Shoddy First Draft

THE SHODDINESS HAS MOVED!

2008-08-31T23:02:00.004-05:00

Shamble over HERE to see the new and improved novel procrastination!

Jollyship The Whiz-Bang

2008-06-07T13:08:00.004-05:00

Yet another reason I wish we lived in NYC: Jollyship the Whiz-Bang on stage now at Ars Nova, 511 W54th St.

Billed as a Pirate-Puppet-Rock Odyssey, the ship is sinking, the captain’s a drunk and the band is on the verge of mutiny. Braving treacherous seas and murderous waves on a quest for the wonders of Party Island, Captain Clamp and crew undertake a ribald and rum-soaked nautical journey.

CREATED BY NICK JONES WITH RAJA AZAR

DIRECTED BY SAM GOLD

The Band: Raja Azar, Steven Boyer, Keith Frederickson, Nick Jones, Daniel Kutcher, Julie Lake, Jesses Wallace.

Sets: Donyale Werle. Costumes: Emily Rebholz. Puppets: Paul Burn. Lights: Ben Stanton.

The New York Times calls it "loud and loose, but not sloppy" and hails its "demented brilliance."

Portable Snack

2008-04-27T14:19:00.000-05:00

New essay up at TNB.

" 'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett"

2008-04-22T18:08:00.002-05:00

I first saw this on The Elegant Variation. Excruciatingly funny indeed.

Two thousand eight

2008-01-01T20:11:00.000-05:00

A sampling of this year’s to do list, replete with visual aids:

Wrap up plans for trip to
this spring.
Read more of these
than I do even now. Especially read more of Maggie O’Farrell
and Richard Russo.
But first, finish reading this
Do more of this
so I can finish the book that takes place here
and here
and here
Maybe even take some time off to visit the Coop for specific research.

Listen to more of this man
and his music.
Take Marly Youmans' advice (see The Palace at 2 a.m.)
that I sit my butt in chair, write when dratted bare, write in vestments rare . . . write a page a day.

Keep up with Alexander Maksik
and his amazing stories, which you can read at Pont des Arts, and buy him a drink when we get here
or wherever he recommends.

Trunk Monkey Compilation

2007-12-28T15:48:00.001-05:00

And then there were three

2007-11-27T19:05:00.000-05:00

Not my favorite Genesis album by far, and not my favorite time in the Art Dept. We're losing a valued member to the "corporate" parking world. Who's next?

So long, Mr. P'body.

Lost in the Woods 2007

2007-10-07T21:54:00.001-05:00

It wasn't pretty, but here's my scorecard from my first disc golf tournament. After a shaky start on hole 14, by the end of the day I finished 18th out of 22 in my division -- at least I didn't finish last.

And what does this have to do with a Shoddy First Draft and writing? Well, the player's pack program included a little story of mine I wrote exclusively for the tournament:

Mr. Bones Finds His Way
By Jim Simpson

When he walked among the living his name had been Weed, but he’d been dead for a long time now. He couldn’t remember his real name, just the nickname given to him as a child because he loved the outdoors and would play for hours in an overgrown field beside his house. He knew nothing of parents, brothers or sisters; didn’t even remember a dog. Being a skeleton had its good and bad points, a selective and spotty memory being one of the bad ones.

He did remember having money and a wife in ’29, then suddenly losing everything. After that he drifted around the country riding trains and finding work where he could. He did this for seven years, and then in the winter of ’36 came to this place — Rowell? Ruell? Roswell? — in the South. It was nice, but he’d hooked up with a bad crowd and they’d killed him. He couldn’t recall why, but the men buried him deep in the woods and no one had ever found him.

He’d lain in his subterranean bed for many boring years just twiddling his dwindling thumbs and slowly rotting. Without light, Time was shapeless. Eventually, it ceased to exist for him. That was one of the benefits of his skeleton-ness. Also, his senses were keener than in life and he could hear animals’ thoughts. Lately, though, he’d begun to hear voices. Human voices. They sounded happy, energetic.

He heard them tromping overhead, laughing, tossing things, walking, picking them up, an odd metallic ching!, and then the living would walk away. When it was quiet he began digging.

