An inability to type started this author on the road to writing. By mid-semester in high school typing class I was still too slow to appear on the progress chart, which began at at a ridiculously fast 40 words-per-minute. Happily, the teacher banished me to the school library instead of redoing the chart.
In the library I discovered the card catalog (part of a different era) and lots of old books. I was fascinated by the layers of history made available simply by the passage of time and recent cuts in education funding. The remainder of my typing term was spent among cavalry manuals and yellowing books filled with lithograph images. The idea for this story grew out of those quiet hours serving “detention.”
I gained several valuable skills that semester … though, not typing. I found that by reading something interesting and then looking up related stuff to read, and then reading that, I was doing “research.” And I learned that I loved it.
The horses? It was my sister who was originally interested in horses, and had actually obtained one with the help of my horse-loving mom and a wonderful horsewoman named Sally Lasater. We had land but no horse-sense, so we faced a long learning curve that I now realize vanishes into the mists of Olympus.
During my detention I looked to see if the card catalogs had anything to say about this giant pet we had acquired, this oddly-timid tank of a creature that ate grass and pooped fertilizer and destroyed lawns by the mere act of walking upon them. I looked horses up in the card catalog to see if there was anything written about them, and there was an entire amazing world…