The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts

Fact is stranger than fiction. Consider the story of a woman who lost everything and was given a diagnosis of four years to live and decides to mount a horse for the first time in thirty years to ride across the entirety of America. She wanted to see the Pacific Ocean.  

She had never seen a movie or lived with electricity and indoor plumbing. She had an arthritis and a cough. She had little money. She had no map of the country, no flashlight, no cell phone, or GPS. She had no knowledge of the world. She had never traveled. Never seen a thruway. She didn't know how far south she had to travel to find warm weather.

She did have a sturdy Maine Morgan horse named Tarzan and a perky dachshund mix named Depeche Toi. And along the way, was gifted Rex, a Tennessee Walker.

Donning men's clothes, she packed up her bedroll, and with a few dollars set off in the autumn of 1954. 

What Annie Wilkins did have was faith and persistence and a dream--and the love of her four-footed companions. 

Annie found a country filled with people who believed in hospitality to strangers, people willing to care for her and her animals. She found the helpers. 

Annie also found a country on the cusp of huge changes. Cars whizzed by without consideration, people were leery of strangers, a gang harassed her, and newspapers and celebrities lionized her.

Elizabeth Letts has written beloved books including The Perfect Horse, The Eighty-Dollar Champion, and Finding Dorothy. The Ride of Her Life is another triumph, a much needed inspiration in an America that has lost its sense of community. It was a joy to read.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America
by Elizabeth Letts
Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
Pub Date  June 1, 2021  
ISBN: 9780525619321
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion

“The gift Elizabeth Letts has is that she makes you feel you are the one taking this trip. This is a book we can enjoy always but especially need now.”—Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv

In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.

Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways. Between 1954 and 1956, they pushed through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by them at terrifying speeds. Annie rode more than four thousand miles, through America’s big cities and small towns. Along the way, she met ordinary people and celebrities—from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan) to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers—a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher. In a decade when car ownership nearly tripled, when television’s influence was expanding fast, when homeowners began locking their doors, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.

Ford Times: July, 1961

Ford Motor Company began publishing The Ford Times in 1908. The last issue came out in 1993.

My brother was given a friend's parent's collection of Ford Times from the 60s and 70s. My brother gave me the duplicates. It's fun to look at the car and travel culture of my childhood.

The 5" x 7" magazine included wonderful artwork by artists including Charlie Harper. Harper's art appeared in over 120 issues of Ford Times! You can more read about it here.

Ford Times with cover by Charlie Harper

The July, 1961 edition included articles on "How to Visit a College," "Down the Canyon on a Mule," "Do Women Lack the Packing Knack?," "They Hunt for Relics of Rogers' Rangers," "Wagon Train East," "Piggyback on Penobscot Bay," "Land of a Million Years Ago" about Montana's badlands, and more. There is even an article about an early San Francisco Ford dealer!

"Wagon Train East" by Charlie Harper, and illustrated by him, is about a wagon train that went into the Cherokee National Forest

 "Piggyback on Penobscot Bay" illustrations

There was an article by Jo Copeland about how to dress to "Look as Smart as Your Car."

 Copeland talks about what she saw at turnpike restaurants as "the most bizarre outfits this side of a beatnik coffee house." Appalled, she offers suggestions on how to travel in style.

Copland calls the coat illustrated above a 'topcoat,' but I grew up calling them 'car coats.'

"When I am at the wheel, I like to wear short cotton gloves, the kind that wash and dry easily, because my hands stay cooler and cleaner. Bare hands perspire and stick uncomfortably," Copeland wrote.

I know Jo Copeland's name from collecting vintage designer handkerchiefs. I have several in my collection.

Jo Copeland handkerchief

Jo Copeland handkerchief

Learn more about Copeland at Living in Fifties Fashion and at  here

"Seeing Detroit" is about the Ford Rotunda's 25th year. The building was built for the 1934 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition. It was dismantled and relocated to Dearborn, MI.

 In November, 1962 a fire destroyed the building!

The article "How to Beat the Heat" promoted air conditioned cars but also suggested parking in the shade, the use of tinted glass, woven upholstery, opening the vent windows, and the wearing of skirts for women.

"Digger in Velvet" by Franklin M. Reck, illustrated by Charles Culver, was about moles. "He 'hears' with his snout and his tail rather than his ears. He can neither walk nor run," Reck informs. "Next time you catch one of these unrelieved nuisances, pause to admire the world's most efficient sapper with the silk fur and one-track mind."

"The Ford Times Dictionary of Automotive Terms" included expected terms like 'air cleaner' and 'additive.' Then there is 'A-bomb', a hot rod term for a Model A Ford, and 'balloon-foot,' an overly cautious driver. 'Beach buggy' was a car with oversized tires that could drive on the sand, and 'brain box' was slang for a crash helmet.

Of course, there had to be an article on a Ford car. The Falcon achieved over 32 miles per gallon in an Economy Run! Shell Oil reported that a 'skilled driver' with a 'specialized car' could get 168 miles per gallon! 

Another travel destination highlighted was Guilford, CT.

 The illustrations were by Sasha Maurer

"Comforts of Home...Outdoors" touted the latest camping gear.

Travelers would want to know the best places to eat so every issue included "Favorite Recipes of Famous Taverns." This issue included The Red Barn in Fort Scott, KS and its Heavenly Hash and Santa Cruz's Shadow-Brook's Sauce Philippe.

