Search Results for: I Saw An Angel Last Night

I was inspired to finally write this yesterday, when I looked out of my study window and saw a young, bearded man in jeans crawling around my back yard, peering into the windows and doors. He looked like somebody in the movie Goodfellas.

I thought he was a sales person, or someone eager to talk religion.

In the morning, I close my study door, Red is always at my feet. I do not answer the phone or the door. I write. The tapping at the door became pounding, aggressive and insistent, I got up, irritated, and then saw this man – he looked furtive and  angry – heading towards the back of the house where Maria’s studio is.

Something about him did not look right to me.

I went to the door, opened it and called out to him, asking if I could help.

He asked if I was Jon Katz. I said I was, and he threw some papers on the ground. “You are served,” he said, and then, seeing Red (who was wagging his tail), he moved quickly back to his car and drove off. I wish Frieda had been there.  I felt I was in a movie, I had been notified of a lawsuit against me by a bank seeking payment on a loan for the first Bedlam Farm. The paperwork said the bank was suing me, coming after my assets, seizing collateral,  the elements of Bedlam Farm.

I called our lawyer, he said it was a mistake. The bank had  not been notified about the bankruptcy proceedings Maria and I had entered into in August, or they lost the paperwork. The debt had been cleared.  They should not have been sending anyone to serve me papers or be threatening me. The bank said today they didn’t know, they apologized, they said they will withdraw the suit. This is a new kind of story, for me, my blog and my life. It is time I shared it.

One day, it will be a funny story to tell:  Another scene in my life that I could never once have imagined. Time to come out in the open.

I knew I had to share the fact that Maria and I declared personal bankruptcy in the late summer, the courts just released us last week. As you know, I am committed to being open, to sharing my life but my lawyer said bankruptcy was not a smart thing to share until it was over. In a way, it is not ever over, as me and the bank that sent the process-server will learn this week. But the legal part of the bankruptcy is over, our debts have been discharged by the federal courts.

In all of my life, I never once imagined I would ever file for bankruptcy. I believe in paying my bills, I meet my obligations, I value my word. When I borrow something, I always intend to pay it back. I always have.

From the time I was 17, I never had any problem earning a living, making money. I have always worked and worked hard, I have always been successful. I could hardly imagine this trouble.  This, I learn, is not an uncommon thing these days. Many people know it.

I was always immensely proud of making a living as a writer, I still am. It is not an easy thing to do. But it wasn’t writing that sent me into bankruptcy, but a much broader spectrum of life: divorce, the Great Recession, the collapse of the real estate market, the drastic changes in publishing, our inability for four years to sell the first Bedlam Farm as we desperately fought to prevent foreclosure. How could so many difficult things happen to me at once? As our obligations and debts from two farms rose, my income fell. I gave most of my money away as part of my divorce. It was the right thing to do, and I don’t regret it.

Mostly, this was my problem, there were my struggles, my issues. But Maria and I married five years ago. Legally it was our problem now, and Maria embraced it without complaint. She is a wonderful human being, full of courage and warmth and decency.  I cannot imagine going through this without her at my side.

We kept borrowing money to keep paying for two farms. We never imagined Bedlam Farm would not sell for four years, neither did our bank or realtor or anyone else on the earth. It was a beautiful place, I put most of the money I had into repairing and restoring the house and the barns and the grounds. This is the wonder of life – it has its own plans.

Then, and for four years, two mortgages, repairs, insurance on two farms, real estate ads,  the costs of heating and winterizing, plowing and mowing, roof and painting  repairs,  taxes and upkeep. Why didn’t I quit? I don’t know, perhaps because I am still a fool for emotion. All those books! Rose in the pasture, Orson on the hill, Jeff Bridges in the back yard.

I suppose I should have just let it go much sooner, but I couldn’t do it. The mortgage was an obligation, the farm was special to me – I had written eight books there, I came to life there, I went to pieces there – I could not see it fall into foreclosure. And we did save the house from foreclosure until some good people bought it last year. They bought the house about half of what we first tried to sell it for. The bank got the money.

It wasn’t until earlier this year that we finally came to see that there would be no big book or miraculous windfall to save me, no saviors or angels or farm lovers to rescue me, not St. Joseph statues or chants or Karma to bring the right buyer to us. The house was not going to sell for anything close to what it was worth or that I had put into it or that we had been asking for it. We kept waiting for the world to come back to normal, but it hasn’t come back to normal, it may never.  Too late, we realized we could not possibly pay back all the money we had borrowed to keep the first farm and our new farm operating. We had dug a huge hole for ourselves and jumped in.

Both were mortgaged to the same bank, they were tied together. We were in danger of losing our second home as well if we could not pay the loans and shortfall accrued by the first. I remember the moment, month after month of worry and uncertainty, scrambling to pay one bill, and then the other. Our resources melted, then rushed, away. Finally, I turned to Maria. “We can’t do this anymore,” I said. “We have to let it go.” By then, we owed a great deal of money.

So we finally asked for help. We went to see a very fine young lawyer in Glens Falls, New York His name was Edwin Adeson, and he said we ought to file for personal bankruptcy and remove this debt. We agreed.

Maria can take care of herself. She is tough and strong, but I have been much haunted – especially after my open heart surgery – by the idea that she might be left with my debts and my problems after I am gone. She is likely to live without me, I am 17 years older than she is.  She bristles when I say this, she married me knowingly, she said, she can take care of herself.

I know she can. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about it. She had nothing to do the purchase of the first Bedlam Farm or the effort to sell it. These were not her debts.

I was determined to shed as much of this as I could legally and morally do. So we filed for bankruptcy in August, the bankruptcy period ended before Thanksgiving. Oddly, the only beautiful thing about it was that we did it together, every step of the way. On that sunny day in August, we held hands as we walked up to the federal office building in downtown Albany and hugged. We smiled and kissed. Another chapter, I said.

I won’t lie. My heart was broken that day, here in a place I never expected to be.

Ed Adeson was to guide us through this turbulence with clarity, honesty and grace. We came to much appreciate him. Sometimes, I think that lawyers are the only people who can navigate in this world. Ed is an advocate for people without money.