He crawled out, shook the soil from his bones and looked about. The moon cast a silvery light over trees, grass, mounds of wood chips. Though he had no nose, the night smelled wonderful. He strolled around the park, following a trail into and out of woods, up and down hills, and scattered about were metal baskets with dangling chains. Interesting.

Next to a sleek playground (no teeter-totters?) were two picnic tables. On the ground beneath one of them a bright yellow disc caught his eye, or more precisely the memory of his eye, since he no longer had eyes. He didn’t question these things, just accepted them. He’d always loved magic; saw Houdini once, so maybe believing in something made you receptive to it. Who knew? Worms had long since consumed his brain.

The disc felt good in his hands. He walked to the head of a trail, set himself and held the thing as he’d seen athletes do at the Olympics. It didn’t feel right, so he held it like a dinner plate, turned and whipped it out and away. The disc flew off into the moonlight, disappearing down the trail. He clapped his bony hands together, clack clack! What fun! he shouted, a silent puff of dust shooting from his jaws. He turned to celebrate with someone, anyone. Sadly, he was alone. He longed for the company of the happy living ones who also threw these things.

He spent the entire evening tossing and retrieving the marvelous yellow disc, laughing his silent, dusty laugh at the satisfying ching!

His nocturnal round of disc golf (somehow he knew that’s what this was called — again, the magic of his skeleton-ness) upset the animals. Squirrels said quiet Mr. Bones, sleeping here! Need sleep! Foraging tomorrow! Owls said don’t scare that mouse Mr. Bones, tread lightly. Snakes hissed, bite you if you scare that rat, hungry so hungry, swallow him whole.

Mr. Bones? thought Weed. I like that. He turned the disc over and placed his white thumb against the rim as he’d heard the living do, a “thumber” they'd said. It flew left, then swept right, bounced and took off down the fairway. He hit the chains on this one — a sign said No. 8 — in three throws. He jumped up, bones clattering, stick white arms raised, laughing hard to no one, soundlessly. He desperately wanted to share this moment with someone. He hung his head and if he wasn't just a bunch of dried bones, he would have wept.

He slowly plucked the disc from the basket. He felt very tired now. He hadn’t had a night like this in, well, a long long time. He should get back, he thought. But where was his place? He didn’t recognize this section of the park. He just wanted to lie down, but he couldn’t find the trail. He stalked through the woods, brushing aside branches until a vine caught his foot and he fell in a clattering heap. He sat up and leaned back against a fallen tree. So. Here he was lost in the woods. Oh well, no matter. Things were different now.

A purple lizard skittered near him, but it said and thought nothing. A spider dangled from its web, wrapping a tiny moth in silk. In the moonlight he saw the loveliest little red mushrooms. He sat and gazed at them until the memory of his eyelids closed and he slept, the magic yellow disc clutched in his bony right hand.

Answering the PDGA call

2007-10-01T18:54:00.001-05:00

PDGA mini
Originally uploaded by JISimpson.

Now that I'm a card-carrying PDGA member, (what would Groucho say?) I guess I'll have to take my game more seriously! (If that makes sense; it's a game and it's supposed to be fun!)

My first tournament is here this Saturday.

Bobby Z and DPA McManus

2007-09-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

Why the sudden trip down Memory Lane?

Bob Dylan - 1998

2007-09-20T23:19:00.002-05:00

This was about the time Sue and I last saw Dylan at Georgia Tech. Joni Mitchell opened. It was her birthday and we all sang an impromptu Happy Birthday to her. Quite a memorable night.

All Bob said between songs was "Thank yew thank yew very much." But we weren't there to hear him talk anyway.

Radio Radio Redux

2007-09-20T22:44:00.002-05:00

Where was I when this aired? Must have been a few years ago. Anyway, I feel old(er) now because I remember the original "sorry ladies and gentlemen" back in '78.

...and the original

2007-09-20T22:36:00.002-05:00

I remember watching this in high school and being totally blown away. It took some balls for EC to do this on national tv. Actually, I thought he was a complete oddball -- Mick Jagger's retarded little brother or something. Still, I went out and bought the album the next day. Soon after that I realized he was neither an oddball nor retarded, just a musical genius.

THE LIMEY (1999). The best movie you never saw.

2007-08-12T12:50:00.002-05:00

Starring Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Fonda. Directed by Steven Soderberg.

