nov 15 2022
Way back early in the game the upcoming holiday season may have been called the giving season by some ----but as owner of a bunch of donkeys it was also the season to make enough money to pay tuitions and the hay bill.... Certainly every Friday Saturday and Sunday we had some job or another-- many times involving antlers and harness and wagon as we hauled many a Santa Claus both through the town street or into some hotel ballroom.. this harness was a beautiful harness made by Sam Friedman from Toronto and it involved a set of chimes which went on the front pair of donkeys ---the leaders... my children and I grew to absolutely hate those chimes and would just not harness the front team till the very last minute -- once those chimes started in everybody thought they were lovely *****everybody except us ---
-however it was a A strange way to make a living But it paid the bills... nobody else actually in the whole United States had a hitch of eight donkeys at that point... a After a few years there was a second person a from Nebraska ---a donkey breeder who did get 8 donkeys going the same direction at once... but I was told his donkeys were not quietly reliable like mine... and I always wondered if he hadn't used electricity to make them go forward... where I had used teenagers and 25 pounds of carrots for each training episode... Finally mine got the picture and got to be so reliable that in one parade in Merrimack Massachusetts I put a stuffed bear in the drivers seat and I walked behind and they wandered up the middle of the street in the parade.. they're approach to parades was that the path was lined with foolish people jumping up and down waving flags and why would they want to go into that so they'd stay in the middle and did very well.
Along with the Santa jobs there was also always the religious jobs.. Heaven forgive me---but we called them Jesus jobs.. which very often involves just standing around a Bale of hay eating the hay at some church while everybody sang songs----- these were a lot less complicated and very often I would send someone else to do them---- I had a friend who could drive a trailer a so I sent her to Somerville with two donkeys and the hay and really didn't expect her to have any problem at all except----she was late getting back ----then I began to wonder what had gone wrong-----I finally got a phone call saying that she'd been trying for two hours and could not get the two donkeys on the trailer-----this was ridiculous because these donkeys jumped on and off the trailer routinely ----I could not figure out what on earth---
so I drove down to Somerville myself put them on the trailer. I took one look and realized I had forgotten one critical detail.... if you put the dominant donkey on the trailer first, the more timid donkey will not jump toward that dominant donkey because you just don't do that in in donkey society ... so I took the dominant one off the trailer the timid wood jumped on no problem and then jumped the other one on no problem In a matter of seconds.
now I'm careful to remind people handling animals be very careful of the dominant and recessive personalities horses dogs or donkeys.
With people the trait is called “bully”. ... Where anyone managing a group of people can very often run into a bully... and now we have rules and laws about being bullies.
It is a terribly unattractive trait.. it's one thing to be a leader and allow people to function pleasantly under your direction but it's an entirely different thing to be smug and cut to the quick with cute comment that are intended only to subdue ...and could not be interpreted as any kind of fun debate or logical argument... sleazy comes to mind.
I do like to argue.... I remember a historic family argument which happened between my brother-in-law.and me...... he was exceedingly bright----the kind who remembered everything he read and he was quite accomplished as a private pilot and a chemical engineer--I know zero about either of those topics.
but add a dinner table in a restaurant he said something about flying with the wind would save gas. the only fact I had to go on was somebody flying a light aircraft around the world had gone from east to West. -- against the prevailing winds.
this is complicated but.. if someone flies with the wind you would always have to use the motors so that the air underneath your wings would have the proper lift to keep you up whereas if you fly against the wind like the birds do----- they---- fly up and then use that to drift down to make progress ---that was my logic- the argument got so loud that people at a different table commented “what are you folk aeronautical engineers?” and my brother-in-law said in a very degrading tone “ she's a G.D. dog trainer”. he certainly meant it as the ultimate putdown... there was zero logic in his comment.... all he was , was louder than me. A typical bully....
now 30 years later, a pilot friend of mine tells me that my logic was correct.. and all I have to do to start a huge family argument is to say very quietly “they flew from east to West.”
*******
i am always trying for next weeks newspaper -- and sandy has given me somegreat/strange pictures...i have worn out the photo of bella with george in the hospital bed with her..... well sandy gave another "rolling thunder " of her rolling down the corridor of the hospital
