The Importance of Ice Cream by Becky Stock 2/29/08

 

Once upon a time there were many rabbits.  The rabbits were plentiful and came in a rainbow of colors, shapes and varying degrees of fluff.  Then one day there was a very small rabbit.  He was different than the rest.  He was bold of head, short of ear and sturdily built.  He was a rounded peach of a rabbit and he had the special ability to make people become friends.  He spread his genes to other rabbits, created more like him and the people loved him.  They became a sensation and we called them the Netherland Dwarf. 

 

To one degree or another we can thank our small rabbits for many things in our daily lives.  From things like early mornings and endless hours driving to rabbit shows, frozen water crocks, to the joy of fresh baby rabbits hopping out of the nest, to the challenge of breeding a champion, to things like tons of feed and manure to be dealt with, to things less tangible such as the thrill of winning a best in show and the friendships we forge with the people who also keep rabbits.   All these words have been penned before me, and will be penned again.  I find it difficult to put into words the things that we know to be true and the things we feel and how they are all due to a small special rabbit.

 

I’ve been trying to come up with a written form of something that I only feel in my heart.  I want to tell a story about my friendship with a special man named Larry Long.  I believe that my story will echo in the hearts of people who also knew and loved this man.  My attempt is to show some facets of his personality with a hand full of my memories.  Larry was never the person who wanted a big fuss made over him.  He wanted to make a big fuss over you.  He wanted you to succeed.  He was happy when you were happy.  Your smile made him smile. 

 

I met Larry in April of approximately 1989.  I was 13 years old. We traded some rabbits at a local show.  I had a Smoke Pearl Dwarf doe that he thought he could use and I thought I could use his Blue Mini Rex doe.  I was in awe of his Tan Netherlands and the illusive Otters.  It turns out that the other ‘rabbit people’ I knew also knew this man, and they really liked him as well.  I was told that he was “one of the good guys”.  I had never met anyone quite like Larry.  He had an easy way of talking to people and made friends effortlessly.  He was one of the few people I have ever known that within a few minutes of meeting them for the first time, you automatically feel like you have known them for a lifetime.

 

 

Over the next few months we conversed on the telephone and via mail, and saw each other again in October when he gave me, free of charge, a really nice Sable Marten doe.  I was shocked that she was free, and he stated that he “didn’t really have a need for another lower ‘c’ series doe”   This doe was the half sister to G11 the Sable Marten pictured in the Dwarf Guide book.  He talked of this thing called ‘color genetics’, which I was foaming at the mouth to learn more about.  The vast majority of people simply did not know much about color genetics of rabbits like they do today.  He must have seen some sort of spark in me, because he nurtured it and fanned my flames for more knowledge.  

 

Learning color genetics was an amazing experience.  Larry gave me an autographed copy of Bobby Schott’s Color Genetics of the Netherland Dwarf rabbit, telling me to ‘just read it and let it sink in’.  I read it and needed more.  I finally understood what he meant when he told me that he didn’t need that Sable Marten doe because she was a ‘lower c’.  It became somewhat of an inside joke between us. 

 

We became fast friends.  My mom, Carol and Larry’s wife, Carolyn aka Lolly also became fast friends.  We spent many weekends at their house visiting and looking at rabbits and just enjoying each other’s company.  Larry introduced me to his friend Bob Pettit.  Bob Pettit was a legend of the Pigeon, Poultry and Rabbit world.  He was a WWII vet, a successful entrepreneur, a genetics expert and Bob was Larry's mentor and dear friend.  No one that knew them could deny that their relationship transcended friendship and they were family.  Larry loved me and therefore Bob did and he took me under his wing. 

 

 

Since rabbit shows tend to be annual events, with host clubs putting on their shows the same weekend year after year, it really should be no surprise to find that as a group, rabbit breeders are very bound to tradition.  The Long family and the Stock family built many traditions over the years.  Some of my favorites included the Annual ARBA National convention Becky and Larry walking through all the Dwarfs looking at every single rabbit and critiquing their color (many times quite a few other breeds as well), the “Greasy Spoon” restaurant that was across the street from Larry’s house where he, always good natured and funny, with a smile and a somewhat devious twinkle in his eye, would tell the new and unsuspecting waitress that Lolly was his wife, I was his daughter and my Mom was his mistress.  This is a small glimpse at the humor Larry was known for.  Another of our favorite traditions was attending several summer time County Fairs.  County Fairs are grand.  They are a nice place to show some rabbits then explore the fair grounds and its many animals.  All I know about pigeons and poultry, which is not a whole lot, is directly related to the time spent at fairs, and shows with Larry.  He instilled in the people he knew a respect and admiration for all living creatures, even cats. 

