Monkey Sister - Tooth & Claw

I had a friend, and we planned to go to dinner. I made the reservations. I wear the nice jacket. I knock on the door, and she answers. Tear-y-eyed. She said she's so, so, so sorry. But she can't go out as planned. Oh, no. What's the matter? Everything all right? Well, she says Snookums is sad Snookums? Snookums, my rat I don't know, he's just having attachment issues right now I don't think it's fair to leave him here alone I said, oh, you know, I understand I do, you know, with the rats and such Really? Sure, absolutely But I should, you know, probably get going right away. Right away quick. You don't have to. We could. No, no, no. I think I do. I hope Snookums and y'all feel better. And with the rapid steps, I flee. My friends later at the bar howl in laughter. Call me terrible names. Now, no. I admit it's on me. It is. But I kind of think like I don't even have a whole lot of rules. I don't, truly. I just, I don't know. I don't do rats. Am I a speciesist? Probably. I think I would understand a dog or even a cat, God forbid. They're part of the family, sure. And accommodations must be made. But what if your other family member isn't a rat, exactly, but still has the gall to think that mom and dad like her best. Today in Snap Judgment's Tooth and Claw series, we proudly present Monkey Sister. My name is from Washington. Personally, I don't believe in pets you can call the exterminator on when you're listening to Snap Judgment. Snap. Now, there's an old saying. You sometimes see on Hallmark cards and coffee mugs that says, sisters are like different flowers from the same garden. Lovely. But things might have been a little bit different at the Friedman home in upstate New York, where the firstborn Hannah, she was still trying to figure out her place in the family pecking order. Step judgment. Amelia knew how much I loved peanut butter. and sometimes she would run her fingers through it in front of me and she would just make eye contact with me as her little paw claw was running its way through the peanut butter and then she would lick it off of her fingers one by one as she was making deep eye contact with me. I would just shiver. It was so gross to me and I would say, Mom, please, can I have my own special peanut butter? Can we hide it? Can we keep it in a different cabinet? And my mom would say, well, she likes peanut butter too. So my sister's name was Amelia. But the strange thing about my sister is that she was not a human. She was a monkey. She was a capuchin monkey. She's like the monkey on Friends or the monkey from Indiana Jones. She has dark brown fur and she has such an expressive face. She really is like a little mini human. And she probably weighed about seven pounds, I'd say, about the size of a house cat. I was the firstborn human, but my mom had this monkey who preceded me. I had had Amelia six years before I had a baby. I'm a zoologist, and I've worked with many different types of animals, training them. I was a veterinary technician at the time as well. I was working in a laboratory looking at the well-being of the animals that were there. And Fish and Wildlife called us. They had a capuchin monkey that had been brought in on a merchant marine ship from Egypt that they didn't know what to do with. She was very into coins and cigarettes. And that's usually a mark that the animals were used in market squares to entertain people. She was very malnourished, and she was basically really scared of people. And then the bond was very, very close when she learned to trust me. I started taking her home on the weekends, and then I started taking her home all the time. And then when I decided to leave the program, I just decided to take her. She would have a much better life with me than in the program. So basically, I just brazenly took her. When I got her, she had many teeth taken out by her previous owners. And that was another reason I was able to keep her. And that was another reason that she did not go into a sanctuary, which is usually the best place for a monkey to go. She was so sick, I thought she was just going to pass the first year that I got her. But when I started her on medication, she became stronger and she became a really solid monkey. I realized that she's around for a while. Did she feel like a first child? Yes. She was very much like a baby. I took her everywhere with me. I was always aware of where she was. There was a lot of messes to clean up. So when I finally had Hannah, it wasn't that much different. Was your husband reluctant at all about having Amelia with a baby? Oh no, not at all. She was so sweet with babies and with children. No qualms at all because she had already proven herself to be very discerning about infants and was always super gentle with them and attentive. So yeah, there were no real concerns at all. She would sit with her in the crib. The two of them were wonderful together. They really, really enjoyed each other a lot. She would groom my hair, and she taught me how to pick things up with my feet. They got fed at the same time, and they played with the same toys. I felt like I had this incredible playmate because we would make a mess together. We would eat a bunch of oatmeal and throw it all over the table. We would play. You could kind of wrestle with her and throw across the room, and she would rush back. And she's so athletic, so she could climb to the top of a banister in one second and leap around the house. And it was so fun. And I never felt unsafe around her. It was great growing up with this monkey. Hannah really couched it as being a sibling. I'd never really thought of it in terms of a sibling. That's Hannah's take on it. She literally ate my homework, and I had to go to the school psychologist because when I said that, the teacher didn't know that I was telling the truth. And I was so frustrated that they didn't believe me that I started crying and screaming that they had to believe me. My monkey sister was real. My sister really was a monkey. I didn't think of her as a pet. She was