In this period, we began negotiations with our bank to keep our home, and it was not clear how that would turn out. Now,  it appears they have been successful. It seems we will be able to stay in our new farm. We were fortunate to have a bank that wanted to work with us, and did work with us. So many people are not so fortunate. We reached an agreement we can live with. For many months, I wasn’t sure, it was a heavy cloud to be hanging over us. I remember thinking at our crowded and happy Open House in October that this might be the last one ever, the last time people could share our life there. It will not be the last, we will have the next Open House in June.

The bankruptcy transformed us in many ways. In my early life, bankruptcy was unimaginable, a disgrace, something whispered about by the gossips at the dinner table. I had an uncle who killed himself rather than declare bankruptcy. It was a great shame on men who were supposed to provide for their families – that was their mission and purpose  in life. Bankruptcy hit my ego and my pride, my conscience and sense of self as a worthy and successful person.

How had it come to this?

My brother and I have had a difficult relationship, we barely spoke all of our lives and barely spoke now. But during one of our rare conversations as these troubles mounted, he told me not to blame myself. “You got caught in some storms all at once.” it was the only helpful thing he ever said to me, so it stuck.  It is true, I repeat this to myself all the time. It is not my fault. I was hit by storms. Still, shouldn’t I have foreseen this, or forestalled it?

We were relieved by the bankruptcy once it was done. We went to a courtroom in Albany, sat before a bankruptcy change and swore that we weren’t hiding anything. We aren’t. We don’t have anything to hide, really. That is the liberating part of bankruptcy.

It isn’t so bad. No big vacations, no fancy restaurants, no expensive holiday gifts. No credit cards. Life goes on, even with a mangled credit rating. We will get it back, if it matters.

Honesty and acceptance are gifts, we had been carrying a load we could not possibly bear. I remember those nights when we would go over the bills and figure out how $200 was going to last us a couple of weeks. I am so sorry, I wanted to say to Maria. I am so sorry. But I only said it out loud once, it made her furious. Don’t ever apologize to me, she said. I had my eyes open, it was not your fault.

Maria is a miracle to me. I did not know people like this existed in the world. Our love for one another was greatly and powerfully affirmed. We supported one another, comforted one another, reassured one another. There was not one moment of blame, recrimination, or panic. Our love is more powerful than any circumstance we might face. We had quite a few bad moments, none had to do with one another. It never pulled us apart, it brought us closer.

I gave up all of my credit cards, as required in bankruptcy, and I am happy to say that I don’t miss them. I don’t think I will get any more, even when I can (the mail offers for new credit cards for post-bankruptcy people – high interest rates, low limits –  are already coming in).  But my idea about money has changed. There is something quite liberating about learning to only acquire what one had the money to buy. This has altered my life, and in a good way. This is how the old farmers live, I see why.

And this is America. There is always someone willing to sell you anything.

We are closer to the end than the beginning.  We were often frightened, we often looked at each other seeking reassurance. Would it be all right? Could we get through it? Could we heal and  recover? We’ll be fine, this was our mantra. I hope that’s true. I am 68 years old, one year out of open heart surgery, no money in the bank. My world tells me every day that this is catastrophic place to be, but it is my place to be and the right place for me to be.

Bankruptcy was a beautiful and uplifting time in so many other ways. One does learn the power of love and friendship. I think Maria and I both acquired a strength and determination we perhaps did not know we had. We learned to shed shame and guilt and stand up and be proud, to get busy and back to work. We told all of our friends, we hid nothing from anyone. The world did not come to an end, people were surprised, but no one ran away from us.

We will heal and be whole. Absolutely. We faced some powerful demons this year, inside and out. We acted honestly and honorably. We were faithful to one another, and our own sense of self. We stood in our truth. We never said or did one dishonest thing, or said or did one thing we are sorry for. When we need to be strong, we were.

It was, at times, a lonely thing. Maria and I are not close to our families, we did not have people to call, or people who would call us. We felt very much on our own. Lots of paperwork, a million lawyerly questions, scores of forms to fill out. What do you own? What have you owned? What do you spend? We had to take a four-hour online course about money and responsibility. You had to stay on for two hours at time, even if you were done in ten minutes. There was a quiz.  What is a budget? Do you really need a cellphone? How do you balance what you earn with what you need? But wait, I wanted to say. This isn’t me. I don’t need to be lectured or patronized.  I’m not  teenager with a credit card problem.  I know all this. This isn’t helpful to me. This is the last place I want to be. I don’t even own a TV. I don’t have a spending problem. I got divorced. I had a farm…

There was no one to tell.

It was sometimes a rocky path to bankruptcy. There were weeks when we did not have money for grocery shopping, we ate carefully, budgeted ingenuously. There were days when bill collectors called with bullying voices and threats, and often, with many lies. They threatened us, tried to frighten us, made trick phone calls pretending to be friends and helpers. We were called to be strong, to have faith.

We did, we were.

Every day the mail brought warnings, threats, demands, letters from lawyers. Every single time I had to resist the powerful temptation to pick up the phone and call them back: no, no you don’t understand, I’m a good man, a responsible man, an ethical man.  I don’t belong in this situation. You don’t need to be talking to me, this way. Sometimes I did pick up the phone, and ended up being yelled at, insulted, bullied. None of them ever did want to talk to me, or listen to me. You owe this money! You have to pay!  How naive could I possibly be? But the old self dies hard, the old delusions leave their marks, their imprints. I hung on to my other life until it seemed absurd, even humiliating.

I learned an interesting thing about the system of money and credit. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. We had nothing to lose.

For so many years, I thought bankruptcy and financial struggle was something other people go through, somehow they were different from me, apart from me, something other than me. I can tell you that I was wrong about that. Where, after all, do empathy and perspective really come from? All those politicians so contemptuous of the weak and the poor, they simply have no idea what it feels like. I am better, wiser. And luckier. I got a good lawyer, I had resources and experience, I was in so much better a position than so many others who are in it.

As it turned out, the banks and credit card companies didn’t care that I was a New York Times best-selling author, that a movie had been made about me, that publishing had changed, that my royalty checks had disappeared. That I was caught in a bunch of storms. That I paid every one of my bills for more than half-a-century without ever missing one of them. I gave them all so much money.  It didn’t matter, and I knew it didn’t matter. And why should it?

