{"id":280,"date":"2021-04-18T13:37:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T21:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=280"},"modified":"2021-07-04T17:54:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T01:54:59","slug":"my-little-iron-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"My little iron horse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I was growing up, my sisters and I were enamored by the stories written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, also known as the <em>Little House on the Prairie <\/em>series. (For those of you thinking, \u201cOh, I remember that TV show,\u201d it\u2019s not your turn to talk. These are <em>books.<\/em>) Early on, my favorite part was the fact that my older sisters were apparently named after the older two of the Ingalls girls: Mary and Laura. I probably asked my mother at one time or another why she didn\u2019t name me Carrie, or even Carrie Grace, after the younger two girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Laura wrote about experiencing many \u201cfirsts,\u201d from eating an orange as an adult to seeing the cross-country railroad being built. I remember her marveling that while horses could make twenty miles in a day, a train, also called an \u201ciron horse,\u201d could go twenty miles in an hour. That was remarkable for the times. As my father would have said, \u201cEverything is relative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, here in Aniak, Alaska for a couple of months I have a little iron horse of my own on which to toodle around town. Most people call these things four-wheelers. Anyway, I am indeed learning to run the cantankerous little thing. To get on, I swing a leg over, as if mounting a horse; the brake, throttle and starter are on the handlebars, and the gears are a small foot pedal. When I turn the key to start it up I often murmur, \u201cCome on now, Betsy,\u201d while I might say \u201cWhoa, Nellie,\u201d while applying the brakes. I have learned that Betsy\/Nellie does not like to be bothered when it\u2019s twenty below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In science class my borrowed fifth graders have been studying technology, and some of the benefits and problems associated with new inventions. Machines for faster transportation are obviously a topic of much discussion. And while I could certainly walk to school, having a mechanical pony of my very own has done much to expand my world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was growing up, my sisters and I were enamored by the stories written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, also known as the Little House on the Prairie series. (For those of you thinking, \u201cOh, I remember that TV show,\u201d it\u2019s not your turn to talk. These are books.) Early on, my favorite part was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[210,211,212],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-four-wheeler","tag-iron-horse","tag-learning-a-new-skill"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}