paved | | | | person's memory the rest of their lives. It tells you |
| the way for those who have day care centers | | | | something, or should, that all living things get old, and |
| today, believe it or not, there just was none. Most | | | | die, it is he way it was meant to be, way God |
| folks never heard of her I bet. But it didn't happen by | | | | created the universe, us, them... and perhaps it is |
| itself, now did it? | | | | good, things otherwise get boring. |