And why, you may ask, is this man consigned to drinking his coffee under the breakfast table? He is a college professor, faithful husband, Navy officer, survivor of the sinking of the Block Island during World War II, family man, father of 3, and gentleman farmer. And the latter is how he ended up in the Warren substitute for a doghouse.
You see, the Warrens at that time had a barn and a pony but no fenced paddock. Early every morning, my father would lead the pony out of the barn, up the driveway, past the house, and out to the front lawn. There he would tether the pony for a day of grazing.
But on this particular morning, my father realized he had forgotten the tether. Rather than lead the pony all the way back to the barn, he decided to store the pony in the kitchen while he went back to gather the needed supplies. My mother, who was still busying herself in the bedroom, would never know. He retrieved what he needed from the barn, retrieved the pony from the kitchen, and completed the tethering task.
But unbeknownst to him, my mother entered the kitchen to find a steaming pile of manure in the middle of the floor. There could be no other explanation. None.
And that is how the college professor, faithful husband, Navy officer, survivor of the sinking of the Block Island during World War II, family man, father of 3, and gentleman farmer ended up in the Warren substitute for a doghouse.
The photographer is Margaret Warren, art history professor, Ph.D., trainer of five-gaited horses, and later in life, violin maker. She was proficient in many languages. She did not like to pay others for things she could learn how to do, and so she sewed all our clothes, grew all our food, painted the house inside and out, raised horses and chickens and pigs, built and refinished and upholstered furniture, tiled bathrooms, edited my father’s many books, etc. She also learned to develop and enlarge the 100s of rolls of black and white film the family produced.