No need to mention that you were an author, said the lawyer. Tell them you’re a blogger. But I am an author, I said. Nobody cares.

It was a humanizing experience, full of empathy and awareness. I like to think I have always felt for the poor, but I see them in a new and more generous way. A more conscious way. I see many things in a different way.  In a sense, we are all poor, or easily could be. They must be given hope. They are no different from me, most are much worse off than me. The system is rough and Darwinian, even for good people who follow all of the rules.  In the Corporate Nation we are taught to pay our bills, it is the rationale for life.  But the irony is that Maria and I are good people who follow all of the rules. I never missed a payment for anything my entire life until this year. But I will always be more conscious of the trouble that people can slip into, and of the system that is so tricky, so merciless and dehumanizing when problems arise.

I want to say this to other people: we are can all get caught in storms. Our culture is not forgiving about suffering and struggle.  But there is no reason for shame, there is nothing to apologize for. If it could happen to me, it could happen to you, and I would share this with you: the challenge is not in avoiding trouble, the challenge is how we respond to it.  That is grace. I am very proud to say that Maria and I responded to it well. We were often frightened, often confused, sometimes we felt very alone. We did not bend or break. Do not blame yourself.

And we are better for it, wiser, happier, more at peace with ourselves. Love is so often about letting go, and for me, bankruptcy was about letting go of a certain idea about who I was, and who other people are. We are better now, much of the storm has passed, the waters are calming. We can buy groceries, fill up the car without much thought.  When the septic tank needed $1,000 of work last week, I was briefly terrified. Not of the tank, but of the cost. Could we do it? Could we do anything else if we do it? Welcome to the real lives of real people. There is always an elephant in the room in the world of bankruptcy.

Maria and I have a lot of work to do be whole again, we will do it, we will get there. We are together, we are healthy, we are determined, we have gifts and missions. The calls have stopped, the letters have stopped, I think there will be no more creepy men in the garden.

I try to reconcile this: not so long ago, I had plenty of money, I was miserable and fearful and angry. Today, I have very little money. I have never been happier. I have never been healthier. I have never felt better about myself or my life. I have never had more love, or done better work, or loved it more. I have a book coming out next year, I hope to start work on another one. My blog has never been stronger or more meaningful to me and others.

Money is important, we do all need to pay our bills. We cannot live lives we cannot pay for. But other things are important, too. Security does not come from money, neither does safety or well-being. That comes from the inside, nobody can give it to me, nobody can take it away.

Maria and I both experienced some shame, fear, vulnerability and much worry this year. We were bankrupt. Never in my life did I ever have to wonder if I would have a place to live, or how I could eat. We worried so much about the animals – the donkeys, the dogs, chickens, cats and a pony. What would become of them if we lost this farm too? Who would care for them? How would they fare if they had to be without us. This was an awful thing to think about. How would they ever understand it?

And then, this: People kept telling me my writing was different, more open, more intuitive. I bet. Writers are only as good and compelling as their lives. I learned a lot this year, experienced much, even about having a creepy-looking man crawling around my garden to serve me with papers.

So I knew I had to write this, not only to be honest and tell you that I had declared bankruptcy, but also to tell you that I have never been richer or more blessed. More to come. Of course, I’m doing a Recovery Journal about it. That is what I do.

That is life, I think. Crisis and mystery, just around the corner.

Superstorm “Pickles,” the storm of all times, the ravager of civilization,  has hired an agent and has signed up with the Weather Channel for an exclusive $20 million, six-year,  multi-storm deal, according to the news. Pickles will communicate to the world through  Google Mother Earth Translation Software, the first time a Superstorm can promote himself, rather than relying solely on cable news channels. A spokesperson for Google said this was also believed to be the first time a Superstorm could communicate directly to humans through cognitive software, without relying on God or angels or cable news.

Pickles gets to keep his own name, according to reports, and the WC gets exclusive rights to the life and travels of the Storm Of Storms (SOS), the storm that made God tremble and shake, the storm that will devour New York City, turn New England into a wintry bog and Miami into a swamp.
Pickles will market videos, storm-tracks, T-shirts and buttons, a tell-all book about his experiences and will publish an insider blog – $8 a day – for exclusive, secret and juicy details on what it is really like to be a Superstorm:  how difficult a job it is, how hard it is to be reviled and feared and wreak havoc Mother Nature, how it feels to mash up buildings and dams. Pickles is, the WC reports, the longest-lasting and most followed Superstorm of all time, he has more than a million likes on Facebook and a huge following on Twitter.

News reports said that Pickles agent was negotiating with Disney for the rights to an animated feature called “Storm,” in which Pickles will be portrayed by the voice of Angelina Jolie, music by Lorde. Disney says it wants to do a “Superstorm” theme park in Disney world, people can see whole towns and cities buried in artificial snow and swept away by onrushing water while they  bounce along on bobbing rafts ordering hot dogs and Turnkey legs with their Magic Bands. And insiders close to Pickles said the storm was also talking to Apple executives about posting his barometric pressure on the new IWatch, coming out next year.

In the future, says Pickles agent, the charismatic storm will Tweet his storm track on Instagram and broadcast his intentions on the Weather Channel. Five hundred images a minute on Snapchat. Users can sign up for the emergency alerts from Pickles himself for a weekly fee, he can communicate directly on tablets and cell phones. “You don’t need weather people,” Pickles said in a prepared statement, “you’ve got the real thing. I know where I am and where I am going.”

In an interview on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams, “Pickles” revealed his own agony at having to wipe out homes, destroy shorelines, snarl traffic, cause accidents, wipe out town snow budgets and shut down schools and businesses, not to mention flooding half of the skyscrapers in Manhattan. “It’s not what I set out to be,” he said, “I had no idea the polar ice caps would melt, and people are so dumb – they still don’t believe it! I mean, you asked for it people, don’t blame me.”

Pickles told Williams that he was the storm that flooded the earth, he was very close to Noah, and he worked closely with God and the Angels. He blew the Allied Fleet across the ocean safely to Normandy and flooded Hitler’s Bunker. “Really?”, pressed Williams, “that seems a bit of an exaggeration to me.” But Pickles stayed with his story, he had better stories than that, he vowed.

