Animal Magnetism

Humans Learn to Compromise

I spent my formative years in Florida trying to figure out the dividing line between animals and humans—what made us different or special, how we ended up in charge.

I still don’t know the answer, though most humans are convinced they are at the top of the food chain. Back then, I was learning over and over how each species had adapted to the environment, often swiftly. Humans seemed to be much slower at this, although everything I read kept telling me how wonderfully adaptable humans are. I didn’t find that to be the case. Most of the people I knew were like butterflies with a pin through them. They could flap their wings but they weren’t flying. They were impaled on belief systems that bore no correspondence to reality, caught up in dead-end relationships, alcoholism, and the worst vice of all: self-righteousness.

On the other hand, I observed something about humans that alligators, sea turtles, flamingos, dogs, cats, horses didn’t share. Humans could compromise. Compromise is only possible when both parties can recognize, in some small way, the validity of the other party’s concerns and arguments. Animals never compromise, though they do submit.

While I was trying to understand the world in which I’d been dropped, I blasted into my teens. Wasn’t so bad. Mostly it was marvelous fun, kind of like when your puppy turns six months old. From six months to two years in a dog’s life corresponds to our teen years: falling over our own feet, bubbling with enthusiasm, sulking off, committing one blunder after another, cavorting like crazy with other puppies our own age.

Backtalk appears. So do regular slaps in the face, usually richly deserved. This, too, is like rapping your pup on the rear end when it tears up that new blouse you’d put on the chair. Poor Mom. She bore the brunt of it but she gave as good as she got, coming out on top.

One girl at school, a member of the Juniorettes (I was an Anchor Club member), lived in Davie and her family had Quarter horses. My experience had always been with Thoroughbreds and Percherons. Through her kindness in allowing me to visit her, I could study another type of equine. Kept me out of trouble.

Quarter horses are built a little like fullbacks in football, or maybe more like baseball catchers. Their hindquarters are round and quite powerful, and so are their chests. There’s a joke among Thoroughbred people that Quarter horses have man boobs. Thoroughbreds, while they muscle up, present a more refined, elegant appearance. A Quarter horse can hunch down on his hindquarters to hold a roped calf or steer. They are handy, usually very kind and easy to work with. You might find one with a long stride and fluid gait, but here again they differ from the Thoroughbred, often moving in a choppier fashion. I learned to respect them.

Having no tack, I’d hop up bareback using a hackamore (no bridle) and off we’d go. Linda had her own Western tack. I had nothing. She was a cowgirl. Florida was filled with cowboys because of all the cattle. Florida these days is God’s waiting room, but there are still some tough country people out there in sand spurs. I’d never seen barrel racing and couldn’t believe how low the Quarter horse could get, spinning around a barrel. They defied gravity.

That and tennis kept me out of Mother’s hair. She’d haul me to her horse-racing jaunts. At Hialeah and Gulfstream we’d cruise the shedrows. The more I did this the more I wanted to do it. Once into high school, a mix of great fun and a couple of heartbreaks, I thought about college. I wanted to work with animals.

Many young people who love animals want to become veterinarians. I didn’t. I’m not called to medicine on any level, and you aren’t going to be a good doctor unless you are called, just as a minister is called. What I wanted to do was breed Thoroughbreds and foxhounds. Obviously, I wasn’t going to stay in Florida. The Thoroughbred industry in Florida was just taking off in Ocala but there were no foxhounds. Actually, before my time, there was a hunt club in Coral Gables, and now there are many, including one of the best in the United States, Live Oaks. These clubs face quite difficult conditions: weather, heat, rampant development. The masters and hounds have risen to the occasion.

I cautiously mentioned to Dad that I’d like to major in agriculture, specializing in animal husbandry. Dad knew how much I loved animals. He pretended not to know that Mother haunted the tracks but he knew I had an affinity for Thoroughbreds. He didn’t discourage me, but he gave me platinum advice.

“Country ways are dying. You want to farm but you won’t make any money unless you own at least a thousand acres and rent more. If you want to make money you’ll wind up working for a large agricultural company. The big fish are eating up the small.”

He didn’t need to tell me about how the urbanization of America was reordering political power. In short: cities get what they want. Country people get screwed. The votes are in the cities and suburbs. Those people can’t distinguish buckwheat seed from orchard grass seed, or a Walker hound from a coonhound. They know things I don’t, and I respect that. I’m not sure it works in reverse.

One small example, minimum wage, reflects city business. In the county I can provide housing and transportation. I get no tax credit for this and I must pay a “city” wage. And hey, have you noticed the number of unemployed recently? There is a relationship. I can’t hire the people I need. I can’t afford it. So multiply my economic reality by thousands of farmers. What’s wrong with a two-tiered system of wages: one for industry, one for agriculture?

Back to my career choice: Mother joined Dad. She didn’t mock all the career ideas I’d bandied about since I was tiny. The most unrealistic of these was an idea I came up with when I was around ten. I wanted to be a movie star so I could support everyone and have a stable as big as my Uncle Johnny’s. (He lost it before I was born because he made book. Now the state does it. It’s called off-track betting.)

Mother said farming was hard work but she knew I was up to it. She had made sure of that by working my tail off. I’m eternally grateful. When your family sets high but realistic expectations they are doing you a favor. You learn to deliver the goods. You learn to be part of a team.

“Mom, all I want to do is farm and hunt.”

Dad chimed in, “That’s a good life, but honey, the only people who will be able to do that by the time you’re out there will be those with inherited wealth.”

“Or those who hit it big,” Mother added. “Regular people aren’t going to make it. Stinks.”

Dad, in that deep voice I can still hear, said, “You have a gift with animals, too. God gave you two gifts.”

This was new to me.

“Three. She can argue like a goddamned lawyer.” Mother exhaled the longest blue plume of smoke.

Dad laughed. “You have imagination.”

Just where this was going to take me I didn’t know, but I did know I could write a little. My teachers had always praised me. I love praise. I read promiscuously. Language was like music to me. I could write in the Latinate style—much of eighteenth and nineteenth century literature is like that—but I could also pare it down to the bone. We can thank Gertrude Stein and her great imitator (far more accessible than Gerty) Hemingway for that.

Worth a try.

Skippy the cat and I walked everywhere together. He rode in the car, too. He read the library books I took home as I thought more and more about being an English major. Just how I was going to hook that up with horses, foxhounds, timber, and hay, I didn’t know. But I was taught “Trust yourself, trust the Lord, and keep putting one foot before the other.”

Dad died suddenly of a heart attack on July 13, 1961. Not only did Mother, Aunt Mimi, Uncle Merle, and I mourn, so did Sunshine, Skippy, and even that spoiled rotten Chin. So many people and animals loved my father.

With Dad gone I really couldn’t be indulgent. I needed to help out. Aunt Mimi wanted me to go right to work. Mother knew I had one year of high school left and we figured I could work after school. She didn’t discourage me from going to college. Nor did she encourage me to go.

A career in farming seemed hopeless. I kept thinking about animals. Each animal is born with a body and skills to survive in its environment. How could I use what I had: physical power and speed in a small package, the ability to read nature’s signs quickly? Oh, not as quick as a fox, but very fast for a woman. The other gift, a fighting heart, was going to have to pull me through.

On to college I slogged. Did I enjoy myself? I made friends who are still my friends, but I lived apart from animals. That’s hell for me.

I knew Skippy loved me, and Dad’s love never died. His body left. The love remained.

I learned that love knows no boundaries. And I learned later on that I had been given good advice.