I came into this world as a new HOSP(high-order sensitive person)several years after WWII ended. I am the oldest of five children, three girls and two boys. My father was a chemical engineer and a PWAOS (people who are often sensitive). And typical for the time, my mother was a homemaker and one of TOP (the other people). I am sure my parents would’ve agreed that I was the kid with the most high-test sensitive genes out of their five children.
Even though I was a High Order Sensitive Person at birth, what do you think my parents did for family entertainment during my youth? They did what most parents did in that period: they took me and my brothers and sisters to just about every Walt Disney movie shown during that era. Looking back on it now, I was probably one of the worst little kids to sit through any of Disney’s animated features. However, if my parents hadn’t taken me to see what I call the special ones, those featuring realistic animals who could speak to each other, I don’t think I would have become a Guardian of the Road, and that would’ve been a terrible loss to my world.
For most of my childhood, we lived in an undeveloped (at the time) rural area known as Teays Valley, mid-way between Huntington and Charleston, West Virginia. In order to buy her weekly groceries, my mother had to drive twelve miles to the small town of St. Albans. There were no ‘real’ restaurants in ‘the valley’, and the only store nearby was what we nicknamed the ‘Valley Store’, where one could buy penny candy, milk, bread, and a few basics, along with chicken feed, grain for horses, shot-gun shells, and dog food. I think at the time there was only one theater that showed movies; it stood next to a Ben Franklin Five & Dime Store in distant St. Albans and the building probably hallmarked back to the Vaudeville era. A trip to the movies was a major event in my family. For an impressionistic HOSP like me, it was pure joy!
Walt Disney was an entertainment genius, because with his imaginative animated action movie and feature films, he inspired generations of children. In the late 1930s, Walt Disney Productions introduced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was the first full length animated film in America, and the first animation produced in full color.
Prior to the release of Snow White in the late l930s, some in the movie industry called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs… ‘Disney’s folly’*, thinking no adult would sit through a ninety-minute animated cartoon of one of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. But they underestimated Walt’s brilliance and his appeal to people during the Depression years. Even though folks had little money to spare, the movie was a financial and cultural success. I believe that the key to Snow White’s triumph resides in the humanistic portrayal of animated animal characters, in juxtaposition to their animated human characters. Mr. Disney and his staff of animators created talking animals for the benefit of children in the audience, and the more realistic animated actor-like characters for the adults… I suppose so they’d stay and watch the film. In most of the animated Disney films, there are five key elements that prove Walt’s genius as a producer: a solid storyline, an element of horror or tension to maintain interest, vividly drawn characters, the use of color to illustrate the story, and powerful music woven into every thread of the film.
I cannot tell you which of Walt Disney’s early movies I saw first, but I am pretty sure it was Snow White. Nevertheless, that first movie was an adventure into another world for me. There I was, about six years old, sitting in a small, but relatively ornate theater, and waiting for something to happen that I instinctively knew would be magical. For most movie outings, my mother would bring homemade buttered popcorn, and my father would buy each of us a small box of candy. To this day, I blame the movies for my sweet tooth. We kids would fight to be the one who got to hold the greasy popcorn bag and took turns grabbing handfuls and stuffing salty corn and sweet candy into our mouths. Sweet and salty, both treats HOSP love to eat together, the highs and lows of the food chain
MY FIRST ANIMAL SPIRIT MOVIE
I remember being enthralled with Dumbo and Snow White, since watching comic book characters transform into stories with animation, color, and music was an amazing experience for a child like me. I believe those two movies laid the groundwork for my eventual epiphany. It is easy for me to look back now and realize exactly when I knew my highly sensitive nature was going to be both a burden and a joy throughout my life. The day I saw what I call my First Animal Spirit Movie, Walt Disney and his animators had a forever claim to my heart. What did they do to lay claim to that little heart of mine? Disney Productions presented: Bambi!
Bambi was released during WWII in 1942 and lost money at the box office. The initial reviews were awful, calling the film too violent, too realistic for children. Sportsmen were livid, claiming the film portrayed them as the enemy, which it did. The New York Times review said that Mr. Disney had ‘thrown away his wonderful world of cartoon fantasy in his search for realism’*. But after the re-release of the film in l947, the movie recovered its costs and became a financial success. Today it is considered a classic and one of the top animated films ever made. * Although that first criticism was scathing, it didn’t last long, because both children and adults were mesmerized by the realistic rendering of animals in a genre of movies that had previously portrayed them in a cartoonish way. They loved it, and eventually, I did too.
