(“Do you know the story of the Box Hill railway tunnel?”)
You’ve heard the story about the guy who lands in jail. And all the prisoners are standing around in the exercise yard. One of them calls out, “Seventeen,” and everybody laughs. Another one steps up and shouts “Thirty-seven.” He’s rewarded with loud guffaws. The process is repeated by different inmates, each offering different numbers. The new guy is confused and asks one of the regulars what exactly is going on.
“Oh, we’ve all been in here so long, everyone knows all the jokes. Now we just say a number and laugh at the story it reminds us of.”
A minute later, another inmate stands up, looks around, and says, “Eleven.” He’s greeted by dead silence.
“What was that about?” the new guy asks.
“Oh, that’s just Vinnie,” someone explains. “He never could tell a joke!”
If you were taking notes when you read li’l ol’ DRESSAGE Unscrambled, you’ll have no trouble filling in the text that precedes these punchlines:
“He does not. He has a dished face.”
“Und ven do ve get to the pinching and sucking?”
“All the way home!”
“But I wasn’t coaching,” she said. “I was just telling her not to cry.”
“TINA!!! TURNER!!!”
Even if you don’t recall all the stories, you probably get the idea. I have a few favorite punch-lined stories that seem to have no relation to dressage, but I have to tell them anyway. So to make this all legitimate, let me begin thusly:
I turned onto the centerline, looking the judge squarely in her eyes. My horse’s trot was airy and cadenced. We nailed the halt—prompt, straight, and square. I saluted smartly.
The judge nodded in return and, before she wrote the Collectives, said to me, “Do you know the story of the Box Hill railway tunnel?”
She continued: When it was opened in 1841, the Box Tunnel between Bath and Chippenham in England was the longest in the world—nearly two miles from portal to portal. Over the years, it was noted that, strangely, every April 9th, the rising sun would shine straight through the length of the tunnel and be visible from the western end. A curious newspaper reporter confronted the tunnel’s designer, Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel with this seeming coincidence. “Oh, yes, said Brunel nonchalantly, “April 9th is my birthday.”
Another great story (which you could suppose I heard on the phone when I was put on hold while trying to contact someone on the USEF’s Licensed Officials’ Committee) goes as follows:
Before the 1932 election, FDR gave a speech at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, vehemently excoriating the Republicans for outrageous spending practices and promising, if elected, to balance the federal budget. After the election, Roosevelt discovered it was impossible to keep his pledge. In 1936 seeking reelection, he was scheduled to return to the same venue. Feeling he should justify his earlier remarks despite having reneged on them, he asked his aide, Sam Rosenman, to come up with a suitable explanation. A few days later, having heard nothing back, he called Rosenman into the Oval Office.
“Do you have a solution for me?” asked Roosevelt.
“Yes, Sir, Mr.President,” Rosenman was said to answer. “Deny you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh.”
Several emails have arrived on my laptop which seem to beg for a reponse.
The first: Hi – I’ve sent a friend request. Do you remember putting cheese on the end of my headset antennas at one of your clinics down here in Texas? I’m that person.
The second: I can’t wait to read Bill’s book. I took a clinic with him once a long time ago outside Dallas. During the lessons, he strung up a little boy in a haynet from the ceiling of the arena. Then he carried a chicken around with him. But the best thing was the whin-o-meter. It really helped me a lot.
I’d just like to say I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO TEXAS.