Horse of a Different Posture

There is an idea floating around out there that the position of his horse’s legs in a hero’s statue is a code for the manner in which that person died. For instance, if the horse has one front leg raised it’s supposed to mean the man was wounded in battle, but lived. If two front legs are raised, the subject of the bronze, copper, or marble sculpture died of those battle wounds. All four legs firmly on the ground is supposed to mean that the man died in peace, most likely not on a horse, but statues of men laying comfortably in bed with their loved ones around them and a chamber pot on the floor generally don’t get picked to be placed in town squares.

I could find no suggestion of what it might mean if one back leg is raised but it’s probably just that there was a fire hydrant nearby. One front leg and one back leg could suggest that the horse is about to fall over, especially if the legs are on the same side. Two back legs? Wheel barrel race.

Three legs raised means the horse was probably in the middle of a canter at the moment the artists imagined the “snapshot” that would become the statue. A canter is a gait that is faster than a trot but slower than a gallop. So I’m thinking that if I’m in a battle, on horseback, gallop is the way to go, so that’s probably why you don’t see a lot of “three leg up” statues; slow riders are usually at the back of the charge. Not where you want to be if you plan on getting killed and immortalized in metal.

If you see a statue with all four of the horse’s legs up, please give me a call. I’d like to see how the artists accomplished that.

Of course the number of legs that are up and which ones they are might have nothing to do with how the rider died. It might suggest how the horse died. After all, wouldn’t a horse make a much better target than the man on that horse? Here are my suggestions in case anyone is interested:

One leg up – horse stepped in something and is just about to wipe it off his hoof. During the days of cavalry you know there was a lot of that stuff around.

Two legs up – horse died in a boxing match with a kangaroo. Those boxing kangaroos were as thick as squirrels back then.

Three legs up – horse dropped his shotgun while climbing over a fence.

Four legs up – see above.

Now I don’t live in a town with a lot of statues of men on horseback, so when I went out searching I only found one. It’s a statue of David of Sassoon that is in Courthouse Park in downtown Fresno. Mr. Sassoon (Yes, I know Sassoon wasn't his name) was an Armenian hero of an epic poem. The statue shows his horse with both front legs up but according to the legend he didn’t die in battle. Curiously, that statue shows young David missing a leg. Great, now I have to start over.

Boring

“Baseball is so boring.” You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, and I get it. I get that some folks find the time between pitches, throws over to first, balls fouled off, or a lazy fly ball to shallow center about as excited as counting cigarette butts in the gutter during a traffic jam. But when someone finds out I like baseball and moans out those four little words, they are positively aghast when I reply, “Not to me, to me basketball is boring.”

“Basketball! Are you insane? Basketball is the most exciting game out there,” they sputter and spit. They go on to explain how in basketball the players are always moving and there is more scoring.

“That’s the boring part to me,” I lamely explain. “How can I get charged up when a basketball player makes a basket, garnering two points, in the first quarter when his team will probably score nearly 100 points by the end of the game?” But I’m not out to find the most boring sport, because we are not limited to enjoying one sport over another. I remember once when I was sitting on the couch at the home of a couple who I just met, the husband, after a few minutes of awkward silence, turned to me and broke the ice, “I just love the fall; baseball is going into the playoffs and football is just getting started.”

Yes, I get that people find baseball boring. There is little scoring and to the un-invested, those moments when nothing seems to be happening are minutes that add up to hours which become days that are lost to them forever. But to me, those moments are tension filled and grind against my constitution like great tectonic plates. Will the pitcher throw a strike, will the runner go, and will the aging short stop on my team who is batting at a sub Mendoza Line level get just one lousy hit when the lightning fast rookie is vibrating out on second? Tension and release, tension and release, tension and release; it builds muscles, makes music more interesting, provides laughs in comedy, and makes me a large supporter of the McNeil Corporation, the maker of Rolaids.

The best way I can describe the cadence of baseball is; baseball is a novel. Baseball is long, will have interesting twists and turns, later something that seemed small early on will loom large, and baseball will end when the story is told, not because a clock ran out. The players come in all different sizes, with different skills, and are placed like chess pieces.

Football is an action movie. Football starts out with an explosion at the kickoff. The players are mostly the same size, large, are very athletic across the board, and violence is a matter of course. Just like war, football is over when one side has run out of resources. One resource being points but the most valuable resource being time.

Basketball is a music video. It’s bright, colorful, flashy, popular, and full of movements that the average person couldn’t duplicate in a million years of evolution, and its best when it’s loud.

Hockey is a Bjork music video. There are some things you recognize from the real world and some things you don’t, it’s icy, and people randomly shed some clothing (throw down) and start dancing (fighting).

Soccer is a Catholic Mass. It starts out pretty slow, not a lot happens that is different from the last time, a lot of people cross themselves or drop to their knees, and often ends without a resolution. The stands are full of zealots on the edge of madness, who are sure rooting for their team will earn them a spot in heaven, and rooting for your team will damn you to hell.

Golf is a coffee table book. It’s pretty, there are a lot of trees and grass, people move with the slow tempo of beach strollers, you can enter it at any point and not be lost, and when you’ve set it down you wonder how people got paid for doing it.