Mindless Simpsons fun

2007-07-22T17:11:00.001-05:00

My Simpsons avatar (with specs) from the Simpsons Movie website.

And one with my new (arghh!) contacts:

Thanks, Barry!

2007-06-01T19:52:00.000-05:00

Great. Just as we're about to head to Siesta Key (a barrier island off Sarasota, FL) for the week, along comes Tropical Storm Barry. Not a big deal, just a bit more rain to make the boring trip down 75 interesting.

I just hope this Barry is as cool and easygoing as Mr. P'body.

I Am But A (Corn) Pup of Letters

2007-03-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

Prolific and most generous poet and writer Marly Youmans interviews me in palatial style. Scamper to The Palace at 2 a.m. to see the scrim lifted.

The Chocolate Doughnut Principle

2007-03-04T19:26:00.001-05:00

Our neighborhood is changing; it has been for the past two or three years. Especially the kids.

Land is being rezoned all around us from residential to commercial. Modest ranch-style homes on multi-acre lots are being bought up and bulldozed, replaced with strip malls containing the ubiquitous nail salons, dollar stores, carnecerias and billiard halls. I have no problem with any of these establishments, but how many of them do we need in a five-mile radius?

Gwinnett County, GA, is bursting at the seams.

Family farms are selling off their land and in their place sprout cluster-home developments whose starting price is a quarter of a million per home. And they all look the same: aluminum siding crackerboxes 20 feet apart without a tree in sight.

We live in one of the few remaining older subdivisions with spacious lots full of hardwood trees. In a single season in our back yard we regularly see bluebirds, cardinals, finches, three species of woodpeckers, thrashers, grackles, barred owls, great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, rabbits, turtles, herons, and ducks.

Along with this paradise of nature we also hear the distant roar of highway 316 and police helicopters searching for the occasional criminal.

We also have gangs. And graffiti. And it's not creative or artistic. It's just plain ugly.

We also have neighborhood kids trying to imitate gang tagging, and it's even uglier. They've tagged our neighbor's old black oak:

And they recently tagged our carport:

At first I attributed this to the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants. How dare they bring their LA-style violence and lack of respect for the land to our quiet little county. But the Mexicans, Peruvians, Dominicans, and Columbians I've met in our neighborhood and at our girls' elementary school are hard-working people trying to make a better life for themselves and their children. They are intelligent and kind, and seem pleasantly surprised (if not a bit amused) when I resurrect and thrust my rusty college Spanish on them. Bless is heart, they might be saying in Spanish, or perhaps What an idiot.

Residents fed up with rampant development can attend zoning commission meetings and voice their concerns, but the land rezoning is still railroaded through. If people want out, they're free to sell their land to the highest bidder, and we're powerless to stop it. It is, after all, about the bottom line.

I've finally realized that all of this is my fault. It's me. Really. I'm responsible, at least for the vandalism and disrespect for property.

I attribute it to the Chocolate Doughnut Principle.

It begins this way: I grew up in sleepy St. Petersburg, Florida, in an older neighborhood much like the one I live in now (before the change began). My brother, sister and I were latch-key kids in a neighborhood of mostly retirees. We threw rocks at passing cars, we knocked on bedroom windows late at night -- we terrorized the old folks mercilessly. Especially our widowed next-door neighbor, Mrs. Davies.

She was a retired Presbyterian minister from Wales (we attended the local Presbyterian church but were still evil) and we did horrible things to the side of her house. The Reverend Elsie Davies was convinced my brother Greg and I were out to kill her.

We threw rocks and water balloons onto her roof, eggs at her house,

and I once smashed a chocolate doughnut onto the side of her yellow house. My brother, a talented cartoonist, even drew a cartoon about the incident. Funny, funny stuff, we thought. I see all too clearly now how the chocolate doughnut represents the karmic circle. What goes around comes around.

My bad childhood behavior has come home to roost.

The kids who cut through my yard and paint graffiti on my house are unwittingly paying me back for my childhood indiscretions.

Then again, maybe these kids and I share similar childhoods. My brother and I were often left at home alone (our divorced mother worked full-time and couldn't afford after-school care, like there was such a thing back then), we didn't have lots of money, and we were bored most days.

