Anticipation -- Nothing About The Bakken -- September 23, 2023

Locator: 45560B.

I do think my current non-Bakken posts are generally not as good as they once were -- back in 2009  - 2011. 

I don't have much time for blogging this morning -- got a late start -- I slept in and then Sophia has a soccer game later this morning.

Wow, traffic was heavy biking into Starbucks this a.m. Easily three or four opportunities for a "bike-meets-car" story. Knock on wood:

• I bike very, very safely;
• I have a sixth sense when it comes to anticipating what a driver might do
• comes with 60 years of biking
• but still, there are always surprises.

I mentioned earlier that I'm reading a great book on horse racing, Lexington. Some dots to connect. Brought back many great memories of my time / our time in England. While overseas we did "everything.". With perhaps one exception. We lived a stone's throw -- as they say -- from the Newmarket race tracks. We were in the village of Newmarket many weekends, and saw the horses but never took in the races. Big mistake. Just to check off that box, if nothing else, but no real regrets in the big scheme of things. 

As a family, we were stationed in England for three years, 1986 - 1989, if I have my years straight. And then between 2002 and 2004 I was sent back to England for temporary duty for various stretches of time. I came close tallying another full year in England over those couple of years -- I may have the dates wrong. I may have been there off and on through 2006, but I would have to check my journals. [When someone says they "don't recall," I give them the benefit of the doubt.]

So, when I have more time later today / later this evening, I will post something about horse racing. 

Back on February 26, 2010, I wrote this (from another blog):

When I was temporarily stationed in England on multiple occasions several years ago, I spent a lot of time walking in the evenings and on weekends. I often walked from RAF Menwith Hill Station to the nearby villages of Dacre or Summerbridge.

Invariably I walked past a small fenced enclosure with a black mare. She was a beautiful horse and I always wondered why she was always alone. I never saw another horse with her, and I never saw a person with her.

I imagine that many years earlier a father brought home this horse as a gift for his beloved daughter. And now that daughter has grown up and moved away.

I imagine that the horse is lonely and the father lonelier. I wonder where the young woman ended up. I wonder what stories the young woman could tell about her love for her horse. My hunch: she has moved to London, is very successful, in a big corner office with windows, and dreams of being back in Yorkshire with Blackie.

If I could write, one of my first essays would be about this horse and the girl who rode her.

Oh, yes, it's soccer season. A couple of girls the age of Sophia have just come into Starbucks. It appears they have not yet played their game today.

By the way, for the archives, Sophia's older high school sister -- the one whose team took Texas state championship in soccer last year -- coaches a boys soccer team, boys, 10 years old. She also refs.