The original novel by Felix Salten, Bambi,A Life in the Woods, was written for adults, and many thought it too grim for a typical Disney film. Moreover, the animators were not accustomed to depicting animals in their natural form. But Walt wanted the film to be realistic, so he set up a small zoo with deer and woodland creatures so his artists could study them at close range. Using a multi-plane camera also added to the realism of the forest backgrounds the artists researched by visiting the Eastern woodlands that had inspired the author. There were no humans in the film, but I didn’t notice it at the time. In the end, the results were fantastic, and they achieved the realism Walt envisioned. The creatures were so real, they convinced even me.
I sure hate to ruin things for those who have never seen Bambi, but you need to know the story to understand how it affected a young HOSP like me. With some of my own interjections, here is a boiled down version of how Wikipedia describes the storyline:
We first see Bambi as a fawn with his mother in the forest. After she teaches him to walk and speak, he befriends a young rabbit named Thumper, and a skunk he calls Flower. His mother tells him he’s The Prince of the Forest, named after his father, the Great Prince. In a meadow one day, he discovers a beautiful fawn, Faline, and they become friends. All his animal friends work together to protect each other, and even the crows sound the alarm when hunters enter the woods. There are several near misses as Bambi is the target of a hunter’s gun, but in one such frightening incident, as he races away… shots ring out, and he loses sight of his mother. Soon, his father comes to the rescue, but Bambi learns his mother is dead.
Boy that did it for me! The tears began to flow and did not end until sometime that evening. His mother’s death wasn’t the worst of it, of course.
Bambi recovers. Along with his friends, we watch him grow into a young buck and find love with Faline. Out of the blue, he’s challenged by another deer, and they fight viciously for Faline’s affections. Bambi rises to the occasion, defeats the suitor, and pushes him off a cliff into a river.
Just when the viewer thinks everything is going to end happily, Bambi awakens to the smell of smoke and the sound of a horn. Bambi’s father explains that Man has returned and they must flee. Bambi and Faline become separated as a fire sparks nearby. He returns to find her, but she’s gone. While searching for Bambi, Faline is chased by hunting dogs and ends up on a cliff ledge. Bambi finds her, fights off the dogs, allowing Faline to escape. Bambi kills the dogs, then takes off, but is shot while he leaps over a ravine. The Great Prince finds Bambi, gets him back on his feet as the forest fire takes hold, and all of their lives are in jeopardy.
The final ending I will leave for you to discover on your own. But I am sure you get the idea. During the film, I was happy, sad, excited, and scared, all at the same time. Mostly, Bambi overwhelmed me. In the theater, it was in color when most films were still in black and white. But I think the key to its magic was the music. There weren’t any memorable songs in the film, but the music was instrumental in conveying the thoughts and feelings of the characters, as well as the love story and the growing tension surrounding the ominous threat of the hunters.
My emotions were on the arm of my seat from the opening credits. Like Dumbo and Snow White, the animals spoke to each other and were tenderhearted. But Bambi was different, it was a film made especially for future Guardians of the Road, I now believe. Compared to the action movies of today, Bambi must seem like a simple tale, but it isn’t. If you haven’t seen it, you must, and if you have young HOSP at home, beware, but don’t prevent them from someday experiencing the joy of this magnificent film.
Those who love animals... as deeply as I do...cried during this movie. There is no question in my mind that seeing Bambi influenced my life in a profound way. I didn’t know it at the time, but I came away from that film realizing my first important Guardian tenant: Animals have thoughts, feelings, and fears, and we should treat them as equals on this planet of ours. I now subscribe to the beliefs of the American Indian: We are charged by the Creator with the care of all animals. They are sacred beings, and we should share our world with them.
I was not the only child who took this movie to heart. And I often think about all the other young HOSP out there who might want to be a GOTR someday. However, I was so distraught that my hypersensitivity really began to worry my parents. I know they had ‘discussions’ about my ‘problem’ from that point on. I hoped the discussions would cease when I left home for college, some odd years later. Nevertheless, they didn’t; my parents continued to worry about my highly sensitive nature for many years to come.
