An Alternate Universe

Everybody needs an alternate universe.  They come in handy, especially these days when the one we all inhabit becomes insufferable.  Right now, aside from the current political scene which features more lying and corruption charges than a B Western, we've got a major dose of disunity to deal with.  People can hardly talk to one another.  Even the talking heads of cable news are interrupting one another at an increased pace.  If I were to return to the classroom this fall, I'd revise my curriculum to include the methodology and strategies for having a discussion about politics.  First, you have to hear the person.  We all could use some revising on that topic.
Having an escape is both useful and necessary.  My alternate universe was once the world of horse racing.  That is to say, I used to inhabit that world.  I only do so virtually now.  But being there offered the opportunity to see, smell, hear and talk about equine athletes.  As a standard of beauty, the thoroughbred has few rivals.  I miss going out to the backstretch early in the morning.  Somehow, seeing the mist and steam waft off of a horse that has just worked 4 furlongs can be very calming. Alternate universes often have a mythology that accompanies them.  People like to believe that the inhabitants are the way they have been portrayed.  To be sure the race track has some colorful souls that more than reinforce the stereotypes that have become familiar to most.  But for everyone, there are two or three others who don't conform to the familiar.  In my 20 or so years of having access, I met people who would be the last person thought of to have an interest in thoroughbred horses.  That's one of the things that kept me interested.  For every hardboot trainer that spouted right-wing politics, I met a college-educated horseman with equal or superior ability.  Most people, with few exceptions, were friendly.  They were easy to engage in conversations about their passion: the horses themselves. But it is a closed world.  Strictly licensed and patrolled, the backstretch is a microcosm of the larger society that tucks it into a semi-rural corner of a big city.

I sacrificed that world to move to the northwest, where it's just not the same.  Oh, it could be, if I let it because a horse is a horse, especially if all you want to do is look at one. But the big tracks are in California, New York, Florida, and of course Kentucky.  As an ex-Californian, there was a time when my alternate universe contained the best of the best.  As a correspondent for The Bloodhorse magazine, I was privy to the inner world of the community that inhabits every race track.  For most of those folks, their sub-culture insulates them from the daily doings of the real world.  Not so everybody.  Just look at the names of some horses or the variety of people that attend the races.
Alternate universes can be manufactured.  We can find them everywhere, so substitutes abound.  My other one involves catching trout on the fly.  I know a few folks who put their entire existence into that endeavor.  I could never do that, so I guess that makes me a "weekend warrior."  Except that I never go fishing on the weekends.  In fact, this very month of August is becoming so hot and steamy that I might not attempt a fishing trip until the post-Labor Day days of September.