Sue Spitulnik

When I was a little girl there was a farm we passed on the way to our summer cottage that had a pair of Percherons.  I would ask my mother to drive by very slowly so I could admire the huge, gentle animals.  Sometimes we would see them pulling a plow and other times a wagon.  When they leaned into their harness you could see the muscles ripple down their shoulders and flanks.  I remember they always seemed to be beautifully clean, their manes free from tangles.  I was told that took hours of brushing and care.

During that same time period, our neighbors had a pony.  I desperately wanted to ride that pony.  The one time I was given the opportunity I don’t remember being given any instructions other than to hold on to the reins and saddle horn.  The pony ran along the electric fence, my leg getting shocked at every step.  I got off as fast as I could and didn’t ask to do that again.

As an adult I went with some friends to a horse ranch to ride in the hills of western Washington.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get up on top of that big animal, but wasn’t going to admit I was afraid.  I didn’t know the horse could tell I was.  He ambled along while I hung on for dear life.  I didn’t do that again either.

You practiced horse riders are probably thinking there is nothing easier than riding a horse, and having a good chuckle at my inexperience.  That’s all right.  Another person smiling because of something I said or did is a good thing.  In my book, horses are one of the most majestic and beautiful animals on this earth, and I love them.

So what is your favorite hot dog memory?

We all eat hot dogs.  Well, maybe not vegetarians, or those who actually read the ingredients.  So how can you have a favorite memory?  Think about it.  How many picnics, children’s meals, baseball games, or carnivals come to mind?  Maybe the state fair.  Now focus, is there one occasion that supersedes the rest.  In upstate New York it could easily have something to do with a white hot.  Is this important?  No, just an exercise in remembering.

My most prevalent memory is not when I ate a good hot dog, but when I couldn’t.  In the early ’70’s I was a young Air Force wife living in England.  I did most of our grocery shopping at the base commissary, but also learned my way around public markets, and the small specialty shops in the  English towns where some of the houses did indeed have thatched roofs.  We learned to eat meat pies, fish and chips wrapped in newspaper to carry home, drink warm beer and walk to most places we wanted to go.  (The beer wasn’t actually room temperature, but cool cellar temperature, unrefrigerated.)  Anyway, the one thing we couldn’t get anyplace was a good hot dog.  They fed us “bangers”, but they just weren’t the same.   When we returned to the states, hot dogs were a priority.  I remember they tasted divine.