Little Bo Peep Rides the Range

Since this blog is called “observed”, I thought I would start with an observation/memory from my childhood. It was 1985, we had just pulled into the barn driveway on a busy Saturday afternoon and were greeted by a throng of people who seemed to be gaping at some activity. In case you’re wondering, I grew up on a horse ranch about an hour outside of Chicago. We had two barns and about 55 horses that we boarded for other people (including a few of our own). We also had three huge pastures, one with lots of trees and a creek, one with one really excellent tree on the top of the hill that turned this brilliant gold in the autumn, and one with no trees at all. So, back to the story.

My mom and I pulled into the barn driveway and stopped the car to see what all the fuss was about. Before we could even get out, my grandfather had come running up to warn us and to tell my mom that she better take care of this. Through the crowd, we could see what “this” was. In the big pasture with the tree on the hill, we could see Little Bo Peep (yeah, that Little Bo Peep) trotting across the pasture, parasol and all, on a white horse known as Joe. As we got closer, and my mom began to disperse the boarders, we realized that it was Janie dressed as Little Bo Peep being filmed for a music video by Caroline, the former lawyer/musician/barn eccentric.

Now, this might not sound that unusual to you. Maybe you’re thinking, “So what. People shoot music videos all the time and they generally include unusual, theatrical elements”. Well, picture Little Bo Peep as a fit, middle-aged man with a day’s worth of scruff on his face trotting around on an old white horse trying not to fall off or drop his parasol while maintaining the little girl persona of his character. It all seemed normal to me. I mean, weird things happened all the time at that barn. It was one hell of a childhood. Oh, and I should tell you that our musician, Caroline, she was on the order of Phoebe from the show “Friends” but with a raspy, Tom Waits-type voice and a dirty, saggy bohemian look. She also liked to sunbathe in the nude and ride in the forest preserve a la Lady Godiva, except without the long blonde hair or the young, firm body.

As soon as our Lady Godiva saw my mom, she came running over saying loudly in her rough, sing-songy voice, “Hello! You don’t mind if we shoot our video here do you?” My mom, a generally open-minded person, told her to finish it up in a hurry since they were causing a scene and hadn’t even bothered to warn her. Caroline went on to say that they would be done soon, and that wasn’t it so great that Joe was behaving? And didn’t Janie just look fantastic in his outfit? What a great video this would make! And then she proceeded to sing us a few bars of the song so we could get the idea. Mom smiled and rolled her eyes as she walked away. If only I had pictures of all this.