Pickles disclosed to Williams that there are not many Superstorms, but one – him. Despite all of the dumb Roman names the Weather Channel has been giving big storms, they are really all him,  he said:  Juno, Sandy, Katrina, he chuckled through his translation program, “they are all me! All me!” Pickles just keeps circling the globe, running up and down to the North and South Poles, re-charging himself and coming around on the other end, over the horizon. “Every Superstorm is me,” he said. “It’s just one Superstorm, and I am growing bigger and more important and powerful  by the day.” The cable channels only show what they see, he said, nobody has ever bothered to follow him and see where he goes when he isn’t messing up cities in North America.

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This was all important news to me, I have followed Pickles historic and unprecedented track closely. He would be coming back, again and again and again. Wasn’t this Armageddon? I wanted to be ready, prepared for any emergency, as any level-headed new frontiersman or woman would be. I didn’t have any candles or batteries, but I had a new super charger for my Iphone 6 Plus, it would last for months without power. I could text for months.

Before Pickles landed at my farm, I posted a message on Facebook, I did not ask for help, of course, but I did mention casually that Lulu was starving and the chickens were out of grain and Red was existing on sugared water and the sheep were laughing at him.  I was down to 120 lbs, I said, I was getting along on a walker, but it was hard to get it through the snow, Maria was boiling the old hay for soup. We were down to three logs, I said, but it didn’t matter, I could take care of myself. And, I said, there are always good friends, and what are good friends for?

I was surprised (well, not really) to get a text from Ted Hunnelley from Peoria, Illinois. “I am on the way,” he said, “tell the animals to hang on.” He said he had just gone and chopped down his father’s favorite oak tree and that his sister had raided the Alzheimer’s unit at the local nursing home where her mother was, looking for macaroni and cheese, baloney and white bread – the national food of Upstate New York.  He would, they said, be at the farm in eight or nine hours. Perhaps he could sleep over for a few weeks?

Wow, I thought, how sweet, how good that makes me feel. I must be a very good guy if people will drive that far to bring me baloney and white bread. Maybe even some mustard. Staying over was not a good idea, I texted back quickly, no heat upstairs. Maybe next year, love to get together.

I was a little uncomfortable. After all, my county is one of the most rural and heavily forested in New York State, there are trees all over the place,  including thousands in my back yard, and lots of big strong men with large trucks who are happy to chop them down. And I am no wussy-man. I mean, it is nothing for me to me go out, wrestle a bear and chop a big maple tree up for firewood. Did I really need an oak tree from Illinois to keep warm?

Frankly, this could be a bit embarrassing. I’ve written books, blogs and given a lot of talks about my move to the wild of upstate New York, my surviving blizzards, coyote attacks, rabid skunks and racoons, bitter cold, rampaging sheep, torch-carrying mobs of angry townspeople looking to burn strange outlanders. It was, well, sort of the brand, you know, me and the dogs, up here in the wilderness, toughing it out together. Now Pickles was messing things up.

How, I wondered,  would it really look if Ted Hunnelly – he works in an Amazon warehouse  – had to bring me wood and macaroni and cheese from Northern Illinois, where they routinely get six feet of snow in the winter?

I have an image to maintain.  I ran to the barn, got my hatchet and my AK-47 assault rifle. I rushed out into the woods – I actually fell over a dozen logs lying on the ground, I do l live on the edge of a forest. I saw two rabbits running for their lives and opened up on them with my machine gun, there were pieces of rabbit all over the place. I karate-kicked a rabid racoon and tossed my knife at a squirrel high up in a tree.

I nailed him with one throw, his head would soon grace my fireplace. OK, I don’t have a fireplace, but I do have a mantle, he would be gracing the mantle over the wood stove. I skinned him right there while yodeling and singing old crop-picking songs from the Great Depression. I picked up the remains of one of the rabbits, put on my doo-rag, set up my video camera, and ate the rabbit raw, right there on camera, blood and bones dripping down my face. I posted the video to my Facebook Page. The likes came pouring in.

I might have my issues, but I was hard as nails, and just as sharp.

When Ted pulled into my driveway, I was waiting for him, rifle slung over my shoulder, blood smeared all over me. I explained again that staying over for weeks – or even for a night – was not a good idea, sorry, can’t thank him enough. Best get going before the storm hits, I suggested thoughtfully. He looked disappointed, but said he  understood. And he was impressed. “I admire you so much,” Ted said, “you are living the life you want. You are brave and strong. Don’t let anyone every criticize you or deter you, you are a hero.” Then I waved to him, he unloaded the food and wood,  got into his truck and raced back to Peoria, where Pickles was just a few hours away. It would be close, I sure hoped he would make it safely.

I am feeling good tonight, it was a good day.  It has begun snowing heavily, the wind is shrieking through the barn, the roads are too slick to drive on.  I am enjoying my baloney on white bread sandwich (w/mustard), it has been a long time since I had one. The donkeys and dog are fat and happy, and I am loving the Pickles video, I streamed it from Netflix. Even for a bit fat epic storm,  he has quite a story to tell.

Here comes Superstorm Pickles: Save The Farm!

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Disclaimer: I got an angry message from a woman in Toledo, this morning, she asked me why I was picking on the people who broadcast the weather, her son Peter is a weather man in Columbus, and people yell at him all of the time, and why, she said, was I working my poor border collie every day in the snow and ice, what kind of monster was I anyway? Stop picking on her son, she said,  and let the poor dog inside. I explained to her that the column was meant to be funny, as is this post. I also explained to her that if she did read this post,  I did not, in fact, shoot a rabbit with a machine-gun and eat him on social media. 

Humor is defined in this way by dictionary.com:

• 1.  The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness.

  (she could not see the humor of the situation.)

• 2. That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement.

  a writer skilled at crafting humor. 
  

I am heartbroken to tell you that Lenore died earlier this evening from complications caused by a spinal tumor that had become too painful for her – and us – to bear. She died at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service, she is, I suspect, eagerly looking for the crumbs the angels drop in the sky. Her tail was thumping to the end, even as the vets inserted their needle.

