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Transcript

The Horsemen Who Never Leave Us · Two Point Perspective

• 0:00
  I think horse people think about Mondays just a little differently because most people are headed back to work, but barns are usually closed and horse people are typically just hoping for a day off.
• 0:12
  But if you knew George Gaston, Monday meant something else.
• 0:18
  You were waiting to see what George posted in his favorite Facebook group.
• 0:23
  Just about every Monday, he'd post an old photograph.
• 0:27
  Sometimes it was a famous horse, sometimes a rider, sometimes someone many of us hadn't thought about in years.
• 0:35
  People would start guessing, and before long, people were all talking about old friends, old horses, funny moments, things they hadn't thought about in 40 or 50 years.
• 0:50
  Looking back, I don't think Mystery Monday was ever about solving the mystery, really.
• 0:57
  It was George's way of making sure that we never forgot each other.
• 1:02
  This past Monday, there wasn't a new mystery Monday.
• 1:07
  Instead, we learned that George had passed away peacefully in his sleep.
• 1:12
  And almost immediately, the photographs started appearing.
• 1:16
  Only this time, George wasn't posting, but everybody else was.
• 1:22
  All kinds of pictures of him.
• 1:24
  Some with friends, some with horses, but basically 50 years of friendships.
• 1:31
  This is two point perspective.
• 1:33
  Two writers with different viewpoints from different.
• 1:36
  Generations talking about the same sport.
• 1:41
  You know, I didn't really know George the way that you did.
• 1:45
  I knew him because of you.
• 1:47
  But after this week, I almost feel like I do know him in a way that you did.
• 1:52
  I know exactly what you mean, because I learned a lot of things this week too.
• 1:57
  I've known George for more than 50 years and I thought that I knew every chapter.
• 2:04
  Turns out I didn't.
• 2:06
  I think that that's what I have loved the most about seeing all of the posts and memories.
• 2:15
  Because they're so personal.
• 2:17
  Exactly.
• 2:18
  One person remembered George helping them get started.
• 2:21
  Another remembered his lessons.
• 2:24
  Another remembered summer camp.
• 2:26
  Someone else remembered something George did 30 years ago that they'd never forgotten.
• 2:32
  That made me really think about this.
• 2:36
  None of us knew all of George, but each of us knew our own George.
• 2:41
  He even started a little business called Just ask George because you could.
• 2:49
  Oh my gosh.
• 2:50
  So which one was yours?
• 2:53
  Which George did you have?
• 2:55
  Well, about a week before I was supposed to leave for college, I wound up at a horse show in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 3:02
  And George was there.
• 3:04
  Somehow we connected and he introduced me to the person that he was riding with or working for.
• 3:11
  His name was Bill Russell and he was the trainer at Pinetop Farms at the time in Thompson, Georgia.
• 3:18
  That introduction changed everything.
• 3:22
  One week later, my horse wasn't going to college with me as I had planned, but instead he was going to Pinetop Farms with Bill, I've thought about that so many times this week.
• 3:34
  It was just a simple introduction and a single conversation.
• 3:38
  And who knew one person quietly changed the direction of your life without either of you realizing it.
• 3:46
  But that was George.
• 3:49
  That's so incredible.
• 3:51
  It really is.
• 3:52
  And the funny thing is, I don't think that George ever thought of himself that way.
• 3:58
  He wasn't trying to change anybody's life.
• 4:00
  He just thought the two people ought to know each other.
• 4:04
  So when you moved to Pinetop, you two started hanging out?
• 4:08
  Oh, yeah.
• 4:10
  George went to the University of Georgia and I was at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
• 4:15
  But I think I only went to school that year.
• 4:18
  Maybe one to two days a week.
• 4:20
  I was so busy going back and forth to Thompson or Augusta.
• 4:25
  There was always something going on, whether it was box hunting or going to horse shows.
• 4:31
  We even went to a Seals and Crofts concert at Clemson and that was huge.
• 4:37
  There were progressive dinner parties in Thompson because of the hunt, I guess.
• 4:42
  I mean, we just had a great time.
• 4:44
  Just college kids.
• 4:46
  Exactly.
• 4:47
  We weren't trying to build lifelong memories.
• 4:50
  We were just living our lives.
• 4:52
  What I love about that though is none of those memories are actually about horses.
• 4:59
  The horses were just the reason that you two were together and became friends.
• 5:04
  Exactly.
• 5:05
  People assume because you've known someone through horses for 50 years that all you talked about was horses.
• 5:13
  And we did talk about horses, pretty much like you and me when we're having dinner together.
• 5:20
  So when George came pretty much non stop at dinner and my poor husband was trying to be very patient, but he'd always say, okay, wait, who's Millie?
• 5:31
  Is that a horse or a human?
• 5:33
  I mean the poor guy.
• 5:35
  Poor Joe.
• 5:36
  I know, but we also talked about life.
• 5:39
  We laughed constantly.
• 5:41
  And George had a wonderful sense of humor.
• 5:44
  He loved a good story.
• 5:46
  And somehow no matter what we were doing, it always seemed to turn into some kind of adventure.