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MY FIRST REALITY BASED ANIMAL SPIRIT MOVIE
To me, the first reality-based animal spirit movie was Disney’s Old Yeller. It was released in 1958 when I was almost ten. Old Yeller was not an animated film, but a real-life action feature. As usual, we saw Old Yeller as a family. I recall the experience vividly, because we sat near the front of the theater, and the picture came up, in color no less. I was awestruck.
Televisions were still relatively new to most households then. We had one very small television at home, and it displayed only black and white. So color on a big screen, in the theater, no less, covered me with a miracle. Not only was Old Yeller in color, but this Disney movie was a powerful and emotional one. It’s about a boy and a stray dog, set in post-Civil War Texas. Here is a snapshot of how Wikipedia describes the film:
The father leaves home to work on a cattle drive, leaving behind his wife Katie, older son Travis and young son Arles. Travis encounters Old Yeller, a Labrador retriever, and tries to drive the dog away, but Arles defends him. Later, Arles tries to capture a bear cub. The angry mother bear attacks, but Old Yeller drives her off, earning the affection of the family. Travis accepts the dog, and a profound bond grows between the two.
The family soon realizes that their cow has rabies. Watching her stumble about, Travis confirms it and shoots her. While his mother burns the cow’s carcass, a rabid wolf attacks her. Yeller defends her but is bitten before Travis can kill the wolf. The family pens Yeller in a cage. Soon enough, the dog displays signs of rabies. After Yeller nearly attacks Arles, a grieving Travis is forced to shoot the dog. We soon learn that before he got rabies, Old Yeller sired puppies with a neighboring dog. The two brothers fall in love with one pup, and call him Young Yeller, after his father.”
At the time, critics called Old Yeller… “a nice little family picture, sentimental but rugged and sturdy as a stick’. * From all accounts, “the movie went on to be a cultural film for Baby Boomers, with Old Yeller’s death being remembered as one of the most tearful in cinematic history”. *
Once again, it was partly the evocative music and partly the emotions displayed by one of the better dog actors that made the movie special. You see Yeller’s evolution from a sweet loving dog to a mad sick animal. At my age, I didn’t understand something bad had to happen in a movie to make it exciting. Can you imagine my face when it did? My parents kept looking at me during the film with worried brows. They probably were thinking that maybe Old Yeller was too much for such a sensitive child, but by that time it was too late.
To me, the spirit of Old Yeller spoke to my tender heart, and from what I can tell, many who saw the film at the time had a similar experience. Disney repeated this general concept in other movies, but I remember it best because Old Yeller was my first reality-based animal spirit movie. It is, of course, a Guardian of the Road film of the highest order.
I should’ve been elated at the end of the movie, but I just could not get past the sad part. Even though I knew the story had a happy conclusion, I was still back in the barn with the gun going off. As an aside to my tale here, when Travis shot Old Yeller, I looked over at my Dad. Engineer, WWII veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a strong man…and there he was, crying just like me, but not as loudly. He was also a sensitive person, but it took me a few years to realize it.
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THE FIRST GUARDIAN OF THE ROAD TELEVISION SERIES
Historians have described the l950s as the golden age of television. There were only three channels in the l950s: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Therefore, everything they presented was a grand experiment in a new and exciting form of entertainment. Many popular shows continued for years, allowing the viewer to embrace the characters. And even better, fans waited eagerly for the next installment, not unlike the serials produced for radio two decades earlier. Sponsors often stayed with a program for its duration, and its product sometimes became synonymous with the presentation. We, as a people, were a captive audience, and it was easy to catch us and reel us in. After suffering the poverty and bleakness of the Great Depression and the years of sacrifice during WWII, we were ready and willing to be enchanted.
It was the decade of censorship and conservatism, so most programs reflected that ideology, as well as stressing the importance of the nuclear family. Austerity was evident in some of the shows’ themes since Britain was still rationing food from the after-effects of WWII. The shows we saw during the golden age of television were, with some exceptions, family friendly productions, portraying wholesome values and morals.
For the most part, my parents controlled what we saw on television during the 50s, and to some extent in the 60s. We’d beg to stay up and watch Perry Mason or, later on, the Fugitive, but if it was a school night, we only saw those shows on weekends and summer reruns. By then, we kids were all outside all the time and watched television only at night or when it rained.