 

August is a hot month.  The temperatures soar, the sun rides high and long in the sky.  We smile and laugh, and attend the Iowa State Fair.  Tradition mandates that Larry and I visit the Coca-cola ice cream parlor.   The best thing for hot weather is to get cooled off and clearly the best way to do this is to have some ice cream.  This old fashioned soda fountain is filled with vintage Coca-cola advertising, novelties and that very special thing, nostalgia.  They serve authentic malts, shakes, sundays, ice cream by the cup, in the cone, old fashioned sodas, the real cherry coke, and the wonder that is the Green River.   Tradition is a strong and driving force. 

 

 I do not recall specifically our first trip to the Coca-Cola Ice Cream Parlor.  But it must have been about 1991.   Over the years we ate various flavors of ice cream, sometimes we were watching our figures and ordered sugar free, other times we got the real stuff.  It was always cold and refreshing and exactly perfect to fix what ever was ailing the heart or mind at the time.  All the pangs of growing up, all the difficult choices and living through the effects of those choices could be smoothed by Larry’s voice saying those amazing words that I will always hear in my mind, "Do you want to have some ice cream?"  For so many people Larry’s friendship was like ice cream. 

 

August 2007.  Larry had pancreatic cancer.  He was not able to attend the State Fair.  My good friend Lynne Rechterman and I took one of our favorite 4-H’ers to get some ice cream after a grueling day at the 4-H Rabbit Show.  I was walking down the hill to the Coca-cola store with a storm cloud heart and heavy thoughts that I would never again get ice cream with my friend Larry.  One simply does not recover from pancreatic cancer.  It was a matter of time.  At that point I had not seen my friend.  I was uncertain I would ever get to see him again.  Lynne and I had the discussion of these facts and how tradition can sometimes be a painful thing.  We decided to hold on to our great memories and we vowed to make new traditions.  We ate our ice cream, and it wasn’t sugar free. 

In December the Des Moines Pigeon Club puts on one of the largest Pigeon shows in the nation.  Tradition mandates we visit Larry and Lolly at the Pigeon show.  My family doesn’t show pigeons, but due to tradition and the open arms of Larry’s friendship, over the years we have made good friends with some of the pigeon folks.  They understand the rabbit habit; they have the same illness, only it’s more like a bird flu to them. 

 

 

Fate dictates that the last time I saw my dear friend Larry Long was at the Des Moines Pigeon show December 2007.  I had been searching for a man on a scooter.   I searched for him in the vast hall full of beautiful birds and I finally found him.  And he looked at me and said, "Oh, it's my sweetheart" and we hugged each other.  I tried to be strong and just be there with him for a little longer, I did know in my heart that this was it.  Time was drawing to an end.  There really were no words to say just moments to cherish. We had to meet our friends because it was time to go.   As my tears began to fall he said to me, "Would you like some ice cream?" I had ice cream with my greatest friend, my mentor, the man that in so many ways was like a father to me, one last time.  I know in my heart that in the many ways Larry felt like a dad to me, I know I felt like a daughter to him.  He was always there with a "Do you need anything?"  Which while it was applying superficially to the bucks and does in his rabbit barn, I knew it also meant so much more.  

Sitting around a table at one of Larry’s favorite restaurants following the funeral services were 12 people of the hundreds that Larry touched in his life.  We were not his family by blood, but his family by the hobbies of racing pigeons and show rabbits.  Some of us are lifelong friends, some of us decades, some less, but all there to comfort each other.  We were all feeling the same loss and the same joy of having the honor of being able to share our lives with him.  From my friend I have learned so many things; generosity, honesty, integrity, and more importantly the value of friendship, laughter and ice cream. It’s a strange organ that human heart.  Some days I feel like I have a hole in my heart from the loss of my friend.  Then I feel like it is so full from the things he has taught me and the things I have to share with others.  My heart is full to the brim because of his guidance and influence. The heart is a strange and strong organ.  I don’t think we even comprehend the tiniest capacity of the heart. Brought together by the small animals we tend, fur and feather alike, our common denominator is the friendships we make, and the lives we touch while we are here.