Category Archives for People

Rediscovering Pawtucket’s Red Pollard

Published June 22, 2012, Pawtucket Times

             In 2003 a dramatic movie about a Depression-era race horse and his oversized jockey became a top box office film hit.  This story of hope and perseverance was woven into a story about a down and out jockey, a heartbroken horse owner, a drifter horse trainer, and the eventual rise of a champion horse.  It is no coincidence that near the former Narragansett Race Track inPawtucket– now a Building 19 retail store – you will discover city streets named “War Admiral” and “Seabiscuit Place, for surprisingly manyPawtucketresidents do not know that the real-life jockey whose story was told in this film lived out his middle years in their community.  “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” was based loosely on the critically-acclaimed, non-fiction book penned by Washington, DC writer Laura Hillenbrand in 2001, whose key figure resided in Pawtucket. 

           America’s iconic jockey, John Pollard, whose moniker “Red” Pollard was known for his flaming red hair and was taller than most jockeys.  At 5’ 7”, Red and his wife Agnes called 249Vine Street located inPawtucket’sDarlingtonneighborhood, their ‘home’.  Their two children, Norah and John would grow up and receive their formal education in the City’s schools.  At the end of their lives, Red and Agnes would be buried a stone’s throw from their modest Vine St. home  in Norte Dame Cemetery on Daggett Avenue.  Pollard died in 1981, and two weeks later Agnes would follow.

            Pollard became a household name to tens of millions of aging baby boomer who either read Hillenbrand’s book, ranked No. 1 on the New York Times bestsellers list for a total of 42 weeks or watched the 140 minute “Seabiscut” film, which was nominated for an Academy Award

            According to Jockey’s Guild, Inc., the book-loving, jockey, blind in his right eye, whose luck would lead to ridingAmerica’s most beloved thoroughbred racehorse 30 times,  accumulated 18 wins.   Two films and a book would capture his great ride, winning $100,000 in 1940 at the Santa Anita Handicap.  Over his 30 year career, fame and fortune would evade Pollard, who would suffer a lifetime of severe injuries from serious spills to being hospitalized numerous times for a broken hip, ribs, arm, and a leg.  One spill kept him bedridden for months before he could ride again.

            For Pollard, “you just made your own luck and certain things that happen to you”.  Life to him was a crap shoot.

Coming to Pawtucket

            The accident-prone Pollard was severely injured by the weight of a fallen horse in February 1938 at the San Carlos Handicap.  Nine months later, back in the saddle, this unlucky jockey would shatter the bone in his leg during a workout from riding a runaway horse.  This would ultimately keep him from riding in that legendary race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral.  However, this severe leg injury would lead him to the love of his life, Agnes Conlon. 

             According to Norah Christianson, the jockey’s daughter who now lives inStratford,Connecticut, marriage would putPawtucketon Pollard’s radar screen.  Recovering from his compound facture in his leg atBoston’sWinthropHospital, by reciting poetry, the jockey would capture the attention of a certain nurse,  fall in love and ultimately marry Agnes Conlon, his registered nurse, in 1936.   The couple would have two children during their 40 year marriage.  

             Christianson, now age 72, noted that it was easy for her mother to drive an hour fromPawtucketto visit her parents and ten siblings who lived inBrookline,Massachusetts.   

            Pawtucketwas also an ideal place for Pollard to live because the City was centrally located toNew England’s racing circuit, adds Christianson.  Her father could easily get to the Narragansett Race Track and Lincoln Downs inRhode Island, and Suffolk Downs inMassachusetts, and Scarborough Downs Race Track inMaine. Moreover, in the winter season he could easily travel toFloridaand hit that state’s race track circuit.  Just five minutes from their home, Agnes took a job atPawtucket’sMemorialHospital, working as a registered nursing in the emergency room.

         Those riding injuries would keep Pollard from serving in the military during World War II, says Christianson, noting that  he worked as a foreman and would oversee the building of Liberty Ships at the Walsh-Kaiser shipyard inProvidence.  With the War’s end, he continued to ride horses until the age of 46, when in 1955 he was just physically unable to do so.    For a time, her father “worked at Narragansett , mentored young jockeys, and then worked as a mail sorter at the track.  After that, he worked as a valet for other jockeys until he finally retired for good. The track was always my dad’s “community” until it closed in 1978.” \

Sipping Whisky, Reading Great Poetry

            Pollard, whose education ended at 4th grade, had a love for poetry and the classics, recalls Christianson.   Always on the move between race tracks, he could easily carry his favorite pocket volumes of Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Service’s   “Songs of the Sourdough” and Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat”.  Being a poetry lover, frequent stays at the hospital would “allow my father to read a lot and memorize,” she noted.