Still, I think the doughnut had something to do with it.

Someone stole our recycling bin (huh?!) a few weeks ago.

It was more a kidnapping than a theft -- the bin was missing for four days. I found it one rainy afternoon in the woods behind our house, the plastic and glass contents strewn about in the ivy, bobbing in the creek. Oddly, the emptied bin was refilled with heaps of new and used orange extension cords. I thought I was having a bizarre dream standing there in the rainy woods, pawing through the lime green industrial-strength plastic bin full of orange snakes.

The recycling bin now lives in the garage until trash day.

I find discarded bicycles in my yard that lie there motionless for days. When I was a kid, I'd be devastated if my bike was missing for even one night.

I take the abandoned bikes now and offer them to the first kid who comes along.

So now I just paint over the graffiti, smile at my neighbors, tell myself I'll try to attend the next neighborhood watch meeting if I'm not working late.

I consider myself a very liberal guy, open to all cultures, curious about many customs, but in mid-life I've realized I am an age discriminator: What is wrong with young people today? I say, at the same time recalling my grandfather ranting about "longhairs" in the '60s who were ruining this country with their rebellious ways.

We're doomed, at least in my little neighborhood, and it's all because of that ancient chocolate doughnut incident. With my decision to take that confectionery delight and, instead of popping it into my mouth and enjoying it, smearing it onto that yellow stucco wall, I've become the guy I used to torment on my childhood streets. I'm now the old fart in the Buick tooling down the road who sees the kid on the corner with something in his hand who at the last second chucks the object at the Buick.

I'm the guy in that car who slams on his brakes and thinks, What's wrong with kids these days? and then yells out the window "Hey you! Come back here!" as the kid sprints away laughing, rounding the corner and disappearing down the alley.

I'm also destined to be the homeowner chasing kids away from the side of his house.

I just hope these kids have nothing more potent than a chocolate doughnut for me and my house. A tres leche cake, perhaps . . .

I'm walkin', yes indeed I'm talkin' ...

2007-03-01T23:08:00.001-05:00

Went to J's talent show dress rehearsal this evening (it went really well!) then to our favorite Thai place for dinner. (Okay, the girls -- timid tastebuds that they have -- had Wendy's instead.) Low key tonight was fine with me now that my life is half over -- I mean, half begun(?). The wild party is next Friday when Sue and I celebrate in tandem with the Combined Pisces Pandemonium Show.

Ah, yes . . . the NOVEL. [See Family Guy excerpt in previous post.] I've been working on a middle chapter that will probably be either seven or eight, definitely after the snowy holiday party chapter, and after W. learns the true story of his uncle's death.

In this chapter, which I hope to finish (at least the shoddy first draft) for Saturday's critique group meeting, L. is walking to C'town in search of the past. I mean, he's literally trying to walk back in time. It doesn't start out this way, though; it starts with his aunt's death, his failed attempt to reach the neighbors by phone, a strengthening snow storm and his decision to walk to his childhood home 26 miles away.

Walking into the past begins to play a more significant part in L's delusions the closer he gets to C'town. An old Vonnegut reference conjures up a skating fantasy for him, and Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" keeps looping around in his head. The lyrics provide the perfect set-up for the final scene on the lake. The creative process baffles me sometimes -- who knows where this stuff comes from? I'm truly embarassed that I used the phrase "creative process" , too. Sheesh.

Anyway, all this walking talk is leading to another of those odd coincidences. Just when I need it, along comes today's Daily Dose email from Powell's Bookstore:

"Wanderlust: A History of Walking"

by Rebecca Solnit



***************************************************

Recommended by: Andrew in Brooklyn. ANDREW'S COMMENTS

"Solnit's book is a masterpiece in sustained mediatation on a

single, seemingly inconsequential topic: walking. Beginning with

recent discussions among primatologists and anthropologists that

the bipedal walking is not only typical of, but fundamental to

what it means to be human, Solnit launches into a cultural and

political history of walking....This book was unfairly lost in

the crowd of micro-microhistories that flooded shelves a few years

ago -- of salt, of cod, etc. -- but it stands above the rest as

Solnit blends personal account, literary history, and political

passion into a fascinating and compelling homage and plea for

ambulatory culture and ethics. Read this book as the precursor

to her more recent 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost.'"