In case you think that television had little impact on a young HOSP like me, you are so wrong. In l954 a new weekly family series was introduced: Lassie! Yes, another boy-and-his-dog adventure. Only this one was different than Old Yeller, because the dog was the real star, not the people, although I envied the kids who were Lassie’s masters thru the years: Jeff Miller, and later, Timmy Martin. The show was hit and earned Emmys in Children’s Programming during the first couple of years.
Since this successful series came on in the early evening, we were all allowed to see it. We had a blunderbuss for a television, whose tubes always blew out and made my father angry. He would spend hours in the closet behind the TV, trying to replace the burned-out tubes. No matter what, a tube could never be burned out on Lassie Night, or I’d cry, afraid I’d miss the show. There was, as you can imagine, considerable pressure on my father to make sure the set was working on Lassie Night. My brothers and sisters liked Lassie, too, but they were younger, and not as dedicated. I was addicted. Lassie was heaven on earth for a young HOSP like me.
Lassie began in September of l954 when I was not yet six years old. As you must’ve figured out by now, 1954 was an important year for me. Lassie continued until about 1971, a long run for any television program. I am one of those people who enjoy the colorization of old movies. But looking back on the show now, I think the simplicity of seeing Lassie in stark black and white emphasized the emotional nature of the series and the post-war era perfectly. There was nothing to distract a young HOSP, no fancy animation, no vibrant colors, no unrealistic storylines; it was pure and simple black and white.
Each week, the program revolved around Lassie, a High Order Sensitive Collie, to be sure. In many episodes, Lassie saves creatures, wild and tame, from abuse, finds them when they are lost or hurt or starving or near death. There were numerous episodes where we see her pray (yes that’s right, Lassie prays) with the family over some hurt creature. So I feel confident that, although she wasn’t a human, I can now declare with certainty that Lassie was my very first Guardian of the Road dog! Stick with me here because I can prove it. She cares for those creatures in need of help or rescue; she prays for those who need divine intervention or those who’ve passed away, and she’s undoubtedly an advocate for animals. Case closed!
What mesmerized me at the time was that Lassie seemed to understand so many words. Our dogs, who were Cockers, would barely sit on command, much less save people and animals from life-threatening events. Disregarding the behind-the-scenes-dog-trainers and their use of tricks (which I knew nothing about until much later) there’s the distinct possibility that Lassie was psychic! Lassie could anticipate trouble, or sense when something horrible was happening or about to happen to any person or animal she cared about. The show’s producers used music to add tension, and during climactic scenes, real emotions were apparent on Lassie’s face, at least that’s what I perceived. The dog was a brilliant actor; she/he could stretch out on the ground and look dead. Every time Lassie ‘played’ dead for the part, I cried, of course.
In one of the early shows, Lassie fell into a deep hole and could not get out. You could see the fear on her face and knew she was scared. Week after week, some frightening thing would happen to her, or to someone in the family, or a neighbor, or a friend, or to some poor innocent animal. Here are just a few of the things that Lassie had to endure.
Lassie:
• Went up against an escaped convict
• Faced a lion that broke loose from a circus
• Got a possible case of rabies
• Had a battle with a rattlesnake
• Got attacked by a bear
• Saved a bear cub from teenage hunters who drove a sports car and killed animals for fun
• Heard a monster near the lake that made scary noises (but it was really a seal)
• Came across a witch
• Is taken by a gypsy that steals dogs and puts then in freak shows, which she did to Lassie
• Is mistakenly taken to a dog pound
• Starts to go blind
• Has trouble delivering her puppies
• Gets trapped in a cave
• Horrible things happened to Lassie for almost twenty years, with just as many rescues
I would sit in front of this newfangled television, as close as I could get, and watch Lassie, spellbound. As you might guess, I cried during almost every show. One two-part episode was so emotional that I became, what some might call, hysterical. Lassie and her family went on vacation, far away from home. As you might guess, Lassie got lost, then was left behind. Can you imagine my face as that poor dog had to walk home, through deserts, over mountains, past bears and bobcats, battling rainstorms, freezing blizzards…all with a hurt leg? Lassie limped with her leg curled up for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Obviously, to everyone else watching, there was no question Lassie was up to the challenge and would make it home to her family. But as a young HOSP, I didn’t know that.
