Painted Ponies
by
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CHAPTER ONE
The mid-afternoon sun shone sharply through the windows of
“Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem.”
With sardonic affection, the tall woman regarded the senior class assembled before her. After allowing a few moments of silence, she asked, “Robert Shearer, do you care to comment on Miss Dickinson’s poem?”
Bob covered the sketch he had drawn on a concealed comic book. Looking up, he smiled shyly as he answered, “The poetess is right. Nature gets out of sorts, too. Just like all of us.”
“Thank you, Robert,” she replied. Scarcely turning her head, she addressed the large boy with the athletic build on the back row. “Emanuel Mortman,” she asked, “What do you think?” She could not see, but from years of teaching she instinctively knew that his right hand, concealed by the desktop, was caressing the knee of Lucille Gordon, who was seated as close to him as her desk would allow.
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About the Book
Painted Ponies traces the lives of nine individuals, five men, four women, across three decades, from their senior year in high school until they reach the age when their own children are seniors in high school. The locale is a small (12,000) town in southwestern
The first three chapters introduce the characters, shows the differences in their personalities and outlooks, and suggests the futures which they seek. The remaining nine chapters takes these individuals through college, World War II, readjustment to civilian life and to meeting the different circumstance which face each of them. During the course of events, one of the characters dies in the war, one commits suicide several years later, one dies of a heart attack at a Rotary luncheon and the other six face various problems and joys in the course of living. Of the seven marriages described, three are happy, one of the three ecstatically so, and four disastrous.
The value of the book lies in portraying the details of that period and what American life was like in a small town. The background mentions songs and musicians, films and movie stars of the period; gives descriptions of the town's courthouse square and the homes in which people lived; and is colored most of all by experiences I encountered during those years.
The book tells what teenagers of the thirties did and thought. It follows them through college life before World War II, of wartime marriages hastily entered into, and portrays scenes of the war itself. It tells of a three day leave in
As a sailor in the Amphibious Branch of the Navy I kept a journal and some of that material is used in describing a journey across the
A picture such as this of American life in those decades might be of value in future times. For me, the second value of the book lies in four of the nine characters becoming real persons with whom readers can empathize. The theme of the story implies life is a merry-go-round each of us must ride and each on a different pony.
About the Author
The author is an ordained minister who served in the amphibious force of the United States Navy in World War II, received a degree from Union Theological Seminary in