****************************************************



PUBLISHER COMMENTS

Drawing together many histories -- of anatomical evolution and

city design, of treadmills and labyrinths, of walking clubs and

sexual mores -- Rebecca Solnit creates a fascinating portrait

of the range of possibilities presented by walking. Arguing that

the history of walking includes walking for pleasure as well as

for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit focuses on

the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture,

from philosophers to poets to mountaineers. She profiles some

of the most significant walkers in history and fiction -- from

Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet

to Andre Breton's Nadja -- finding a profound relationship between

walking and thinking and walking and culture. Solnit argues for

the necessity of preserving the time and space in which to walk

in our ever more car-dependent and accelerated world. 



REVIEWS

"Delightful...Solnit covers all kinds of ground in her inspiring

book on walking."

-- The Seattle Times



"Solnit presents an absolutely fascinating look at how the act

of walking itself has influenced our history, our science, our

literature, and the very way that we see ourselves as human beings."

-- Booklist 



"Meandering through human bipedalism, urban policy, garden design,

nature treks, pilgrimages, and the joys of urban roving, Solnit's

beautifully written chronicle visits several continents but ends

with an inspired promenade down a new pedestrian paradise: the

Vegas strip."

-- Entertainment Weekly 



"Solnit is an elegant essayist...as a guide, she knows the path

well; she is tireless and sure-footed."

-- The New York

Thanks to Barry A. for the PFF suggestion. I now have another excuse to do something besides writing THE NOVEL.

The Novel

2007-02-14T17:43:00.002-05:00

This cracks me up every time I see it.

"Working on that for quite some time, hmmm? Big stack of papers, hmmm? Nice little narrative: beginning, middle, and end, hmmm? Compelling protagonist with obstacles to overcome, hmmm?"

I have to finish this thing!

2007 Conference on Southern Literature

2007-01-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

I was surprised to find the brochure for the fourteenth biennial Conference on Southern Literature in the mail today; it doesn't seem like two years have passed since the last conference. Sue and I had a blast then, staying at the Chattanoogan, mixing and mingling with great writers.

You can see us in this photo (from the 2005 conference) that appears in the brochure's inside cover: I'm wearing an asparagus green shirt, upper middle left, near the signing table -- okay, just look for the guy with the bald spot (Sue's sidling up next to me) waiting in line for Jill McCorkle to sign my book.

It looks like the same line-up as last time, minus a few writers (Jill M., Daniel Wallace and Reynolds Price), and I'd like to meet Louis Rubin and attend the panel discussion featuring Richard Bausch, Madison Smartt Bell, Kaye Gibbons, Lee Smith and Allen Wier. Other than that, eh... not much else interests me this time.

Chattanooga's a wonderful town, though.

The Art and Poetry of Toast

2007-01-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

In an update to an earlier toast post, N. brought this home from school the other day. Now, there is no doubt; it's not just me: the world loves toast, even the little children. Yes, as the rhyme goes, warm and dry ... toast is sure to satisfy.

Indeed, T is for toast. And is it a coincidence that the word 'art' ends with a T? I think not. After reading this glad tiding, I see the world as somehow less chaotic, appearing now to have an intrinsic, divine order to it.

Today (another T word!) is a good day.

Cheers.

(No, I'm still not obsessed with toast, just a bit afflicted with cabin fever, as our oldest monkey was home from school with what we hope is just a 24-hour touch of the flu.)

I AM gonna work on Maggie's Farm

2007-01-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

We visited the farm on a recent drizzly Saturday morning. We really didn't expect to see so many dedicated volunteers slogging through the muck and mud, many of whom show up every Saturday to take care of the horses. Dozens of horses were munching hay in the pasture, and a dozen more were in the stable with the vet who was "floating" their teeth. This is an annual treatment where the vet literally files the horse's teeth, grinding away any sharp enamel growths.

