Working on Pete’s biography, Jody and I met once a week for
several years. We were either on the road to a client’s home/farm to interview
for the book, or we met in my barn office. After the books were published, we continued to meet at the barn and share stories. She would bring her rescue dog, Cocoa, and
tie her to the center post. Rain, snow – whatever the weather, I could count on
Jody to be at the barn. Sometimes the rain on the barn roof was so loud we had
to stop talking, sit quietly, and just enjoy the silent moments. For me, being
with Jody and hearing about her life was a time of endearment. For Jody, I
believe it was a time of healing. I don’t think she held many people in
confidence, and I was honored that she felt she could tell me anything. And she
did. You see, the recordings are mostly about Jody, not Pete.
I think Jody felt at home at the barn. It was many years ago when Pete vetted my dad's Herefords there. In the biography, there is an illustration by Terri Fortkamp of my brother and I sitting in the same spot where Jody and I held our meetings.
Over the next several months, I am going to share transcripts
of our conversations, in random order - verbatim. Every week, Jody would bring notecards
about things she wanted to talk about, and we would spend hours discussing
important life scenarios and funny to serious anecdotes. Besides Jody, horses
were the main topic and I learned more from those sessions (if you want to call
them that) than I could ever learn from any textbook.
To begin, we were seated in my barn office, my paint
Quarter mare sleeping on the left, the windows bringing in a sunny breeze, Jody
looked at her first notecard…
Jody: I was talking with Eric Curfman and he reminded me of
one of his favorite tales. Pete and I were at a woodsy thing. It was a party. It
was one of Pete’s horse clients, Leo Sheridan. There was a firepit and
everybody was gathered around the fire. Leo offered me some moonshine and I
didn't want to offend him, but I sure didn't want to drink it either. So I'm
standing there by the fire and I just kind of unobtrusively poured it on the
fire. So you know what happened. Everybody knew what I had done. They didn't
offer me anymore moonshine for some reason or another. Leo and Pete thought it
was funny. Leo told Eric, or maybe I think Pete just told everyone about it. Well,
you know, Eric worked for Pete. So, that was Eric's favorite story, so there
you go.
Gina: But didn’t you realize the alcohol would create
flames?
Jody: I had no idea. I mean its liquid. I thought it would put
out a little bit of the fire.
Gina: Were you surprised? Did you singe your eyebrows?
Jody: Eyebrows? Eyebrows. No, no. But I was very surprised
that everybody knew what I had done.
Gina: So, you never will do that again!
Jody: No, no, no. But I've always been a militant non-smoker
and I probably have become a non-drinker, too. Not that I ever drank a lot, but
first the Surgeon General said two alcoholic beverages in 24 hours for a man
and one in 24 hours for a woman. Well, the surgeon general must know. And now
he's changed it to only one alcoholic beverage in 24 hours for a man. So I'm
thinking… Hmm. This is probably not a good idea. And I have some beer in
the refrigerator. The only person I have ever offered it to is Rich because I've
never seen him drink more than two beers and I've certainly never seen him
drunk. And I remember one time… you still recording?
Gina: Yes!
Jody: Jessie, my grandmother taught at Lima City Schools.
She was an English teacher and she had as students Phyllis Diller and Hugh
Downs. I've already told you that.
Gina: Yes, I have a copy of the article.
Jody: Okay. Yes. I told you when I was at Ohio University
when Hugh Downs was speaking at something or other, I was going up the stairway
and he was coming down or vice versa. I said to him, oh, my grandmother was
Jessie Rhonemus and she was so proud that she had you and Phyllis Diller as
students. She was always very excited about that. Hugh downs immediately
said, oh, well, Phyllis Diller's much older than I. We weren't in the same
class! Instead of saying she was a great teacher, he just wanted to be sure
that I knew that he wasn’t as old as Phyllis Diller! I thought that was pretty
funny.
Gina: Did he say anything about your grandmother?
Jody: Not much. I guess it was a movie-star type thing.
Gina: He was a newscaster, wasn't he?
Jody: Yeah, but he did a lot of TV stuff. But anyhow, I thought that was pretty funny. I don't know, this may be in the book. I can't remember. But one of Pete's favorite things he would say… In the words of Doctor Wassermann, don't be too positive. Does that make sense to you? Well, Doctor Wassermann is the guy who developed the test for syphilis. We found that very amusing. Oh, and I told you about our hot air balloon ride and the Rockies. Didn’t I tell you about that? About coming down and the horse? Didn’t I tell you?
Gina: I may have it recorded somewhere. I don’t remember
the scenario.
Jody: Anyhow, it was a wonderful hot air balloon ride in
the Rockies. Pete was there for a vet meeting and he couldn't believe I'd spent
all that money on a hot air balloon ride. But we did it. He was afraid of
heights like I am afraid of heights.
Gina: Did you enjoy it?
Jody: Oh, wonderfully. It was like a different world. It
was almost a spiritual experience. Neither one of us was afraid at all, we had
fortunately picked the right pilot just by luck. Sheer luck over that. What is
it? God's way of remaining anonymous type thing?
Gina: Mm-hmm.
Jody: Really wonderful pilot, who was incredible. At any
rate, I only picked him because one of the balloons had Pegasus on it. Beautiful.
And I wanted to watch it because if you're in it, you can’t see it. I wanted
the balloon next to Pegasus. It worked out beautifully. And then when we were
coming down, they had the chase car in the field. We're coming down and there's
a horse in the pasture right next to where the chase car is parked and I said, isn’t
the balloon going to frighten the horse? And he said, you watch that
horse lady. And I did. Of course I would have watched it anyway, and as
soon as the horse heard that little hiss, the horse ran over to the fence. The pilot
had some carrots and apple slices to give to the horse. He said the horse was frightened
the first few times, but then they conditioned it to get a treat every time. So…
wasn't even their horse. They had permission to land there.
Gina: That sounds fun!
Jody: It was. This has nothing to do with anybody… for some
reason I wrote it down… this rooster that I have that…
Gina: The flogging rooster?
Jody: No, not that one.
Gina: Oh, the rooster, you have now. I have a picture of it
somewhere.
Jody: Jessica gave me this rooster. Ebony Thugamus, the relatively
big cat, had killed a mouse and left it in the house which I wasn't thrilled
about. So I just threw the mouse out in the yard, preparing to throw it over
the fence. The rooster ran over and grabbed it, just swallowed it whole. I
watched as the mouse's tail disappeared down through his beak. I’d never seen
that before.
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