Sunday, July 31, 2022
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Chris used to have these little ditties he used to repeat!
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? If your mother says don't chew it, do you swallow it in spite? Can you catch it on your tonsils, can you heave it left & right? Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?
I first met Chris in 1972, when my dad and I went to Landmark Farms to seek a place to board our horses. I was just 14 years old and he just 21, he seemed so much older than me. Chris was my mentor, my coach and friend. Sadly, I have not been directly in touch with him for many years, however, through contact with friends, family and more recently multimedia posts I followed his successes from afar. Although, I am sure he was not a big fan of multimedia. In fact, he must have not liked being in pictures, because I only have one picture of Chris and doesn’t even show his face!
The two people that had most influence on my teenage years were Chris and my father. I spent the most impressionable years of my life with Chris first as a broader, then his riding student and then as his protégé/employee. Chris was my get out jail free card, anytime I was in trouble at home, which was often. Chris would talk my father in to letting him take me to the barn, he had my father’s trust.
As everyone knows Chris could and would befriend anyone. He introduced me to the most colorful characters from famous to the infamous, brilliant future doctors, clergy and/or elevator mechanics. He treated everybody the same, that is one of the characteristics he and my father had in common and hope they engender in me.
I have numerous stories about Chris and I am sure he had more of me than I have of him, and he would tell them with greater elan. The fact is Chris could tell a tale.
Chris fancied himself a “Hammer Mechanic” he told me he could fix anything with hammer! The truth was that Chris was quite handy, not that he was an expert carpenter. He did add stalls and an upstairs tack room to the barn he was leasing. One day after school, I when to the barn as usual, I walked in and Chris was there with a chainsaw cutting doorways in the walls of the existing Tack Room & Office to make extra stalls and then he built a stair case to the Loft for a Tack Room.
As a riding instructor/Coach for Landmark Farms we won several Jr. Olympic team Championships at Thomas School of Horsemanship and Jr. Essex Troop with the help of David & Patty of course. One particular trip returning from Jr. Essex Troop, we were approaching the toll booths for the George Washington Bridge and the air brakes on Berth (Chris’s name for his 6-horse van), carrying eight horses were not recharging quickly enough, instead crashing into all the vehicles waiting at the Toll Booth. In true Chris fashion he found an exit ramp, which we took, we see up a car up a head just sitting at the stop sign. Chris and Mike Kelly started yelling out the window for the car to move, with no luck. Chris lightly hits the rear of the car ever so gently. Unfortunately, he pushes that car into a parked police car. The cop jumps out the car pulls Chris from the driver’s seat throws him up against a fence and starts to frisk him. Then the officer sees it’s a horse van and say’s out loud “what am I doing, do you know how much paperwork I am going have to do, because of this?” Chris tells the officer to wait a minute he has to check the horses. He quickly jumps up into the back of the Van and informs the officer that one of the horses is hurt (a tale) and the officer lets us leave. I do not remember him even giving the cop his license.
Early on, Chris introduced me to his parents Walter and Shirley, they were like a second family to me. We did not celebrate Christmas in our home. The Gibbons would always invite me to spend Christmas Eve with them and I would get to drink Walter’s famous Egg Nog.
The most memorable times I spent with Chris was when I was campaigning for points. He would take me to a small Wednesday summer horse show(s) that took place in Southampton. We left for the Horse Show(s) early Tuesday evening and we might or might not have stopped in Smithtown to take a couple of girls out to dinner. Then he took us to Jan Sue Stables in East Hampton to drop off the horse (Beau Geste). Once the horse was safely in his stall Chris and I would go to this local Montauk dive bar, where Chris would befriend the strangest of people. One guy I remember had half of his lower jaw missing. After enjoying a “coke”, we would head to the Montauk Beach and spend the night. In the morning Chris would get up and surf for a couple hours and then we would proceed to horse show and then home.
A Couple of other things about Chris;
Chris was in the Reserve Marines, which were the real Marines. He went to boot camp at Parris Island back in the day, when drill sergeants could do as they wished. He was proud of the fact that he was a Marines, made him mentally tough.
Chris was color blind, a fact that he hid well. I found out at a horse show one day (~ 2 years from the date he started coaching me). We were going over a jumper course, I said the “1st jump is the yellow and then ride to the blue fence”. He then informed me he could not see colors, from then on, I used to tell him the course by the type of fence and not the color.
Chris had a crushing fear of Dentist’s!
In addition, enjoying riding and competing in horse shows, Chris loved managing horse shows. I worked with him and Dave Woisin (Sandy Fallon’s husband) at numerous horse shows.
Other than treating everyone you meet as an individual worth respect. I learned how to ride fast, drive a three on the column pick-up truck, a horse van and what it meant to be a winner. “Competing is fun, but winning is more fun. Don’t go off course!!!!!”
I am ending this memory with Chris’s wise words;
when the nights are hot and sticky that’s no time for dunkin’ dicky when the frost is on the punkin’ that’s the time for dicky dunkin’
Rest In Peace my friend I hope to see you again!