I took this last photo of her earlier today, my last photo of her,  it showed the resignation in her eyes, I think, she was ready to leave our world behind and return to hers. Maria said she saw her happy spirit leave her body and rise to the sky.

Words are my life, my work, but I do not have words to capture what Lenore meant to me, and what she did for me – and for Maria and I. She brought love to me when I had given up on it, she made it possible for me to love Maria and kept my heart from turning to stone. I remember telling a therapist about Lenore, and she looked at me curiously and said, “this is what you want. In a person.” So it was.

Lenore became Maria’s dog as well as mine, they both came to cherish their walks in the woods together. Lenore slept at the food of our bed every night, she was the Love Dog, a witness to our love and connection.  Like Izzy and Red, Lenore was a hospice therapy dog, her career cut short by the disappearance of several sandwiches belonging to the terminally ill and at their bedsides.

Watching Lenore in such awful pain this week was the most difficult experience of my life with animals, and I am grateful that she is in peace, her pain is over. She never lost her joy of life.  Maria and I are grateful to Dr. Suzanne Fariello an Cassandra and the staff of the  Cambridge veterinary service, they were wonderful – perfect, empathetic, responsive, available, merciful. They worried about Lenore, they worried about us. They supported us in every way.

In a sense, this is what unites us, loss is the common human experience, a challenge to faith, a test of the heart. We all know what it feels like to lose something we love, the awful beauty and connection of grief.

Lenore was heavily sedated, she died with her head in my arms and Maria holding the both of us, I have not ever cried so much in my life, how cleansing are tears. These are all the words I have tonight, I did want you to know, you have shared Lenore’s life with me from the first day. I am profoundly grateful to Gretchen Pinkel, the wonderful breeder who knew Lenore was the right dog for me. Thank you for all the love you gave Lenore, like Simon, she was not just my animal, not just my dog, she belonged to many others and my loss is theirs as well.

The Quakers have a saying, if you love, you will suffer, and it is worth it. So it is, this week, much suffering in my life with animals, and it flows from so much joy and meaning. It was worth every minute of it.

On Labor Day, I posted the first of my carriage horse dreams. This is the second. Sometimes, when I am in New York, or in the night, the horses speak to me, they ask me to tell their true story. Every day I receive messages from all over the world from people sharing their carriage horse dreams and memories with me. The Internet gives voice to the voiceless, the people the politicians and the angry people ignore and the journalists never quote. I thank them for entrusting their stories to me. Jane sent me this true story last night, on behalf of her beloved husband, Roger. How extraordinary a thing it is to me for them to think about the horses at this time in their lives.

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The Lover Mourns The Loss Of Love And Magic

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,
I had a beautiful friend
And dreamed that the old despair
Would end in love in the end:
She looked in my heart one day
And saw your image was there;
She has gone weeping away.

–  W.B. Yeats

“Dear Jon Katz, my husband Roger and I want to thank you for your writing about the carriage horses, their story strikes very close to home for us. Roger apologizes for not writing you directly, he has a brain tumor and is unable to communicate with you himself. He has tried to contact the mayor’s office on behalf of the horses but no one will speak to him there or answer his messages. We both wanted to share our story with you, it is especially timely for us and important.

We live in lower Manhattan, we have lived in New York all of our lives, except for our years traveling overseas. Roger was in the foreign service, working for the U.S. State Department. We have been married nearly 50 years, and Roger and I have both come to understand that our wonderful life and time together is coming to an end soon. His tumor is advancing rapidly, we are in the final stages of this disease. We are both in our 80’s, Roger has never been one to avoid reality, he does not fear death but he fears losing his wonderful mind.

We both love the horses and this story is important to us as they struggle for their existence.

But I know you are busy, you must get so many messages.

Here is our story. Roger proposed to me in the late l960s, another time. The first thing we did after that was to take a ride in Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage, it was so wonderfully romantic, we brought a bottle of wine and gave the driver $50 and told him to ride and ride, and he did, to the Bethesda Fountain and back, we rode through the beautiful park on a shiny black carriage pulled by this beautiful big brown horse, the driver, a middle-aged Irishman named Paddy, he understood love and lovers, and was a lover of poetry and so are Roger and I, Roger studied in England after Harvard, he loved Yeats.

So did our driver. In fact, Roger read a Yeats poem to me in the carriage that night,  we were snuggled under a colorful wool blanket that Paddy gave us: The poem was titled “He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace“, I have never forgotten it:

“I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire”

You see, Mr. Katz, Roger and I love one another a great deal, today just as much as 50 years ago, and we often read Yeats and other poets to one another, and always when we take a carriage ride in the park. We try to do with that with  our children on Christmas week, it is a cherished tradition for our family. We so hate to think of a Christmas without those beautiful horses in Central Park.

Roger was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, two months ago he asked if we could take a ride in the park while he could still appreciate it, he wanted to touch a horse one more time, and look up and see the buildings sprouting up over the trees. We met a remarkable man there, a carriage driver.  Roger believes he might have been Israeli, he spoke with an accent, he spoke so mystically and beautifully of the horses, he saw that Roger was ill and he gave us his card with his cell phone number on it.

He told us to call him whenever Roger wished to come to the park and he would stop whatever he was doing and meet us at the Bethesda Fountain. That is Roger’s favorite fountain ever since our ride there together. We had a van driver who would take us there.  I don’t feel at liberty to give you the driver’s name, but it was the name of an Angel. It is so hurtful to see the ugly things said about the drivers, that they are cruel and greedy.  I think our driver is an angel, he would not harm a butterfly. These rides made such a difference to us this summer. They gave Roger a reason to go outside, they revived and encouraged him in ways even I could not. The horses seem to bring him back to life.  We would call, and we would appear at the appointed time, and there our angel would be with his beautiful black horse, waiting for us by the fountain.  He would not accept any money from us, no matter how much we insisted.

Roger rode in the park perhaps a half-dozen times – he is no longer able to go outside – and each time I saw him smile and look up in the sky in wonder, his eyes and heart filled with love and memory, he so loved the park,  it was such a gift to him, to us. To see him smile so was a miracle.  One of those times we rode in the park with our angel, I  brought a book of poetry, I read Roger the remainder of “His Beloved Be At Peace.” Roger loves that poem, it seems so appropriate now:

“O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.”