Heavenly Hash
1 can fruit cocktail drained
one or two sliced bananas
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup halved seedless grapes
1/2 cup whipped cream
lettuce
Combine fruit, sugar, and marshmallows. Fold whipped cream into mixture and keep chilled. Serve on lettuce.
The Henry Ford includes digital copies of Ford Times found here.

A Collar for Cerberus by Matt Stanley

Matt Stanley's novel A Collar for Cerberus entertains while presenting deep conversations about life lessons.  I found it immensely enjoyable and chose it to begin my day's reading.

It is a love song to Greece. The descriptions of Greece are vivid, with beautiful descriptions of the landscape and its literary and historical associations offered through the dialogue and action. And the food! My mouth was watering!

The characters are wonderful. There is a young man who must decide what kind of life he wants to lead, and his literary hero, a cantankerous and manipulative Nobel Prize winner whose colorful life is legend.

Mosiac, 3rd century, of the labors of Hercules

The older man who lived life to the fullest teaches the unformed youth through a series of experiences that mirror the 12 labors of Hercules from Greek mythology. Hercules last task was to face and subdue Cerberus, a monster who guarded the gates of the Underworld. Literary and Greek mythological references are part of the travelers' mutual language.

Can the young man throw off the conventions of his background, take risks and rise to the challenges presented to him? Can he learn to be fully alive? Most of all, can he trust Irakles Bastounis? Or is he merely a willing tool? Is this author he has admired his friend?

Stanley has taken his experiences and presented them in an engaging novel. His story and love for his subjects is authentic. The plot may deal with death and big choices, but the distillation of the novel is joy.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Collar for Cerberus
Matt Stanley
Thistle Publications
Publication July 26, 2018
ISBN 9781786080622
PRICE $14.99 (USD)


from the publisher:

Never meet your heroes...

A naïve English graduate arrives in Greece seeking experience and perhaps an encounter with his literary hero: Nobel laureate and irascible old hell-raiser Irakles Bastounis. Agreeing to act as driver for Bastounis, the young man finds himself on a hectic, adventurous and always challenging tour of Greece’s wonders – an apprentice in how to live life to the fullest.

As the road trip progresses, the questions arise. Is Bastounis still an addict? Who is following him and why? Is he researching his final, much-anticipated novel? Who are the people he’s meeting along the way? And how far will one young man ultimately go in the name of experience?

A Collar for Cerberus is a story about time, life, pleasure and the decisions we make.

Bill Bryson's Latest Walk in The World's Largest Park

I had never read Bill Bryson. Book after book came out and sounded interesting but I never managed to get a hold of one and actually read it. So when I saw The Road to Little Dribbling on NetGalley I requested it. It was about time I read the man!

The Road to Little Dribbling chronicles Bryson's travels across England, a follow-up to his 1995 travel book Notes from a Small Island. He starts in Buggar Bognor in the south and zig-zags north to Cape Wrath. He revisits places he knew and loved, noting the changes--mostly for the worse. "In countless small ways the world around us grows gradually shittier," he notes. Where quaint gardens beautified houses there are driveways with cars and trash cans.

Much to my husband's chagrin, I opened the book and started roaring almost immediately. He thought he was reading the humorous book. We had a moment of competing busts of laughter, but after four pages I was still at it. He admitted defeat and left the room.

Bryson never misses an opportunity to note the foibles, imbecilities, frailties, and ridiculous in human nature. And, we are educated about the threat of attack by cows. It is very real. In Britain every cow attack is national news. Four people were killed  in 2009 after all.

I was in a cow field at Putt's farm when I was a little girl. I traipsed through the cow pies to pet one. Neither she nor her girlfriends made any threatening moves. (Unlike the goat at a tourist trap in New York State that went after my coat when I was four!) I can't imagine living in a country where a cow attack is considered a threat. Here in America we are fearful of real threats. Like getting Ebola or the plague. The news wouldn't report it if it weren't a threat, right?

Bryson is involved in The Campaign to Preserve Rural England, The Metropolitan Green Belt around London protects against the urban sprawl we have in America. I spent a great deal of my lie in urban sprawl, i.e. the 'burbs. I am used to miles and miles of big box stores, chain restaurants, and houses that look all the same. The Economist magazine argues that the Green Belt limits growth. Who needs pretty, pristine, open spaces when we can have another coffee house?

I actually like the idea of open green spaces in a city. I think of the parks in Philadelphia. William Penn planned five parks to provide open space. Over 60 parks including Fairmont Park along the Schuylkill River and the Wissihickon Park with its gorge that inspired painters like Thomas Moran, cover 9,200 acres in prime real estate areas.

When Bryson is admiring the moor around the River Colne, unchanged for a thousand years, he listens to the roars of Heathrow airport and learns they want to build a runway on that will destroy most of Wraysbury Reservoir. I remembered the Tinicum Wildlife Refuge nestled between the Philadelphia Airport and Gulf Oil. It was a bird sanctuary along the migration paths. Jets flew low overhead as we admired a Green Heron or saw thousands of Snow Egrets turn the trees white.

Bryson covers some things that were quite interesting, but other times I didn't feel much connection to what he was writing about. He can come across as curmudgeonly. I began to think the England I had wanted to see forty years ago had vanished. But in the end he affirms his love of his adopted country, especially for the beauty of land that I have always imagined.

Hedgerow in England

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased
review.

The Road to Little Dribbling
Bill Bryson
Doubleday Books
Publication Date: January 19, 2015
$12.99 ebook
ISBN:9780385539296