While my grandparents owned several pitchforks, they were light-years from the frowning pair depicted in Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic. Rather, my grandparents beamed while running their horse farm because they enjoyed the work. I’m certain that the artist’s gloomy couple would have considered their outsized interest in racehorses frivolous and impractical. Grandpa never bred a big winner but persisted because he admired racehorses’ power and found pleasure in the statistical challenges of improving breeding lines. At the farm, there was a pulse of manic energy, and jockeys and grooms lived outside the 9-to-5 world.
Yes, my grandparents were an unorthodox pair, and they swept us into their lifestyles. Provided few warnings about the effect of gravity, my cousins and I rode horses believing that none of us would ever take a terrible fall. “If worst comes to worst — and I don’t think it will — relax and float down like a butterfly,” my grandmother advised. A pleasant euphemism for a fall but much easier to actualize when one has a good pair of wings. Convinced of our spectacular bloodlines, she even cleared a spot in the driver’s seat for anyone willing to step up, first placing her bet on Dax and directing him to drive us to the local barbecue joint. Driving wasn’t so different from steering bumper cars at the county fair, she reasoned, confident that the 8-year-old was up to the task. “I’m hungry, and it’s time to get some ribs!” she cried, brandishing a 10-spot bill. “Now climb in,” she ordered, settling my sister Andrea and cousin Mary Liz in the backseat.
The game was on, and after a short tutorial, she dropped the keys to the Volkswagen in Dax’s pudgy fingers. When the car at last skidded into the parking lot, I stared in awe at the South’s youngest chauffeur. At 10, I had a few years over Dax, but recent setbacks had convinced me that I was not legend material, and the evidence was solid. When I fell from a horse, the crash hurt like hell. Plus, my piggy bank was in grave trouble because I picked the wrong horses on every $5 bet that the adults placed for me at Oaklawn Track.
During this season of bruises and squandered allowance, a beloved dog went missing, uniting the bold and the wannabes in a mission. After finding Pepper, we dangled sun-toasted legs over the porch and philosophized about finding a treasure we feared lost, pausing in our profundities to blow bubbles crafted of Bazooka gum. Real, significant loss came the next year when my uncle accepted a job in Baltimore, and my aunt packed up, leaving behind Dax and Mary Elizabeth’s kid-size riding boots. I sulked in the back stall, dreading the separation to come.
Later, my sister and I grew close to another pair of cousins (on my mother’s side of the family) residing three hours south on the Arkansas slice of Texarkana. There, Kevin and Matt showed off their new Boy Scout merit badges in camping and woodworking, and the reigning expletive was “Hell’s bells!” expressing my aunt’s failure to bake the perfect side dish for the holidays. Taking notes, I compared patterns of conformity and unconventionality and the many options for ways to live, and at home, I had only to look at my mother and father to see radically different positions.
My cousins eventually went off into the world, and my sister and I left home as well. Predictably, a physician and a corporate vice-president emerged from the conventional side of my family. A brave entrepreneur — that’s Dax — took risks that paid off, and Mary Liz has been a powerful force. Defying the strictures of her husband’s paraplegic condition, she asked doctors to help them have children. Mary Liz’s passion for life and will to bring children into existence would receive hearty approval from both of our grandparents. In truth, they weren’t promoting horses to us, but rather the value of picking up the damn barbecue and enjoying the feast.
Why Memphis? It’s a perfect place to plant my hybrid self where I can hang out with colorful folks while pursuing goals that will never yield the high of winning a race but that do keep the bills paid. No legend myself, I’m exposed to shining stars in this city — artists, musicians, quirky characters. Crossing the Hernando de Soto Bridge, a view of Arkansas opens to the west and the Downtown skyline stands in the east. Here, it’s possible to stay close both geographically and emotionally to childhood experiences. As the Peabody’s staff serves high tea, musicians in clubs are preparing for revelry. Since there is something for all of my cousins to savor here, I hope to entice them to visit for a long weekend soon.
Stephanie Painter is a local freelance writer. She has written for Memphis Magazine, Germantown Magazine, Memphis Parent, Chapter 16, Number: Inc., and Episcopal Café. She is the author of the children’s picture book Liz Tames A Dragon.