Friday, March 20, 2015

UP ABOVE.

His name was Up Above.
          My mother named him when she was about six – and she spent every day of every summer on him.
          She grew up in Boston, which was not an environment particularly suited for horses; my grandparents, though, had a summer house in the town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, right in the shadow of Mt. Monadnock, and Up Above was there each June to greet her.
          “Why on earth did you name him that?” I asked her once.
          She grinned at me. “Because when I was in the saddle, I was up above the rest of the world – made me feel important.”
          I get that, I really do.

That’s my mother, Martha, on the left, and her sister Hope (who named her horse Radio, for some reason!) on the right. Up Above and Radio boarded at a nearby farm during the off seasons, but spent their summer days in a stable on the property my grandparents owned.

The house was on Thorndike Pond. There was a dirt road that went around the whole thing, and the two sisters spent their summer days riding.
          My mother told me they’d make picnic lunches, then be off for the day. They’d stop somewhere along the route, let the horses drink from Thorndike, tie them to a nearby tree, then eat their lunches on the shore.


         They rode in horse shows in the nearby town of Dublin – I’ve got programs from the Dublin Horse Show that show my mother winning ribbons in various classes.
          I love this portrait: my mother, with Up Above, taken (she told me) at the Dublin Horse Show in the early 1930s when she was about twelve. She’d just won her very first blue ribbon. This photograph hangs in my kitchen, where I see it every morning.

          It always makes me smile.

20 comments:

  1. Up Above is such a creative name and that says everything about your mother.

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    1. She just adored that horse -- and her reason for naming him Up Above does say a lot about her!

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  2. Both horses' names are unusual. At least "Up Above" was explained. Would have been fun to know how "Radio's" name came about, but - oh well. And what a perfect place to put a picture of your young mom with "Up Above" where you know you'll see it every day. It seems you're as imaginative as your mom!

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    1. Radio seems less odd to me than Up Above...my Aunt Hope was a fabulous musician -- and perhaps the music she heard on her "radio" made that term an important one!

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  3. Great Names & Fine Photos. Would she have named him "iPad" today i wonder?:)

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  4. Smiling along with you at the great enjoyment of horses and riding in your family.

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    1. Funny -- my mother and her sister were riders, and my cousin Elizabeth owned a horse at one point, too...but I never rode!

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  5. That is wonderful. It made me smile too!

    "Up above" That really is a great name!

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    1. I can't remember if she wrote it "Up Above" or "Upabove." Regardless, it's a grand name; any horse might be proud to carry it!

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  6. Wonderful picture of your mother with her thick braid and beautiful ribbon. Sounds like they had an idyllic childhood.

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  7. Parts of it were idyllic, Helen -- private school, summer house in the mountains, lots of opera and symphony, etc. But, just like the rest of us, other parts were not so idyllic...Upabove & Radio were good parts!

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  8. Your mother was beautiful! What a delightful name, Up Above!

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  9. Don't you love the workings of her mind? And "Radio" isn't half-bad, either, for a name. But my mother definitely had a "way" about her, no question!

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  10. Both photographs are wonderful but there is something about that second one which makes it memorable. You can really feel the love she had for her horse

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    1. One of the wonderful things about that photo, Alan, is that there is one of me hanging directly below it...I'm amazed at how much I look like her sometimes...

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  11. A lovely photograph of your mother and her horse, and great that she and her sister were able to keep the two horses and ride them at their grandparents' farm.

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    1. They were lucky ducks, for sure! And I also spent my summers at that summer house in New Hampshire -- it was heaven for children, believe me: lake, mountain, freedom to roam...

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  12. I've never been a horse person, but I'm working on it now with the horses in the local fields. I can understand 'Up Above' - Radio would do for me as well - I shudder at the thought of 'Apple Mac.' These are lovely old photos to own.

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    1. They are lovely, Bob -- I've always felt that way. Actually sepia! I have to say that holding one of these photos is so much more emotionally charged than looking at them on a computer...I just can't understand how we, as a society, can eliminate paper photos...

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