Day: September 26, 2014

Even now,

in the meadow,

I feel my heart pumping hard,

sweat on my forehead,

my shoes seeking firm ground.

I am thinking of pain and disappointment,

of grief and loss, of running out of the shadows,

into the light.

Even now,

I want to think of virtuous things,

to wash myself in light,

I want to laugh and turn my face to the wind,

and be kissed by the sun.

Even now,

I want to do impossible things,

to be ridiculous and unlikely,

I want my soul to be impossibly beautiful,

as though it could soar right over the meadow,

and up through the clouds.

Last night, Fall crept into my meadow, it was not there yesterday. On my morning walk, I looked into the meadow and was at first confused, then surprised and delighted to see that fall had announced herself so arrogantly and proudly, she had swept through the trees and made them her own, just like that.

I am not a patient person, I don’t care to wait for other people to tell me what is happening, and the carriage trade people are like secret agents, years of conflict has made them wary and secretive, and I can’t say I blame them. So I put on my reporter’s shoes yesterday and made some actual telephone calls to New York City – it is rare to actually hear a phone ring any more, or to have a human answer one. As a reporter, I was great on the phone, it is a medium I mastered and miss. I loved scooping the competition, breaking stories. I will do it again here today.

I want to say this is a strange thing to have to  write from my farm in upstate New York. A story that has drawn so much media coverage, so much of it angry and anguished, for so many years, has reached perhaps it’s most significant point to date, and it is going almost completely unreported in the city with the largest media concentration on the earth.

But here it is: I called some city officials and some reporters and I asked them what the status of the mayor’s efforts to ban the carriage horses in the City Council was. No one picks up a phone these days, they check their e-mails and voice messages first. But I persisted, I got through. How was it going?, I asked, a neutral question that is effective at getting others to fill in the blanks. I first talked to a city councilman’s assistant, a former writing student of mine.

“What ban?,” she said, “there’s no ban going through here. The mayor doesn’t have the votes, it’s not happening, at least not in the foreseeable future. The animal rights people have not impressed anybody here, some people are afraid of them but nobody but the mayor likes them much. He doesn’t have a dozen votes here.”

I called a political writer I have known for a long time. “The mayor has a few options,” he said. “One is to introduce a ban and lose. The other is to keep saying he will introduce the ban but not do it. The third is to just shut up about it and pretend it is somehow and magically being taken care of by spirits in the sky. I think he’s choosing the latter.”

I talked with a person in the carriage trade, well-connected, deeply involved, he said there was no chance of a carriage horse ban passing the city council now. He said the issue had reached a major turning point. Why are you keeping this a secret?,I asked. “Because we are afraid,” he said.

It’s interesting from my peculiar perspective as a former journalist – I worked for The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, New York Times, Dallas Times-Herald, CBS News – to see that the media was happy to hammer the carriage trade for years with unsubstantiated stories about abuse and mistreatment but nobody in New York City seems eager to report or write what the people I’m talking to are telling me: the ban against the carriage horses has failed, and rather spectacularly.

It would seem this news is as significant as the death of Chuck (Charlotte) the groundhog earlier this year, which was major news all over Gotham on Thursday. But to the journalists in New York, it is not significant at all. I believe it has great importance, not only to the carriage trade, but to everyone who loves animals and would like to see them stick around.

When the mayor took office in January, he said that banning the carriage horses was the most important priority of his new administration, it would be the first thing he did in the first week. That was nearly nine months ago, and it has not yet happened, and does not seem likely to happen. The opposition to the ban has grown in the face of a ferocious and ugly campaign by several well-funded animal rights groups. It has gotten nowhere, the horses have never been more popular. The Working Families Party, the Chamber of Commerce, the Teamsters, all three newspapers, the New York State Horse Council, 61 per cent of the city’s residents, the Central Park Conservancy have all publicly opposed the ban, finding it groundless and irrational.