After seeing the final episode of this series, my very worried parents put me to bed with fear in their eyes. The next day they gave me the worst punishment of my life, thus far. They banned me from watching Lassie ever again. Once banished to my dark bedroom, every Lassie Night was pure misery for me. The other kids were given permission to watch it, but all I could do was hide under the covers and listen for that sad Lassie introductory music. You know the one: A man whistles a lonesome tune, and a boy calls out…Lassie, Lass…ie!
I reveled in the emotions, even at such a young age. I loved the feelings that crying over Lassie’s trials and tribulations engendered in me. I don’t blame my parents for not wanting a distraught child in the house every Lassie Night. It broke their hearts to see me so upset.
Lassie, along with Bambi and Old Yeller, became the catalysts that, many years later, drove me to become a…. Guardian of the Road!
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A YOUNG GUARDIAN OF THE ROAD EMERGES
I had a rough life as a young HOSP. Until my first year in junior high school, bullies used me for target practice. Along with attacks on the bus, I was ridiculed at school, tripped in the hallways, shoved against my locker, locked out of the building once, and made the butt of jokes in my classrooms. Those who participated in the bullying, both boys and girls, were, without a doubt, mentally and physically cruel to me. Their vicious acts turned a happy-go-lucky little girl into a jumbled mess of nerves and self-doubt. I often found myself in the school’s bathroom, trying to hide from the worst of the bunch, but there were no safe places to hide. Bullies, disguised as children, picked on me because they sensed I was easy prey, perhaps due to what they perceived as a weakness. If they could make me cry, which was easy to do, I suspect it made them feel superior. I was like the only plastic duck in the water trough of a carnival game: a sure win.
My mother was naturally aware of my problem since I’d come home in tears more often than not. She’d also witnessed how some of the neighborhood children had mocked me to the point that I was treated as an outcast. Just like a coach before a big game, Mom gave me pep talks in her attempts to lift my spirits. And my father gave me boxing lessons. But neither idea really worked. Then our bus driver stopped by the house after school one day; he was a nice man and always had a smile for me. He told my mother about the bullies on the bus and how I’d cower in the back seat and cry. He was hoping she could do something to help me.
My mother decided I needed a sense of pride. And I would gain that pride if I learned how to do some special skill…well. My father agreed, and they set out to boost my self-image. Bullies will not pick on someone with confidence, my parents declared with authority. My mother signed me up for just about any class or after-school activity she could find. First, she encouraged me to join the local Girl Scout troupe, which I did with some trepidation. Although skeptical at first, I ended up being in the Scouts for five years and loved it.
Almost all the outside classes I took during that time were in the town of St. Albans, which meant that my mother had to drive twelve miles each way so I could attend. Sometimes that meant three times a week. The classes included: dancing, singing, violin, piano, How to Be a Lady lessons; poise and charm lessons, ballet, the baton for majorettes, and numerous weeks at wonderful summer camps sponsored by my father’s company, Union Carbide. By the time I was 12, there were five children in my family, and a lot of work for my mother. But Mom did her very best to help her young, struggling HOSP.
Of all the lessons my mother arranged for me, the most important ones were in art. Mom was a keenly observant woman, and she must have seen in me a spark of talent, maybe because I loved to draw. She searched everywhere to locate art lessons for me, but that was not an easy chore. In West Virginia, art was not taught in public schools at the time. Finally, she found a woman who’d recently emigrated from Hungary after the Communists take over there. She was a portraitist and was trying to support herself by teaching children how to draw and paint. This wonderful woman became my first art teacher, and I took lessons from her for years.
Being a klutz (then and now) I never excelled at dancing, ballet, or baton twirling. And even after years of lessons, I can’t play a tune on the piano or violin. But I must admit the poise and charm lessons helped me be less awkward, and I suppose it never hurts to learn how to be a lady. Once I finished college, I eventually became a professional artist and still have a vibrant business selling my original watercolor paintings. I will be forever grateful to my mother for all my many lessons, but I am especially thankful to her for the opportunity to learn drawing and painting from such a talented artist. Although my parent’s plan to boost my self-image was eventually successful to a degree, I was and still am a HOSP.
Check back soon for Blog Post #4!!!
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