Roger and the carriage driver spoke on the telephone this week, it is now difficult for Roger to speak. Our driver says the carriage horse drivers are worried and discouraged about the mayor’s promise to banish them and the horses from New York. They are tired of the long and painful struggle.

Roger told him – he spoke slowly but made himself understood – that it has always been true of human beings that some will take any beautiful thing and make it ugly, and the better parts of us had to always remember to see the beauty in things. Yeats knew that, he said.  He told his new friend that when we can’t see the beauty, our souls shrivel and die. That is how Roger and I try and feel, it is how we have lived our lives, although it is sometimes difficult. This is the story that Roger wishes to tell to the mayor, but we are not blind or naive people, we know that no one really wants to hear it, no one really wants to talk with us in the mayor’s office.

On our last ride in the park – it was the beginning of July – we met our angel one last time  with his horse and carriage. We said goodbye, we all knew we would not see one another again. We gave the horse a carrot and an apple, the horse put his head to Roger’s. Our driver gave us flowers, and hugged both of us. Our angel broke down and cried, and said he was sorry that he could not control his tears, we did not need his sorrow.

Roger took his hand and held it for a minute or so. He was not able to speak that day. Then our driver gave Roger a volume of poetry, he read this poem to us on our last ride together. It is called “When You Are Old:”

“When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

and nodding by the fire,

take down this book,

and slowly read,

and dream of the soft look,

your eyes had once and of their shadows deep.”

So that is our story, our own carriage horse dream, only it is true. I would so love to tell Roger that the horses will remain in the park, for me, our children, and the many others, the countless others who love them as much as do. I will always hear the shadowy horses in my dreams, they are a part of us. We are grateful to you for hearing our story, we hope it is of value to you, and especially, to the horses who have so lifted our spirits and graced our love and lives.

___

I thank Jane for trusting me to tell her story, I am grateful to be able to share it and I will make certain it is heard. I know who her driver is, he is an angel that is familiar to me and to others, he is a New York Carriage Driver who is much loved. In her message to me Jane mentioned another Yeats poem, “The Pity Of Love,” she said she had lost it some years ago and could not find it. I dug it out on the Internet, and I offer it back to her as a thank you for her dream. Godspeed to her and to Roger, she reminds us that the horses are about so much more than money and power and the arrogance of human beings.

The Pity of Love

“A pity beyond all telling

is hid in the heart of love:

The folk who are buying and selling;

The clouds on their journey above;

The cold wet winds ever blowing;

And that shadowy hazel grove

Where mouse-grey waters are flowing

Threaten the head that I love.”

On one afternoon in New York City last weekend, a a woman was mowed down and killed by a driver in an SUV, a homeless man was fatally struck by a car in Queens, and on the Upper East Side, a 63-year-old woman was run over by a cement truck, severing her left leg below the knee, according to police. That same afternoon, a hit-and-run driver in Brooklyn struck a nine-year-old boy on a bicycle, leaving him in a coma. The incidents were reported on an online traffic registry. No reporters went to the scene of any of these accidents; there were no photographs or videos posted online, no public officials made any statements about any of them, there were no protests by demonstrators from any organization of any kind.

Thursday, the carriage being pulled by a horse named Spartacus tipped over and Spartacus fell down. Several minutes later, he got up and rode home. It was a very different story.

___

(Note:  I want to say to the busy and distracted people reading the story of Spartacus recounted here that it seems that almost every single thing about this story as reported by several animal rights organizations, then widely disseminated by the New York media, and recounted below, has turned out to be false, including perhaps the identity and existence of the mythical Oklahoma “tourist” who is believed to have started it all. )

–

Thursday afternoon of this week,  shortly after noon, an incident occurred in Manhattan involving Spartacus, a 15-year-old draft horse. More than a dozen media outlets – some on radio, some on news blogs on the Internet – broke into their regular news coverage – several issued “bulletins” and “special reports” to report that a New York Carriage Horse was “spooked” by a bus, collapsed on Central Park South, was held down cruelly by carriage drivers seeking to save a carriage, and then forced, while limping,  to return to work. A tourist from Oklahoma, said the animal rights groups,  immediately e-mailed the photograph above to PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals) and also NYClass, the leader of the move to ban the horses from New York.

The visitor allegedly texted that the incident was one of the worst animal abuse incidents he had ever witnessed. He said a bus came close to the horse and “spooked it (rightfully so I was also scared of how close the busses were to us.)” The horse,  said the tourist, bucked and started to run when it’s carriage went off the curb and pinned the animal to the ground.”

“The men (if that’s what we want to call them),”  the tourist reported, “proceeded to hold the horse down and save their carriage (yes, carriage, not horse) from further damage. He said the drivers  said they were refusing to cut the carriage away because they would have to pay for the damage, and the driver, he said, “clearly had no concern for the horse.”

Finally, said the tourist in a statement widely disseminated by PETA to news organizations for several hours on a score of New York media outlets, “the men proceed to strap the horse back into harnesses and continue to work even though he was clearly limping and hurt!!!”

–

I thought the tourist’s quotes were strange for a passerby. He sounded just like an animal rights protestor.  I contacted a New York reporter, a former journalism student of mine, he said no one outside of PETA spoke to this person, the reporter looked for him at the scene and at the animal rights demonstrations later that afternoon. Like me, he thought his quotes oddly familiar, very close to the rhetoric of the animal rights demonstrators and spokespeople he has spoken to. No one spoke to him, and there was, as of this writing, no evidence that he actually exists, at least not in the form of a disinterested Oklahoma tourist. I checked the MTA routes online, and busses don’t stop where the carriage horses line up. And the concerned tourist said he was close enough to overhear the driver’s speaking, but it seems he was not close enough to see that at least one of them was a woman.

