Thoughts on the night's news
Back in early grade school, my mom rented the Littlest Horse Thieves, a movie from Disney's lean years. How were different were the lean years? Horse Thieves had an unhappy ending. Or at least a not so happy one.
Three kids live in a British coal mining town at the turn of the century. One's dad died in the mine, but still two of them work in the underground stable for the mine's Shetland ponies. The kids hear some bad news about the phonies: the owner is going to send them to the slaughterhouse. Machines and profits will replace them.
As the plot passes, the kids earn the horses' freedom, but a mine disaster strikes and the animals are pressed into service. Their work saves the miners. The ponies — I don't remember if it was some or all — don't make it.
The end.
Littlest Horse Thieves is a movie I've never been able to shake. The name is silly, but I never remember the name anyway. A decade-plus after watching it, most of what I remember is feelings. Scared as the kids were lowered in the mine elevator. Surprised when everything went downhill at the end. Sad when the credits rolled. Movies weren't supposed to end that way, and neither was life.
But in my shock at the movie's close, I think I must have missed the lift in its coda. Although the horses were lost, they had died saving the miners. I think I was just too young to understand what a hero was.
The gut of heroism is the work. Winning the day is only coincidental. That's easier to say on a good day, I guess, but that's okay with me.
According to weather reports, the sun will rise in Somerset at 6:11 this morning. Thank God for the work.
