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Penelope Miller got stuck at Ben & Jerry’s when the city lost power one day in Saratoga. Saturday morning, she cackled with delight about the day she was the kid in the candy store. You know the storms here, the ones that come out of nowhere, like they’re mad at you, Wizard-of-Oz wind, slamming rain, filling up the trough near the Parting Glass and blowing out the power grid. It’s something about the mountains.
I was in love. Twenty-one and head-over-heels, walk-off-a-cliff in love with a beautiful Greek girl from Birmingham, Alabama. I met Annie Kontos at Atlantic City Racecourse, she was wearing a red dress, my life was never the same. I came home for Thanksgiving, 1991, the first time to meet her family, her whole family. Mom, dad, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and cousins – everybody was a cousin.
“OK, you’ve had about 315 days to think about it. You good, or have you put it in the I’ll get to it file?”
Red Smith said it best.
“From New York City you drive north for about 175 miles, turn left on Union Avenue and go back 100 years.”
One final day of Royal Ascot. Bouncing between Royal Ascot and the World Cup all week, while balancing a tray of jobs and tasks at the same time. No dishes on the floor. Yet.
We are all dreamers. Watching Royal Ascot this morning, the dreams came alive for Tanya and John Gunther, Eve Johnson Houghton and a few others beyond the big names of Gosden, Dettori, Buick, Appleby, Mullins and Abdullah.
To the barn early. Hot, the air is stifling, like a carpet draped across the doorway as you open it. Bugs are out already. Horses – my other eight sons – glad to see me.
I’ve been trying to write every day, good or bad, something to say or not. Somebody told me Saratoga started in five weeks, better start up the engines. Missed yesterday while spending the morning at Fair Hill, the afternoon on I-70 west and the evening riding bikes with Miles and picking weeds in the garden.
Summer has started. Miles is out of school.
“I’m in the penalty box.”
That’s how a friend of mine describes when his stable goes in a slump.
The first time he said it, I said, “What?”
