Standing In A Giant's Hoofprints: Bob McCarthy's Anvil Dedication Saturday

There's a saying that gets tossed around a lot in leadership-by-design books. It's often spouted from the stage by commencement speakers. The words, attributed to Sir Issac Newton, appear on the edge of every British two-pound coin. Newton is said to have said, "If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

I'm sure you understand precisely what this saying means. We have progressed further than those who came before us, because of their tremendous height--height in humanity, height in perseverance, height in sacrifice or bravery or intelligence or ability. And, in some way, the giants gained their height too by the act of lifting up the next generation, sometimes by not even acknowledging that that is what they were doing, even as they did it.

British two-pound coin

For the most part, these giants exist in people's memories. Each of us knows who the giants are--or were--in our lives. But sometimes we see the ghosts of the giants, or I do.

I remember being at farrier Eddie Watson's funeral in Virginia, at an overflowing funeral home with three chapels--all three filled with the three F's of Mr. Watson's life: friends, family and farriers. At the Hunt Club reception afterwards, there was a tiny lamp; he had forged the beautiful base. It burned brightly, though it was the middle of the afternoon, and the paper shade was a warm color. As people jostled around, that little light kept burning. I think I know why it was there, and why it was turned on.

A tree was planted in Saratoga.

Another time was when the horseshoers at Saratoga lost several members of their fraternity in one year. To commemorate the loss, they set up an anvil and planted a tree as a little memorial garden outside the blacksmith shop behind the Oklahoma Training Track. A lot of people came to the dedication ceremony, all for different reasons, and in memory of different people. We stood and stared at a little sapling tree, and beyond.

I felt that way in 2008, when Cornell's vet school farrier shop was remodeled and then-resident farrier Michael Wildenstein sank into the concrete of the floor shoes made by the instructors who had come before him.  And he made sure that Buster Conklin, the only one still living (at the time), came in to have his photo taken in the new shop with his shoe in the floor.

A giant named Buster Conklin posed with Cornell farrier school students in 2008.

We all have ways of remembering people who've made a difference in our lives, and we carry them around in and with us in different ways. But sometimes people care enough, and are creative enough, to make an extra effort, to call out for a gathering or a photo session or a special place to set up a little lamp, because it's important.

Saturday afternoon will be one of those times. The senior statesman of Massachusetts horseshoers, Mr. Bob McCarthy, died last year. His wonderful blacksmith shop in his little town of Medfield has been torn down. A forge stood in that spot for almost 200 years but now there's a parking lot. But someone cared enough to do something to mark the spot where Bob spent his days--spent his life, in fact.

We all had to start somewhere, even Myron McLane, and he was lucky enough to start with Bob McCarthy. Myron bought Bob's 225-pound Eagle anvil years ago when the shop closed, and now has prepared it as a monument on a special granite base, surrounded with a mosaic of inlaid horseshoes made by farriers who were influenced by Bob, and who cared enough to make a shoe in his memory. There will be a few of Bob's shoes in there as well. The town has approved the monument and the dedication.

Allen Smith and Bob McCarthy, two giants of New England farriery.

Bob's anvil will be dedicated at 12:30 on September 17 on Janes Avenue in Medfield, Massachusetts. Everyone is welcome. Just ask anyone where Bob's blacksmith shop used to be. It's the kind of place that, even though it's gone, is still there in a lot of people's memories, and now an anvil will mark the spot.

It doesn't seem so long ago that a giant stood in that very spot, and behind that very anvil, the one that Bob's father bought in 1931. If Bob stood there on Saturday and looked down, he'd see the beautiful workmanship of the farriers who stand today on his shoulders, farriers who haven't forgotten who helped lift them to where--and who--they are today.

Favorite Photo: The Architecture of an Age, the Culture of a Craft

Posted by Fran Jurga | November 16, 2008 | www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

Fabulous Flickr image originally uploaded by ALGO and kindly loaned by him

As the sun sets in Buckinghamshire, England, it warms and illuminates centuries of different families of bricks that are working together to hold up a lovely old smithy in the village of Wingrave. How those old timbers are defying gravity is a mystery to me but I am so glad they are resisting what must be a tremendous urge to let down the weight.

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a sucker for arch-door smithies of the type that proliferated the Irish and British countrysides around the turn of the century. If you squint at this shop, you can see an arch not for the door, but for the entire structure. The arch, of course, is the strongest form in nature and in engineering, and the strongest men in the village found ways to incorporate it into their simple workshops. The fact that the arch is mirrored in the horseshoe was a bonus that these self-taught architects just could not resist exploiting!

How many people rush by this old building each day without a thought to what its survival means? People will stop and photograph a water wheel or a dovecote or an old weathervane, but old blacksmith shops rarely are worthy of a snap, perhaps because they are so humble and, until you look more closely, non-descript.

My guess is that until the wintery sun hit at just this angle, the photographer hadn't paid much attention, either. The sun showed him a warm patchwork quilt, built out of bricks.

Thanks to Algo (Alex), for the loan of this beautiful photo. Alex is an extraordinary landscape photographer; his Flickr files are worth a long glance, just like this forge.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.