Sunday, December 29, 2024

Presidential Thoughts

I met Jimmy Carter before he was elected president. It was the fall of 1976. Carter was running for president as the Democratic Party nominee. I was serving as press secretary to the late Michael J. Adanti, Democratic candidate for Congress from Connecticut’s then 5th District against a formidable Republican incumbent, Ron Sarasin. 


Adanti and I were backstage at a Carter campaign rally in Waterbury, the largest city in the 5th District. We wanted a picture of Adanti with Carter. Something, however, had ticked Carter off. He was in no mood to be reconciled. The photo shoot was nixed. 


Carter went on to win his election. Adanti did not. Carter, 39th president of the United States, died Sunday. He was 100. Adanti served two terms as mayor of Ansonia and 19 years as president of Southern Connecticut State College. He was 65 when he died in 2005 in a traffic accident while on vacation in Sardinia, Italy.



Back in the Saddle: In Patti Davis’ poignant New York Times remembrance of her father Ronald Reagan’s last years suffering from Alzheimer’s and the reverberating discussion surrounding President Joe Biden’s mental capacity, she recalled a day she and her dad went horseback riding when she was young. 


“I had fallen off and was scared to get back on. I wasn’t hurt, it wasn’t a bad fall, and he told me that it’s important to get back on after you fall so that fear doesn’t set in and so that the horse doesn’t sense that you’re scared” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/opinion/joe-biden-presidency.html?smid=url-share). 


I had my own experience off suddenly leaving the saddle. When we were 16, two summer camp friends and I went horseback riding in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. We had never ridden before. Our guide cautioned to keep a tight rein on our horses, to keep them to the right of the trail. But no matter how hard I tugged at the reins, my horse kept drifting to the left.


When we reached the midway point, my horse decided to entertain everyone by doing his impression of a camel. He folded his legs and started to crouch down. I’d seen this maneuver in too many westerns; I knew the next move would be to roll over and crush my leg, so I jumped out of the saddle, screaming.


To the rescue rode the guide, who proceeded to whip the horse with a burlap rope for a minute or so before telling me to get back on. I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea as the horse would think I was the one who whipped him. When it appeared the guide was getting ready to whip me, I jumped back onto the saddle. The ride back to the stable was mostly uneventful, except for the time the horse purposely carried me under a low hanging tree limb, forcing me to bend tight to his neck like a jockey in a stretch run.


I’ve saddled up only one more time, during a visit to Arizona about 30 years ago. But I did drive a Mustang for a couple of years when in college. Does that count as an equine experience?