            She also remembers her father sipping a little bit of whiskey as he would recite poetry for the family after dinner. “We just absorbed the experience, not realizing we were learning.” 

             Pollard traveled the race track circuit for months at a time, states Christianson.  When in town, her father would take her and her brother, John to Pinault’s Drug Store onNewport Avenue, enjoy a movie at the Darlton Theater, or visit Kip’s Restaurant.  “I remember Pinault’s had a soda fountain that ”made the best home-made honey dew melon ice cream.”  Many a day Pollard would stop at the Texaco Gas Station, located atArmistice Blvd.andYork Avenue, to sit and talk for hours with his friends.   

             “Dad was a loner, a desperado, an extreme free spirit, a man obsessed with racing,” recalls Christianson.  Before he retired,  Pollards’ typical day started at 4:30 a.m. by heading to the track to exercise horses, later returning home with a few of his jockey friends in their work clothes, ready to eat a hearty breakfast cooked by Agnes and to “tell jokes and talk shop.” His physically active and obsessive lifestyle in racing allowed him to enjoy “puttering around his basement workshop, mow the lawn or even put up the storm windows.”

           When Christianson was 17 years old she had an inkling of her father’s fame. Mr. Winters, her Tolman High math teacher, once asked her “is your father the jockey, Red Pollard ?”  Looking back she would realize that “her father did not make a fuss about his fame.  “He realized that when you stop being on the top,  you are going to be forgotten –  so winning that race was far more important than fame and recognition.”   

           Being involved in local organized groups such as church, the Boy Scouts and business clubs were alien to him, Christianson adds.  “As my brother once said to me when we were talking about our parents,” ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ they were not.”

 Protecting the Jockey Community

             But Pawtucket’s jockey was tapped to be on the first Board of Directors of the newly established national organization, Jockey’s Guild in 1940 -an enormously important guild for riders – this group being a nationwide organized union.  Jockeys who were hurt had no financial recourse, nor did the families of jockeys who were killed, for they did not get any benefits before the Jockeys’ Guild was created. 

           “In the early days of the Guild, [the Nicholasville, Kentucky-based] Guild was able to introduce safety measures such as better racing environments, monitor legislation concerning racing, and providing insurance for jockeys as well as decent wages.  “The great achievements of the Jockeys’ Guild would be what you might call ‘my father’s community service’, adds Christianson.  .

          Red Pollard rode into American history, overcoming a physical disability of partial blindness, accepting intense physical pain caused by severe riding injuries that fractured his bones, while humbly accepting his role in racing history, as the man who rode Seabiscuit.

             Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.  This article was published in two Rhode Island daily’s The Pawtucket Times and Woonsocket Call.

No Rocking Chairs for These Country Farmers

Published May 11, 2012, Pawtucket Times

Some aging baby boomers can’t wait to relax in their later years, with visions of travel plans on the horizon, or lists of hobbies & projects tucked away. But a growing number of seniors, like Ruth and George Handy, continue to work long after the traditional retirement age of 65 simply because they enjoy it.

Just 20 minutes from the City ofPawtucket, you will find a small rural home situated on over 100 acres of land – a ‘secret garden’ of sorts – that has widely become known as a gem of a place to purchase fine produce and beautiful lush and unique plants.   Just drive down a small country road off U.S. Route 118 in Attleboro, and you will find Ruth and George Handy hard at work in their green houses, pruning, primping and selling thousands of flowering annuals, perennials and tons of vegetables from 8a.m to 7 p.m. – 7 days a week.

Mostly by word of mouth, customers make this yearly spring pilgrimage to Fine Farms, traveling as far away asVermontandBoston, and then travel back home with their vehicles filled to the brim with colorful flowers and varieties you won’t find in many of the big-box stores.

According to Ruth, her locally grown flowers and vegetables are fresher than those shipped to and sold by the growing number of super center, superstore or mega stores.  “There really is a difference,” she asserts. “We give daily, tender loving care to our plants and they usually tend to be healthier and even grow bigger.”

