Sunday, May 8, 2016

It's All Horse Piss And Rotted Straw

It is a long standing tradition in Katherine's extended family to have a Derby Day Party when the Kentucky Derby runs.  We all show up at Jennifer and Joe's house, place our bets on the race, and drink a lot of beer.  After the race, we adjourn to a makeshift race track marked off in blue painter's tape where the younger ones are given impressive wooden horses and little dickeys with the number of the horse to wear over their torsos.  Then we place bets in twenty-five cent increments.  Then the race proctors, I guess you'd call them, roll three dice and call out the results.  "Number One move forward.  A double Three moves up two."  At the end of the race, the proctors figure out the results and pay off the winners.  Those races take up the rest of the afternoon.

This has never been one of my favorite get-togethers.  There is always the chance that not enough kids will be in attendance and I might have to grab a horse and a dickey.  Not something I want to do at this stage in my life.  The dice horse race is something Kathie's parents discovered on a cruise one year and we have been racing for quarters ever since.  I guess those are the kinds of things folks do to entertain themselves on a cruise.  Right there is yet another in a long list of reasons why I would rather die than go on one.

Even though Derby Day has never been something I looked forward to, Franny used to love it.  She loved "riding" the horses and cousin Roger would somehow always see to it that Franny went home with lots of cash.  She would regularly score fifty bucks or more.  She used to take her friends to Derby Day as well.  They also went home big winners.

Well, now it is Willa's turn to look forward to Derby Day.  Last year was her first and her mount won the first race.  She has been chomping at the bit, so to speak, to get back up in the saddle ever since.

I picked Willa up at school last Friday and we were talking about the upcoming weekend.  "Tomorrow's Derby Day!" she called out through a huge smile.  It was clear to her, if last year was any indication, that she was going to ride her horse to one victory after another and it was a joy to see the anticipation on her face.

Yesterday was the big day.  Usually, all the ladies in the family wear elaborate hats for the occasion in the spirit of Churchill Downs, so this year Willa walked through the door in a straw hat with a flower attached and a lovely summer dress.  The smile that started in my car the day before had not gotten any smaller.  Even better, there was a little girl there Willa's age and they spent all the time during the Derby and leading up to the cruise ship races chasing each other around Joe's big back yard.

It wasn't too long before the little ones were given their horses and their dickeys (how do you spell that?).  Willa was riding the number four horse.  She proudly came over and showed us her mount and fairly shivered at the thought of lining up for the first race.  Her face was so full of excitement that I cried a little.

The race FINALLY came.  Number One jumped out to a big lead.  Number Two was close behind followed by Three and Six.  By the time the race was drawing to a close, there were five kids in dickeys holding five wooden horses gathered around the finish line.  Number Four, Willa's horse, was still at the starting gate (I could have told her that four is a rotten number in a dice game).  Her smile was still bravely plastered on her face, but it was clear that it wouldn't take much for her to break into tears.  All that anticipation, all that joy, shot down in flames.

"Remember what we talked about yesterday," I told her.  "When you lose, just snap your fingers and say 'You can't win 'em all."  Her smile got a little wider, but her eyes were glistening.  All in all, it was a beautiful moment, one I won't soon forget.

James Joyce's "Araby" is my favorite short story.  To my way of thinking, it ranks with the first act of THE TEMPEST as the most perfect piece of writing I know.  It is about a boy who spends every waking moment day dreaming about the big fair--Araby--that he is going to attend that evening.  He imagines all the things he will see, the prizes he will win, the girl he'll see there.  When it comes time to go, there always seems to be something that postpones his departure.  A new chore needs to be done.  Dinner lasts forever.  There's always something.

When he finally makes it to Araby, the stalls are clearing out, the midway is almost deserted, there are no prizes to be won, no girl to meet.  Everything that had been building up in the poor little kid for that entire day had been pulled out from under him.

Disgusted with the situation, but more disgusted with his stupid dreams, he bitterly sees the fair and his anticipation for what they were.

"It's all horse piss and rotted straw."

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