• 5:53
  Did you ever imagine, you know, maybe even in the early stages of your friendship or midway through the 50 years later, that you would both be talking almost every single week?
• 6:05
  Multiple times a week?
• 6:07
  Not for a second.
• 6:09
  When you're 20 years old, you don't think about 50 year friendships.
• 6:13
  You don't even know what that means.
• 6:15
  I think you just think about where you're going next weekend.
• 6:19
  You never stop and think, this person is going to be part of my life forever.
• 6:24
  There were periods when we see each other all the time and other periods when life took us in completely different directions.
• 6:32
  But somehow we'd always pick up right where we left off.
• 6:36
  And there was never any catching up to do.
• 6:40
  I think friendships like that are actually very rare.
• 6:44
  They really are.
• 6:45
  And I think that's one of the things I've realized this week.
• 6:49
  The older you get, the more you realize how precious these friendships are.
• 6:55
  The people you knew before you had a career, before you got married, before you had children, before all the responsibilities, they knew you when you were just figuring it out.
• 7:06
  And so I guess you could say George knew every version of me and who I was.
• 7:13
  You know, I called him my brother, not because we were related, but because after more than 50 years, there just isn't another word that fits.
• 7:25
  Well, life took both of you in a lot of different directions over that span of time, and somehow you were always able to find your way back to each other.
• 7:34
  I know.
• 7:35
  And life has a way of doing that.
• 7:38
  I mean, there were times when George was doing great, and there were times when life got harder for him.
• 7:45
  Years later, after we moved to Virginia, George found himself needing a fresh start.
• 7:51
  So he came to stay with us.
• 7:52
  And like a lot of old friends, we picked up right where we left off.
• 7:57
  But I'll be honest, living together isn't always easy.
• 8:03
  George could overstay his welcome once in a while, but that's real life.
• 8:09
  And when you've known somebody that long, you don't stop being friends just because things get inconvenient.
• 8:17
  You figure it out.
• 8:18
  And we always did.
• 8:19
  And somehow horses found him also.
• 8:21
  Again, they did.
• 8:23
  And I helped him connect with some people that I had met in Virginia.
• 8:28
  He actually worked for Tad Coffin for a while.
• 8:32
  He represented a bit company that we were working with through my marketing business.
• 8:38
  He spent some time in Florida working with Bill Russell's son.
• 8:41
  But eventually after that, he came back to Virginia.
• 8:46
  And then an opportunity opened up at Memories Hill.
• 8:50
  And honestly, I think George finally landed exactly where he belonged.
• 8:57
  He loved teaching.
• 8:58
  He loved young writers.
• 9:00
  He loved talking with parents.
• 9:02
  He loved being part of a barn again.
• 9:05
  He wasn't chasing anything anymore.
• 9:08
  He simply.
• 9:09
  He was simply sharing what he knew.
• 9:12
  And that's where our paths crossed.
• 9:14
  Exactly.
• 9:15
  You and I were riding there.
• 9:17
  George was teaching.
• 9:19
  Your niece came to camp.
• 9:21
  She didn't know anything about George's history.
• 9:23
  She just met George.
• 9:25
  And I love that because to her, he wasn't somebody from the past.
• 9:31
  He was simply the nice man at the barn who loved teaching the kids and loved the horses.
• 9:36
  Horses.
• 9:37
  My niece still talks about him.
• 9:39
  And, you know, and whenever I saw George at the barn crossing paths, always, always, always asked how she was doing, because she, you know, she doesn't live up here, so he would only get to see her on occasional,
• 9:52
  like, lessons and if she came up for camp.
• 9:55
  And I just.
• 9:56
  I always thought it was so kind that, you know, somebody he didn't see all the time, you know, that he cared to know how she was doing and he knew that she did other sports.
• 10:05
  And, um, he also was always so interested in my life and, you know, he didn't know me as long as he had known you.
• 10:16
  He was.
• 10:17
  He was just genuinely that kind of guy.
• 10:21
  But, you know, I think this past year has changed the way I look at friendships.
• 10:25
  When you've been through something hard, you never really forget the people who simply just show up and are there for you, not.
• 10:34
  Not the ones that are simply asking, you know, what can I do?
• 10:37
  And then you don't tell them, so then you don't hear from them.
• 10:40
  But every time you've told me a story about George, it's exactly who he sounds like he was.
• 10:45
  He was the guy that was ready to jump in when somebody that he loved or even that he just knew needed some help.
• 10:53
  That's exactly who he was.
• 10:55
  And if you want one story that explains George, it's Laurie Pitts.
• 11:01
  Most people in our sport know Laurie.
• 11:04
  She's one of those people who spent a lifetime taking care of horses and helping everyone else succeed.
• 11:11
  She did braiding, she did.
• 11:13
  She was a groom, she worked behind the scenes.
• 11:17
  But this spring, she was at the Keswick Horse show and somehow she took her three dogs out for a walk.
• 11:23
  And I don't know what happened, but she fell and broke her hip and suddenly she was three hours from home.
• 11:33
  She needed surgery.
• 11:34
  She had three dogs to worry about and she couldn't even begin to figure out how she was going to get home.