Working Hard But Loving It

“Most people think that we go south for the frigid winters, but we are working hard for ten months out of the year,” says Ruth, a tanned, petite woman who is wearing a pair of blue jeans, a sleeveless blue cotton shirt and garden Crocs. Together Ruth and George, her husband of 43 years, are tilling 22 of their 120 acres by themselves.  This acreage has been in Ruth’s family since 1903, a legacy for which she is most proud.

“Retire?  Never!  We love what we do,” says the 77-year-old farmer’s wife.  At 75, George begins with his long work day at 4:30 a.m., usually finishing up and eating his supper around 9:00 p.m.    This is not a job for anyone to do, she says.

According to Ruth, because of the economic downturn that caused the closing of many of their wholesale accounts, compounded with the spiraling price of fuel, theAttleborocouple shuttered two out of their six greenhouses.  However, “this year we still planted about  20,000 packs of flowers and vegetables and 1,500 hanging plants,” prides Ruth, who explains “they start planting around January and in March they begin to transplant the seedlings”.

And that’s not all.  In between planting, harvesting and then selling produce at The Corn Crib farm stand later in the summer, Ruth is a part-time instructor of water aerobics and chair exercises at the Attleboro YMCA.  Ruth even penned The Fine Farms Cookbook, a compilation of 25 years of collected recipes and is currently writing a novel with her cousin. George also is active and regularly works out in his home gym.  Both are avid readers of mysteries and historic novels.

By mid-April the four remaining greenhouses are filled with huge hanging baskets, including a variety of colorful plants, from petunias, begonias, and impatiens, to a variety of herbs.  As Mother’s Day approaches there still remains a large variety of flowers and baskets for the rest of the month. At the same time, George begins planting a couple of acres of corn to be harvested in July.  When the greenhouses are depleted, usually in June, the couple shifts their focus on their vegetable fields.  .

By mid-July its harvest time and fresh vegetables are sold at The Corn Crib.  The Handys offer many varieties of bi-colored and white corn along with onions, potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes, at this quant farm stand, a mile down the road at the intersection of Tremont and Anawan Streets off Route 118 inNorth Rehoboth.

Over the past 25 years, avid gardener, Patricia Zacks, has bought her flowers and vegetables from Fine Farms.  Three generations of thisPawtucketresident’s family have traveled intoMassachusettsto visit the Handy’s greenhouses. “This has been my spring ritual every year, first with my mom and now with my son. It is always a treat for the eyes to be one of the first customers in the greenhouses – the colors are breathtaking!” In the summer I’ll travel for their corn – there is nothing more enjoyable than vegetables freshly picked just hours before being cooked”.

Take Time to Smell the Roses

Ruth explains that that George has been farming the land for over 60 years, since he was a teenager. .  Ultimately her husband bought The Corn Crib and the farm fields from her father, Hyman Fine, who continued to operate the flower business and greenhouses.  In 1972, her father died suddenly at a School Committee Meeting and George became responsible for all aspects of the farm business.

“The first year was very difficult for us, but as each year passed, the farm became more profitable and better run,” says Ruth.  Even in their mid-seventies the Hardys continue to farm while the younger generations are going their own way.  The couple have three children and 6 grandchildren, but no one is really interested in shouldering the long hours it takes running the family farm.

While Ruth and George work hard in their later years, they believe in setting time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

“Slow down and enjoy nature that surrounds you,” Ruth advises.  As a child she just could not wait to leave the farm to travel to the “big” city.  But now she appreciates the peaceful rural life of the farm and “would not trade her lifestyle for anything else.”

George urges aging baby boomers and seniors to look at their age as just a number.  “Don’t let [your age] limit you,” he counsels, noting that he works as hard now in his senior years as he did in his 20s.  “Work keeps me young,” he adds.

For more information about Fine Farms, call (508) 226-0616 or go to http://f-i-s.com/finefarms/. Or write 353 Smith Street, Attleboro, MA 02703.  Or email, Finefarms@aol.com.

Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writing covering aging, health care and medical issues. His Commentaries are published in two Rhode Island Daily’s The Pawtucket Times and Woonsocket Call.