I wonder if this person exists, and if he does, why he would take the trouble to contact PETA with his very inconclusive photograph, utter numerous statements that turn out to be completely untrue (no one at the scene, for example, reported any contact with busses), and then vanish without speaking to any reporters or contacting any news organizations. If he had witnessed the abuse he describes and felt strongly enough about it to contact PETA, why wouldn’t he also tell his story to news organizations eager to report it without any substantiation at all. Mike, the reporter, e-mailed me again this morning, “I can find no evidence that there is such a person,” he said. He said PETA would not respond to his questions about it.

If he does exist, I’m sure the animal rights organizations will want to offer him to the public and media, his story of animal abuse is quite awful and ought to be heard in greater detail. If there is no evidence that he exists, why is he being quoted?

_

The mayor of New York City told reporters that the incident proved that carriage horses should not be in New York City traffic where there are busses and cars. It is not, he said, humane. The executive director of the animal rights organization  NY Class, said in a statement that the driver could have gotten Spartacus up on his feet in “two seconds” but was more interested in saving the carriage then the horse. The carriage trade cares nothing about the horses, she said, the horses are “just a commodity.” PETA issued a statement on their website saying “a horse named Spartacus was pinned under a carriage in a horrifying accident outside the Plaza Hotel.” Animal rights demonstrators showed up very quickly; their protests were all over the evening newscasts.

They seemed almost gleeful, a horse abuse story, just in the nick of time.

–

The fall of Spartacus is compelling on many levels, it helps us understand the politics of animal abuse, the fall of journalism in the  digital age,  how animals are exploited for financial and political gain by people who claim to be their advocates.

The rise and fall of Spartacus also shows us how easy and manipulative it is to disseminate images of injured animals to people. Most Americans have become utterly disconnected from the real lives of real animals.

The most striking thing about the version of events reported above in New York City most of the day yesterday – and continuing throughout the night and this morning –  is that they are either a gross distortion and misrepresentation of a very insignificant accident or a a complete fabrication.  The only fact reported in the early story that was true was that there had been an incident involving two carriages and that a horse  (and his carriage) had fallen down and then, got up. That was about it. The incident was not only not horrifying, it was not even especially interesting.

It revealed nothing about the safety or viability of carriage horses in New York one way or the other, it had nothing to do with traffic, abuse or the health of animals. On a horse or rescue farm, it would probably have not made it past the conversation at dinner. I’ve had equines on my farm fall down several times. Unless there is something broken, you take your time and help them to get up. Life occurs, then goes on.

Both the New York City Police and the MTA, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, said no busses were involved in any accident involving a carriage horse, there were none near Spartacus when the accident occurred. A number of eyewitnesses, including Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and spokesperson for the carriage trade and someone I know well  (she is also a person I have found to be truthful in all of her many statements to me during lots of research on the horses) were present when the incident occurred. The horse was not “spooked” at any time, she said, but was remarkably calm throughout. The wheel of his carriage caught in the rear wheel of the carriage in front, and the carriage overturned causing the horse to fall on the ground.

Spartacus, she said, was on the ground for between two and three minutes.

Hansen, an eyewitness and historian and equine authority,   was not quoted in any of the early stories or breathless accounts of  the incident, mostly from the unnamed and strangely hostile- to -the -carriage trade Oklahoma tourist. In the heat of the moment, and while transmitting a single photograph, he managed to portray New York City and it’s busses as incompatible with horses, and  the entire carriage trade industry as greedy and uncaring, mirroring precisely the arguments of the organizations trying to ban them. That’s a lot of political messaging in a hurry, sent before he disappeared or could be interviewed.

Hansen said the “tourists” account was inaccurate in almost every detail other than that Spartacus fell. She said an unattended horse that was not tied to a pole pulled out from behind, clipping the back wheel of Spartacus’s carriage. He then went up on the sidewalk, tipping the carriage over. There was no vehicle of any kind involved and the carriage did not fall on the horse or trap him.

Allie Feldman, the executive direct of NY Class – she was not present –  took off from the “tourist’s” message and said the carriage driver was clearly more interested in saving the carriage than the horse. No one seems to have asked her how she could possibly know the driver’s motives, since she was not present, does not know the driver or the horse, did not speak to anyone who was involved.

She said the incident involving Spartacus was “tragic,” a quote widely disseminated all over the city Thursday afternoon in stories and headlines. Although this quote appeared all over the Internet, I did not understand it. Something that is tragic pertains to a “dreadful, calamitous, disastrous, or fatal” event. I’m not sure how a horse falling down and getting up meets the definition..

There were other witnesses, but none of them were quoted in most of the media reports. Jane Dorman, a reader of my blog and a visitor to the city who was looking to take a carriage ride e-mailed me last night and said she was present, unlike most of the people who were talking about it.

She was stunned to see the news reports on television and online when she returned to her hotel room. “They were quoting all of these people who weren’t there. I was; a bunch of drivers rushed right away to help the horse, they were very concerned about him; they talked to him, gave  him carrots, gently got the harness off him, made sure he was ready to stand up, they got him out of there right away and said they were taking him back to the stable. It was all over in a few minutes.  I could not believe the event I saw was the one I saw on TV and read about. That was much more frightening to me than the horse falling – you could see he was fine. But the lying, wow, you have to see it to believe it.”

Jane was getting a lesson in modern media and also a window into the dynamics of the carriage horse controversy. If the supposed Oklahoma tourist had not taken his cell phone picture and send it off to NY Class, there would probably have been no stories about Spartacus, no bulletins, mayoral statements or demonstrations.

Dorman, who owns a horse ranch in Michigan, told me she texted two news organizations and NYClass to relate what she had seen, but no one answered her or seemed interested in quoting her. What she told me is essentially what was eventually confirmed by almost everyone involved.

Hansen and the drivers said they kept the horse on the ground so that they could safely remove his harness. It is common practice when equines fall to keep the animal down, to keep their heads down. Horses can do great harm to themselves if they try to stand up in a panic.  If the horse had gotten up too quickly, said Tony Serano, the driver, he could have been injured, equine veterinarians support what he did. Salerno said Spartacus remained calm, and he fed him pieces of a carrot to keep him still. It is not true, said anyone involved,  that the horse was either limping or returned to work.

Spartacus was taken immediately back to his stable on the West Side and examined by a police veterinarian, who pronounced him healthy and unscathed. There was not a scratch on the horse, said the veterinarian, whose stable was immediately opened to public view for anyone to come and see for themselves.

