I must say a word in defense of the wrongly cursed and much maligned experience of leaving a beloved house after many decades. People too often forget the joys brought in the middle of conquering chaos; namely, finding long-forgotten documents, letters, pictures, memorabilia which help one relive, vividly and colorfully, some of the happiest moments of one’s own past.
Yesterday, Maria, the excellent cleaning woman who helped me prepare my house for its new owners, found a real gem, of all things, in the pantry closet: my brand-new, black velvet Olympian riding hat, still in its cardboard box.
And I did remember:
Thirty-one years ago, I was taking jumping lessons from Betty White, on her horse farm just across County Road 39 in Southampton. It was my way of making the nonski weekends on the East End bearable.
My then-husband hated the big city, where he was brought up, as much as I disliked winter months in our excessively, bucolically quiet times in this village before the big season. And so, I took jumping lessons.
“I wish you’d come see me,” I begged John. “My horse is huge. It’s so big that I have to get on a tractor to swing into the saddle. Come see.”
“I will, I will,” he promised, but days grew into weeks.
On one sunny day, Betty asked me to trade with a little 6-year-old girl joining our class. “Her pony is a little frisky,” Betty said. “And Pression is such a calm gem.”
How could I refuse? I got on that pony, and it was like a big dog. That pony was the size of those famous Shetland pygmies, hardly deserving to be part of the horse family. I remembered having sat on son Richard’s rocking horse, and it had been taller than the little girl’s pony. My feet were dragging on the ground.
And who came ambling along? “Big horse!” John called out to me. “Very big horse!”
I nearly fell off the pony from laughing, begged Betty to show him my gentle, calm Pression.
But throughout the lesson and on the way home, John never stopped saying it, with his understanding nod: “Big horse! Very big horse!”
Evelyn Konrad
Southampton
Shut Him UpFolks: it is time to take Michael Daly at his word(s), unpleasant as that may be. First: glide by his smarmy greeting card calls for “love.” His own words reveal him, above all, and consistently, a purveyor of hate and...
Suffering in SilenceWhen our world gets out of balance, we lose our comfort and security. Too much or too little of anything spikes our fear, and we lose our sense of peace. Those who have what they want and need are comfortable....
Advocate & Adjudicate?The previous administration of [Supervisor Jay] Schneiderman and current board member Tommy John Schiavoni did not give high priority to monitoring appointed public officials for ethical lapses in their private life activities. This laissez-faire policy towards ethics enforcement appears to...
Soil Is CallingIn a book titled “In Old Southampton,” Abigail Halsey reminds us that in the early days of Southampton, “every man was a farmer and a fisherman.” But those days are long gone and most people, today, have no connection to...
A Web of InterestsKudos to Craig Catalanotto [“What Are We Doing?” Letters, April 18] and Barbara Ring [“Tangled Web” Letters, April 18] for their letters to the editor shining a light on the web of special interests, conflicts of interest and misinformation that...
Dates of InfamySeptember 11 and October 7, similar dates of infamy for strong allies with similarly divergent reactions. Now gathered mobs of protesters are cheering on those who cry “Death to America” and call for the complete annihilation and genocide of the...
Your VoiceOn June 25, registered Democrats will go to the ballot box to determine who will represent their ticket for New York’s 1st Congressional District. Although CD1 has recently been held by Republicans, both parties have assumed leadership over the years....
Master ClassI thank Barbara Ring for aptly proving my point. In response to my letter [“An Alliance,” Letters, April 11], which decried the state of civic public discourse in Hampton Bays as being overtaken by misinformation, fear-mongering and conspiracy peddling, Ring...