Your Later Years: Death Takes Two American Icons

Published in All Pawtucket All the Time on June 27, 2008

In recent weeks, office conversations shifted from the Celtic’s win, the Boston Red Sox games, and Democratic candidate Obama’s run for presidency to focus on the untimely deaths of two  national  icons in the entertainment and broadcast industry.  Baby boomers were shocked when a sudden heart attack, on June 13th, took the life of 58 year-old Tim Russert.  They were even more dismayed when George Carlin, the comedic voice of their generation, died 9 days later.

“Did you take your daily aspirin? Or “how high is your  cholesterol?” or “blood pressure?” were questions swiring around the water cooler.  Many of the Pepsi generation figured that if a youthful-looking broadcast journalist, Russert or and older Carlin,” America’s Funny Man” suddently died of heart disease it might halppen to them, too.

Making Their Marks in the World

Russert, a resident of Northwest Washington, was one of the nation’s most visible baby boomers, serving for almost 17 years as Managing Editor and Moderator of the highly acclaimed “Meet the Press” and political anayyst for “NBC Nightly News.”

In his early politicl creer as a lawyer, russert worked as a special council to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, and as a conunsel to Gov. Mario M. Como of New York.

A lifelong Buffalo Bills Football fan, Russert, a practicing Catholic, wrote an autobiography Big Russ and Me in 2004, a book about growing up in South Buffalo and the importance of his hardworking father, a World War II veteran who worked two jobs after the war to support his family. Russert’s father taught him the significance of family values and never to take the short cut to accomplish a goal. A book, Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons, published one year later would incorporate letters received from his fans in response to his first book about their own experiences with their fathers.

Russert also received 48 honorary doctorates and racked up scores of awards for his journalistic reporting.

On June 22nd, an irrervent standup comedian, George Carlin, 71, whose cutting social commentary and assute summation of life, who oftentimes stretched both the boundaries of free speech died of heart failure in Santa Monica, California.

Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine was key to a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case, F.C.C. v Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow majority ruled the government has a right to regulate “indecent” material on the public airways.

During his long life, the very hip Carlin was recognized for his cutting edge comedy by receiving two America Comedy Awards, the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special (1997 and 1998) and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy (2001).

Carline was the first host of Saturday Night Live. He made countless television appearances during his career.  As a prolific writer, Carlin wrote five books and produced 23 comedy records, winning four Grammy Awards. Throughout his career wit/word play, political satire and black comedy would be woven into his monologues performed in major nightclubs and theaters in New York and Los Vegs. He also starred in 14 HBO comedy specials.  Recently he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November 2008.

Touching Lives

Lars Platt, 51, of Platt Realty Group, and  his wife Carrie, a television producer, were shocked with the sudden passing of Russert. “He was so close to our age,” Platt says, noting that his wife had worked with him, too.

Platt said that the unanticipated death of “an icon in the news reporting and broadcast industry,” made the Providence couple think of their mortality and “how important it is to be present in everday life.”

Carlin’s passing also put “a chink in my armor, too,” says Platt. “His humor was part of the fabric of my life growing up.”

Forty-year old Matt Thomas, Manager of Doherty’s East Avenue Café, remembers secretly listening to Carlin’s routine ion a transistor radio in six grade.  Thomas, laughing so hard because of the humor caught the attention of his parents who promptly confiscated his radio, sending him immediately to bed.  Fast forward to his early adult years, Thomas would subscribe to HBO Cable when Carlin’s Specials were scheduled ultimately canceling his cable contract after watching it.

Thomas, who considers himself Carlin’s biggest fan in Pawtucket, attended the comedian’s last theater performance last week in Las Vegas. “It was tremendous,” he said, joking how his sides hurt when he walked out after the show. “He had a lot of fun on the state and even put in a few new bits into his routine.”

As to his impact on society Thomas will always remember Carlin as someone who “shed the light into dark corners that people did not want to look at.”

“If you talked to any comic, they worshiped the ground he walked on,” Thomas said. “He really opened up a lot of doors for others to come through.”  Carlin took the comedic torch when Lenny Bruce died , Thomas says. “We’ll just have to see who will pick that torch up now.”

With their premature deaths, bereaved colleagues, friends, and family members went on the nation’s airways to publicity tout Russert and Carlin’s personal and professional accomplishments. Statements after they died were posted on hundreds of websites and printed in tens of thousands of articles. It is my hope that America’s Journalist and Comedian heard these praises when they were alive.