The mayor and the animal rights organizations pushing the carriage ban have been taken a beating lately – polls of New Yorkers, the city’s three newspapers and a number of labor unions and business groups all show there is enormous opposition to the proposed ban, and the proponents were excited and well-prepared when offered a “horrible” and “tragic” incident reported by a phantom with a cell phone. Yesterday, they seemed almost desperate for something tragic to happen.

“The one yesterday was not the first one – it was one in a long line of accidents,” said Mayor deBlasio. “And it’s for a very simple reason – horses don’t belong on the streets of New York City.” The mayor has not yet learned that accidents happen everywhere, and the horses have fewer of them than most horses anywhere.  If this is the kind of incident he is talking about, the horses ought to be here for a long time. Four carriage horses have died as the result of accidents in the past thirty years, while undertaking more than 3 million rides – no human fatalities ever, no horse deaths in the past 20 years. Last year, more than 15,000 New Yorkers were taken to hospitals as the result of collisions with motor vehicles, bicycles, trucks and busses  in New York.

There is no evidence that Serano did anything wrong, he seems to have done everything right, only to be accused of caring more for his carriage than his horse.  It does seem that the horses are a commodity.  It is important to remember that the animal rights organizations invoking horse abuse – NYClass, the A.S.P.C.A., the U.S. Humane Society, have drawn many volunteers and celebrities and raised millions of dollars in New York portraying the carriage horses as abused in a long and ugly campaign. They have used the money to give millions of dollars to politicians, to construct prototypes of the much reviled eco-friendly vintage electric cars and make themselves significant players in New York politics in the process.

The animal rights movement is  widely credited with electing Mayor deBlasio and de-railing his major opponent, a former City Council President who opposed the horse ban. The carriage horse controversy is at the epicenter of their recent rise to power and influence, they appear determined to keep it going. I am a supporter of animal rights, I am an advocate for animals, and they are not well served when they are used and portrayed in the way Spartacus was this week.

It is worthwhile to understand and de-construct this incident, even if the New York media may not do it, because it tells us so much about this story and the ways in which animals are being exploited and threatened by people claiming to be speaking for their rights.

It is hard to follow the line of reasoning that suggests and accepts the idea these the carriage owners or drivers would abuse a horse in full view of thousands of people in one of New York City’s most trafficked tourist locations in the midst of a heated controversy over the future of their industry when any mistake or incident is surely going to be pounced upon as a justification to put them out work and end their way of life.

That is beyond cruel, it would be insane. It makes no sense at all. Is it really plausible that a carriage driver would tell a strange tourist in New York with scores of people standing around that he didn’t care about his fallen horse, he only cared about the cost of the carriage? And that he would put a limping animal back to work in front of hundreds of cellphones with cameras and video capability?

The truth matters in this story, there is a lot at stake.  There is a 150-year-old popular tradition on the line, more than 300 jobs, and the fate of 200 working horses. It’s worth a phone call or two.

I called the New York Police Department and the Metropolitan Transit Authority and I learned in several minutes that there was no bus involved, there was no accident, there was not even a police report. The horse was not injured in any way; he was not abused in any way, he was not forced to work limping, or at all, in fact he was not limping. No human beings or passersby or tourists were hurt, no harm was done other than to rattle the nerves of an excitable Oklahoma tourist who might not even exist. Even the carriage was not harmed.

I talked with a friend who has a horse farm in Saratoga Springs and I asked her how many horses are injured in accidents on her farm, she says it is quite common for horses to stumble or fall, injure themselves on fences, to be spooked by birds or strange objects and hurt themselves running away. She said it was standard practice when a horse in harness falls to keep them down until the harness is clear and certain they won’t harm themselves by getting up too quickly – their legs can be fragile, they can sometimes twist or break getting up the wrong way. I called our equine vet who said the same thing. “The drivers did the right thing,” she said, “they were putting the horse first. The last thing you want to do is cause more damage.”

The emotional power of injured animal images might explain why we never see images of the many New Yorkers – nearly 300 a year – who are killed in real accidents, and who don’t get right up like Spartacus and walk away.

If we saw photos of the people injured and killed in those accidents that week in New York, the mayor would be re-arranging his priorities very quickly, perhaps getting to the comparatively much safer horses later. For me, the big story for Friday is not Spartacus, who is getting some time off, but why the mayor, the people at PETA and NYClass all reported things that were not true. Why they made so many statements that proved to be false, why so many news organizations mindlessly repeated them. New York City is trying to decide if domesticated animals that are not pets can remain in cities and among people. Hysterias like the one that swept the city yesterday are not helpful.

In the real world, in cities, on farms, on animal preserves life happens, accidents occur all the time, the horses are no more immune than the rest of us. They just get a lot more media coverage than the many more accidents that occur to people.

There are, in fact, two sides to everything, concerns about the carriage horses are legitimate, it is important to have a debate about them. But the story of the rise fall of Spartacus was not a debate, it was a hysteria fueled by new technologies that make it easy to spread information, difficult for people to find out the truth. It is still there, if anyone wants to take the time to look for it.

–

– And what, I wondered, of that homeless man struck down, that woman who lost her leg on the Upper East Side, that child in a coma, in Brooklyn. Is the story of a healthy horse who fell down and got up more important than the lives of human beings who are grievously harmed and truly abused?

Just imagine when you think of the rise and fall of Spartacus would would happen if the photos of these poor injured and killed people were all over the Internet every day, if the eyewitnesses to their accidents were all over the news with their cellphone photos and videos. It would be traumatic for the people seeing those images, just as it is traumatic to see horses lying down in the street. It is dishonest to present these rare occurrences as representative of the lives of horses or other animals.

 These accidents were real tragedies involving real people, not phantom manifestations of cruelty manufactured  by the truly callous people for political gain. What we saw in New York City on Thursday is a culture that pays too much attention to the lies, and ignores the things that are true.

We know where Spartacus is, we know every detail of his mishap. We will never know what happened to that 63-year-old woman, who that homeless man was, how the boy in the coma is doing. There has not been not another word about any of them. They mayor made no comment about them, the media wrote no stories about them.