Healed By Horses The Carole Fletcher Story

Chapter 1: The Early Years A family photo shows me, Carole Ann Rosenberg, at age seven in favored costume: cowboy hat, western dress, steer horn round my neck. I look doe-eyed and awestruck, for beside me are my heroes of the day, Gene Autry and his famous horse Champion -- replete with tiny guns on his bit shanks and tack embossed with shining silver.A neighbor on our street in suburban Teaneck, New Jersey -- Claire Primus -- was a journalist who had managed to get me backstage at Madison Square Garden to meet the legendary Singing Cowboy. I have a vivid memory of Gene strumming his guitar on his horse in the rodeo ring, Champion losing his balance, and his rider falling off the back end. Gene calmly dusted himself off and got back on while joking to the crowd that there must be an easier way to dismount than this. Afterward I met the Range Rider (Jock Mahoney), his sidekick Dick Jones, and the rodeo clowns who hid from the bulls in barrels, and got everyone's autograph. In the evenings, I'd watch Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bat Masterson, and Rawhide. I'd escape into the books whose horses had captured my heart -- My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty, National Velvet, The Black Stallion. For years, I rode the bench in front of the piano. I even kept sugar cubes in my pocket on the off chance that I'd encounter a horse I could befriend.As a child, I carried my Gene Autry thermos to school every day, along with my Roy Rogers lunchbox. I still have both thermos and lunchbox. They sit on a shelf in the living room, and visitors to our house invariably pick one up and hold it. For most people, the sight of Gene singing to Champion or of Roy with his hand on Trigger's face brings back memories.I cannot remember when I did not love horses. Some of my earliest memories are of riding rocking horses for hours on end, and stick horses with yarn manes attached. I rode every carousel horse at fairs for as long as my parents would let me, and every mechanical horse in front of every store.Starting at age six, I spent entire summers at camps in New York and Pennsylvania, in the Catskill and Pocono mountains, camps such as Camp Lakota, Camp Roosevelt, and Camp-with-a-Wind. I took to camp like a duck to water. I loved the daily horseback riding, waterskiing, and softball, and the camp musicals, in which I often played the lead (Sister Sarah in Guys and Dolls, Ado Annie in Oklahoma, Nellie in South Pacific). Here I was no longer a slave to the piano and the metronome. Here I was in the company of birds, fish, dogs, barn cats, horses. Close to nature, close to God.At Rosenberg family reunions, I befriended my cousin Justine, three years my junior. She had a large pony named Ginger and a less-than-purebred Thoroughbred called Spring Fever. They were kept at the Fox Chase stables, where Caroline Kennedy kept her horse. I would pet or groom Spring Fever for as long as the horse would allow. Justine had the life I longed for but only dreamed of: her own horse, her mother's blessing. When I was a teenager and warring with my mother, I pleaded with her to let me go live with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Sarah in Short Hills, New Jersey. Surely they'd let me have a horse. My horse.A suburban kid with a country heart, I had to console myself by living on the range vicariously with my favorite cowboys -- Gene and Roy, the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid. I could recite the introductions to all their shows, knew their horses and their many tricks. There was Roy and his palomino Trigger, Dale Evans and her buckskin Buttermilk (along with their dog Bullet and jeep Nelliebelle). There was Gene and Champion, the Lone Ranger and his gray Silver ("A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-ho Silver.' Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!"), Tonto and his paint Scout (KemosFletcher, Carole is the author of 'Healed By Horses The Carole Fletcher Story', published 2005 under ISBN 9780743476324 and ISBN 0743476328.