I made a third call yesterday, and this was to a member of NYClass – a volunteer. This is the group spearheading the campaign against the horses. This is someone I know, someone who was once a reader and fan of my blog and my books. She has sent me some sad and angry messages this year, but I first e-mailed her and then, when she responded,  called her up anyway, because I believe her to be a good and caring person. It was the most interesting call of the day in a way, I got her at home, and she did want to talk with me. It was good to talk to her, to make some human contact in the midst of so divisive and angry a conflict.

We talked for awhile, she has been following my writing on the horses.  There was much anger in her, but some good will also. I asked her if it was true that the ban seemed to be failing for now. “Yes,” she said. “Absolutely. They are spinning here, they spent so much money, they had the mayor, the city council, the electric cars all lined up, they thought it was a done deal. It is not going to happen now, not anytime soon.”

I asked her if she had changed her mind about the horses and she said no, she had not.

I asked her if the animal rights groups might change their tactics or soften their rhetoric or rethink their positions in the face of such a defeat, and she said no, absolutely not. She said she was sorry I had become a supporter of animal abuse, she remembered coming to one of my readings and admiring my writing about dogs and animals. I said I was sorry she felt that way, and wished her luck and thanked her for speaking to me.

So that is my news of the day, and even if you will not hear it from the established bastions of journalism,  I am happy that you will see it here.  This connects me to my love of journalism and my lifelong pride in my work as a journalist. It was good to get on the phone and do my own reporting, it is good to break a story again, especially on behalf of the drivers and the carriage horses. And I am sorry to say that it was not difficult, almost anyone reading this could have done it and can do it still.

It is good news, solid news, important news. People who love animals and wish them to remain in our world may find some hope and comfort in it. So, hopefully, will the battered and embattled carriage owners and drivers. Their struggle – our struggle – is far from over, there is no rainbow at the end of so wrenching an issue. “We are not out of the woods,” is the mantra of the carriage trade, “but things are looking better.” There is no ban on the carriage horses that is likely now, and the many people who have been following this issue have the right to know that.

I am drawn to writing about the horses, but as a former journalist, I need to say that I find the coverage of the controversy almost surreal. The New York Times is eight blocks from the largest carriage horse stable, and no reporter from the paper has yet to walk those eight blocks and see for him or herself how the horses are doing. New York City has more reporters than any other American city, and most cities of the world, and I suppose one of the many sad things about the carriage horse story is that it has reminded me – poignantly and painfully – that the institution I so loved to be in no longer exists. I accept change and embrace it, but some change is sad.

The carriage drivers have suffered greatly at the hands of people who claim to be supporters of animal rights, and simple truth and justice demands that their victory be known and shared.

The people in the carriage trade are learning yet another sad lesson in their great adventure. You don’t call reporters for truth any longer, only for controversy.  Facts are precious, they are on their own. The carriage drivers are no longer waiting for journalists to show up and tell the truth. They are standing in their own truth, telling their own story.

Why, I sometimes wonder, do I love Maria so much? I’m not sure the question is answerable, love is a mysterious, chemical, spiritual, unfathomable thing sometimes, I waited a very long time in my life to really find it, I did not know what it was. I got a glimpse of why this morning, when we were out on our morning walk with Lenore and Red, and I asked Maria to hold my walking stick while I took a photo through the mist.

When I looked up, Maria was twirling the stick like a baton twirler, she was high-stepping and spinning the stick over her head, walking proudly and with great spirit. The dogs were much into it, running to her to join her in her march down the road. She was having a great time, her face lit up in a radiant smile, I saw it the other day when she was dancing with her shadow. When I met Maria, she rarely smiled, I didn’t think she ever would smile. She finds joy and beauty and laughter everywhere.

I no longer ask her what she is doing, I know she has touched her inner spirit again, and set it free.

Maria’s smile is my sun and moon, it lights up the world, it outshone the leaves on the fall trees, it is one of the reasons I love her so much for sure. Love is a miracle, the greatest gift.