• 11:40
  But George never said, let me know if there's anything I can do.
• 11:45
  He just started doing it.
• 11:47
  He made sure that the dogs were taken care of.
• 11:50
  He figured out how to get Lori home.
• 11:52
  He set up a GoFundMe, he became the trustee.
• 11:56
  And then any chance he could, he's gone up to Middleburg, which is, you know, an hour and a half, two hours away, but was driving her to doctor's appointments and physical therapy, because that's just what George did.
• 12:12
  And I bet he never thought any of it was extraordinary.
• 12:16
  It's just something that he thought to do.
• 12:20
  Yeah, not for a second.
• 12:21
  To George, it was simply helping a friend.
• 12:25
  And I think that that's why, you know, so many people loved him.
• 12:30
  I think so, too.
• 12:33
  So you said that George loved history, but it seems like what he enjoyed the most was possibly the stories that history uncovered.
• 12:43
  I think that's exactly right.
• 12:44
  It was never just about remembering a horse or remembering a rider.
• 12:50
  George wanted to know the whole where did the horse come from, who trained it, who owned it, who rode it before, the person who has it now, how everybody was connected.
• 13:02
  He just loved connecting all of this because every one of those people mattered to him.
• 13:09
  And I think that's why Mystery Monday was such a success.
• 13:14
  The photograph was just the invitation, but the real fun of it was watching everybody else remember.
• 13:21
  And that's exactly what you've been doing today.
• 13:23
  The funny thing is, after listening to, you know, listening to all of this, reading all of the stories about George and Yalls friendship, I still don't feel like George was trying to leave a legacy.
• 13:37
  No, I don't think so either.
• 13:38
  I don't think George ever woke up thinking about that.
• 13:42
  He was much too busy just living his life, helping somebody, making an introduction, checking on a friend, remembering a horse that everybody else had forgotten.
• 13:53
  That's just what he loved.
• 13:55
  And somehow that's exactly why he left one.
• 13:58
  You know, a few days after he died, somebody commented on Facebook that George should be nominated for the J.
• 14:08
  Arthur Bucky Reynolds Award.
• 14:10
  And I thought, that is absolutely perfect.
• 14:14
  It's posthumous.
• 14:16
  And actually, Rodney Jenkins won it last year.
• 14:20
  So somebody was saying, you know, you need to.
• 14:23
  He needs to be nominated.
• 14:25
  So I said, I'll do it.
• 14:27
  And I did it.
• 14:29
  Not because I thought George needed something to honor him necessarily.
• 14:34
  I did it because I realized that we need to recognize people like George.
• 14:39
  We need to recognize what they stood for.
• 14:43
  Did writing the nomination change anything in terms of the way that you thought about him?
• 14:49
  It did.
• 14:50
  Because when you're asked to explain why somebody deserves an honor, you have to stop and think, what made him deserve this?
• 14:59
  Not what did he accomplish, just what was the thing that made him outstanding?
• 15:06
  And I realized something.
• 15:07
  It wasn't one big thing.
• 15:08
  It was hundreds of little tiny things.
• 15:12
  Whether it was just.
• 15:14
  Whether it was a phone call, an introduction, a ride to an appointment, remembering somebody's horse 40 years later, or helping a friend find a job or teaching a kid at camp, checking in on people, none of those things
• 15:30
  seem very important by themselves until you put 50 years of them together.
• 15:36
  That's such an interesting way to think about someone's life, especially from, you know, your perspective and your friendship.
• 15:45
  It really is.
• 15:46
  And then there's another question.
• 15:49
  How do we make sure that people like George don't quietly disappear from the story of our sport.
• 15:57
  I know.
• 15:58
  You know, every generation has people like him.
• 16:01
  And it seems like today we typically celebrate the champions.
• 16:05
  That's all you see on all the PR posts.
• 16:08
  You know, who won this and who won that, and we should.
• 16:12
  But our sport has also been affected by people like George.
• 16:17
  People whose names aren't always in the headlines, but their influence lasts for generations.
• 16:24
  Is that why you reached out to the usf?
• 16:27
  Yeah, and the USHJ Foundation.
• 16:30
  I don't know what the answer is yet.
• 16:33
  Maybe it's a scholarship, maybe it's a fund, maybe it's an award.
• 16:37
  Or maybe it's helping horsemen or the behind the scenes people in our sport when life suddenly takes an unexpected turn.
• 16:46
  Honestly, I don't know.
• 16:47
  But I do know this.
• 16:48
  I don't want George's story to end here.
• 16:52
  Not because George needs any kind of an honor, but because our sport needs more people like George.
• 17:00
  And if his name can somehow continue helping horsemen the way George spent his life helping horsemen, that would be a pretty incredible legacy.
• 17:13
  Well, I certainly think George would.
• 17:16
  Would have loved that.
• 17:17
  And I think for a man with such generosity and kindness that we should be taking the time to recognize and encourage people to be more like him.
• 17:35
  I think so too.
• 17:36
  Because again, George helped us for years remember the horses, but more importantly, he helped us remember the people.
• 17:44
  So now maybe it's our turn to remember people like George.
• 17:50
  Let's ride.