I was not sure I’d be able to pick just one. I have several favorites and some of them are either extinct or not actually real. However, my most obsessive special interest as a kid was for horses. I read all the books about horses I could find, both fiction and non fiction. I was a big fan of Marguerite Henry’s horse books. I read most of the Black Stallion novels, though I got tired of them.
I wanted more than anything to get riding lessons. My family could not afford riding lessons, but we did go horseback riding a few times…despite none of us knowing how to ride. For some reason, my Mom thought that all there was to riding was getting on the horse? And maybe if all you’re doing is going in a circle along a trail for a thirty minute walk that’s true?
But I wanted to learn to Actually Ride. By which I mean dressage. I wanted to learn how to do jumps and all the fancy stuff I had seen whenever a dressage competition was shown on TV. This was entirely unlikely to happen because as previously stated there was a intense lack of money. I was not going to be learning how to Actually Ride and I was told that no one got jobs involving horses anymore. (This was the answer to many things family members didn’t want me to do. “No one does that anymore. That job doesn’t exist. That place doesn’t exist so you can’t do that either.” )
It is now even less likely to happen as I have no money and my back and knees are held together by chewing gum and string. (I have a very bad back and extremely bad knees. And no money.)
I still like horses, but not with the same fervency as when I was a kid. (It would be hard to maintain the sheer excitement a kid can generate when considering their special interest.)
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