It's amazing to know that there are so many people out there willing to part with hard-earned dollars and spend a huge chunk of their weekend taking care of these animals. The farm's oldest horse, Cricket, is now 42 years old. Her owners didn't chose to keep her after years of service to the family, and she's been at the farm for six years. Cricket is fed several small meals of a grain made for horses with Cushing's Syndrome (small benign tumours in the pituitary gland). She had very coarse, kinky hair, which is one symptom of the disease. Folks tell us her feed is expensive, but worth every penny. A group of us were talking outside the stable when Cricket (ancient thing that she was) shuffled over to us, let us pet her, neighed, and then wandered away.
We also saw a Sicilian donkey, two dwarf ponies that I can only describe as charmingly freaky, many very old horses, some of them quite sway-backed.
We didn't get to meet Sonny, who was on a farm a few miles away, but we'll meet him in a couple of weeks when we attend the volunteer orientation class. However, N. got quite attached to a gentle horse named Bitsy and was thrilled to feed her some flaxseed cookies. All in all a good day.

Vital NYC

2007-01-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS - The cast members take a bow after the show. (c.2006 NYTimes)

I picked up a copy of the New York Times the other day and I was reminded how vital that city is. Where else can you have a play performed in your apartment? This small theater troupe is performing "The Sublet Experiment", a story about an unusual sublet agreement involving (what else) sex? The players perform the play for four nights, and the hosts -- the apartment owners -- get free tickets for one night, but must make themselves scarce for the other three nights. A "stage manager" makes sure nothing shady happens to the apartment or its contents during the performance.

The group avoids the high rent of a theater space, saving a ton of money this way, and the audience enjoys free beer! How odd it would be to have actors in your house, well ... acting, inches away from you on your couch, in the kitchen, in the bathroom. I wonder about bedroom scenes: 'Please, not on the new comforter!'

GREENWICH VILLAGE - An audience watches as Marshall Sharer and Erin Maya Darke perform “The Sublet Experiment”in a Perry Street apartment. (c.2006 NYTimes)

The Weekend section featured a story about local skating rinks and how they stacked up against each other in the categories of size, popularity, setting, music, etc.

The Pond at Bryant Park plays jazz and classical music. (c.2006, Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times)

Bryant Park seemed to be one of the best, and the Rockefeller Plaza rink, although most well known, was rather small and crowded. The few times I've been there it was always more fun to watch the skaters from on high, a hot cappuccino in hand.

The Wollman Rink in Central Park, with its weeping willows, rocky cliff and skyscrapers, is the prettiest place to skate in New York. (c.2006, Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)

Although Atlanta has a very vibrant theater culture, I just can't imagine roving plays staged in Buckhead homes. Maybe I'm wrong; like we go to the theater all that much anyway. I don't usually make new year's resolutions, but maybe that'd be a good one: enjoy more live entertainment beyond shows at Chastain.

Back to the Times, though. Amid all the feel-good stories about arts and culture, I couldn't help notice the full-page cell phone ads that appeared opposite the international news pages which featured stories on rising death tolls in Iraq (military and civilian), and elsewhere in the world -- you name it, death death and more death. A photo of some guy pondering his cell phone plan choices seemed pretty silly next to stories about stuff that really matters.

Finally, opposite a story about the muck in the Middle East was a full-page ad for Exxon Mobil and their continuing strides in technology. Yes, it's all about oil isn't it?

Woah Nellie. Dismounting from my high horse now.

Our New Horse!

2006-12-14T23:01:00.000-05:00

We just sponsored a horse named Sonny. He lives on a farm in Cumming, GA, and is a resident horse with the Horse Rescue, Relief and Retirement program. Our sponsorship will help pay for Sonny's food, and N. will be able to visit Sonny to help groom him, clean his stall, walk him, give him yummy carrots and simply be his buddy. This is one of N's Christmas gifts -- we can't wait for the two of them to meet. (Of course we'll all be Sonny's buddy, not just N.)

Sonny is a 19 year old Palomino Tennessee Walking horse. He came from coastal Georgia where he was allergic to the region's Bermuda grasses and needed daily medication to keep his allergies under control. Since Sonny has been at the HRRRF farm, he's never been medicated. He eats alfalfa/orchard hay and enjoys fescue in the pastures; so far he's had no allergies. Sonny was once on HRRRF's adoption list, but they needed another horse for their children's therapy program and decided to give him a try. They were very glad they did. He's a calm and good natured horse who loves children.

To sponsor a horse, or if you have enough land and can adopt one, go to Save the Horses.org and see these beautiful animals for yourself.