Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit, An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand, is better than any other horse book I've ever read, including the greats of fiction. The picture is of jockey John "Red" Pollard and "the 'Biscuit" communing with each other.

I remember another horse: I was watching the Belmont on TV that day in 1973, when Secretariat trotted out ahead of the field and won by 31 lengths. (I also saw Raymond Floyd, on TV, do the equivalent of that feat with a golf club in the 1980s.)

I've never been a consistent sports enthusiast. It soured me on sports forever, I think, when we were playing "softball" at school with a huge ball that must have been iron with cord wrapped around it. Norma Jean was the pitcher and I was the batter, and her underhanded riser hit me square under the bottom of my chin and knocked me flat. That was the first time I ever saw stars in the daytime. Anyway, I still get a thrill out of real virtuoso performances in anything, even sports, and know something great when I see it.

The book by Hillenbrand relates an incident of three jockeys during a race: "Jockey Johnny Longden was once rammed in midrace, knocked from his stirrups and sent flying downward in front of a pack of horses. He was saved by a jockey riding alongside him, George Taniguchi, who was so powerful that he was able to catch Longden with one hand. Taniguchi didn't know his own strength, and in attempting to push Longden back into the saddle he instead hurled him right over the back of his horse. Longden found himself in the same predicament on the other side of his mount until jockey Rogelio Trejos, whose horse was about to run Longden down, lunged forward, snagged the jockey with the ease of an outfielder and righted him in the saddle, also with one hand. Incredibly, Longden won the race."

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I've got to get busy around here. There's too much going on this week, and I'm afraid I'm going to miss some of it. Thursday evening is the Friends of the Library book sale preview party. Friday afternoon Mary has book club, and the FOL sale is Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., I have to be at the library ready to read and talk about writing poetry, and what do I know except when one comes into your head, you'd better write it down or you'll lose it?