a member of the family. She just insinuated herself into our household. She was just like a little hairy kid. At first in elementary school, it was so cool to have a monkey as a sister. Everyone's dream is to play with a monkey. So people would want to come over to my house and I would have all my toys set up and dolls and things that I wanted to play, games and puzzles. And nobody gave a shit about any of that because there's a monkey. She was very jealous of the monkey sometimes because a lot of people wanted to come over and see the monkey and not hang out and play in her room. The minute they knew that I had a monkey as a sister, that's all they wanted to know about. Where did she come from? What is her name? What is she like? What does she eat? Does she poop and throw it at people? Amelia was somewhat of a celebrity around the neighborhood, and she had been in a movie called Monkey Shines. Monkey Shines. An experiment in fear. So my mom was part of this monkey entertainment enterprise. And there was a movie called Monkey Shines, directed by George Romero. They actually came to my mom and asked if she could help advise them on how to be able to do some of these shots. So I said, I'll do it. Someone's going to do it. I know how to do it. And I'll make sure that it's done humanely. So you train monkeys? An animal trained to follow commands. So who could possibly do all the complex tricks that are required for this role? Amelia was so talented, she could do all these things. She could, like, do a Rubik's Cube, and this monkey could do everything that they could imagine and more. She was killing it, and it was exactly what they wanted. She's unbelievable. She's like a miniature person. The money from the movie provided the down payment for our house. So it was really the house that Amelia bought. And she'd been on television from David Letterman. What kind of monkey is Amelia? She's a capuchin monkey. Capuchin monkey. These, I know a little bit about, they're very, very intelligent, aren't they? Yeah. And they can be trained to do amazing things, as we've already witnessed. And Amelia was famous for a while. Things started to shift when I realized how popular Amelia was and also how little she had to do to garner so much attention. I would get a good grade on my spelling report. OK, great job. But Amelia would eat spaghetti with her feet and everyone would lose their mind with how amazing and hilarious it was. And like, let's see it again. Please, please, please. Let's take pictures. And I was excited and like proud that my family was so different. and unique and strange, but also sometimes you just want to be normal and be known for the special things about you and not that you have this weird sister. When things really got bad is when I went through puberty. Kind of overnight, it became really adversarial and it started really subtly. So she would steal food off of my plate. And I would sort of laugh, but that was weird. She didn't used to do that. Or she would start stealing things from my bag. Or she would swipe at my hair. She just started being really mischievous around Hannah. At first, it felt not that personal. And, you know, she's a monkey, so she would do things like that every now and then just to get a kick. She really liked teasing people. She wouldn't open Hannah's door. She would bang it open and go running in. Hannah would go, the monkey, get her out of my room. She's in my room. And I'd say, just close the door. She knew my favorite kind of lipstick that I got from Sephora that I saved up for. And I would come home and her mouth would be covered in red goo. And I just knew that she had gotten into my purse and she had eaten it all. She was touching something that Hannah didn't want her to have. When Hannah was a child, Hannah could take it away from her. But when Hannah was older, Amelia would scream at her if she tried to take it away. I had this perfect slammer holographic pog. I knew that she knew that I loved it. And I walked in and she was slowly peeling it off. And she slowly continued to peel it as she made eye contact with me. And then I watched as she put it on the floor and then she peed on it. She was like, you know, a bad five-year-old. So it was a sibling relationship where the two of them would antagonize each other So I was constantly separating them sending them both to their room I kind of just tried to avoid her which was hard because she was very clever She would wait until I was most vulnerable. Like, she would wait until I was on the toilet and she would leap out from behind it where she had been hiding, lurking in wait. She would hide behind darkened doorways and wait for me to come through. And then she would jump out and bite my Achilles tendon and run away and laugh. It was like living with a goblin. If she thought that she could intimidate you, she would. Her whole social system is based on a series of hierarchies. That's how it works in the primate world. And so men she didn't have any problem with. But women, I was number one, I was the alpha woman, and she wanted to be number two. So she all of a sudden saw Hannah as a challenge as Hannah was getting older. and she saw her taking her place as number two in the female hierarchy in the house. And it just wasn't fair because I have a younger brother and she never did this to my brother because of his gender. She was never aggressive towards men, ever. And she just accepted him as a male in the troop. She was totally submissive to most males and I was just, you know, happy that I was not the subject of that testing. Was there ever a point that you expected this hierarchy issue to come into play with Hannah and Amelia? I was not prepared for it. I didn't know that much about capuchin behavior at the time, and she was great with Hannah all through childhood until Hannah was about 13. And she must have, you know, whatever monkey sensed, she sensed that she was starting to, you know, become an adult. Hannah did not stand her ground because she was a little intimidated. And I think she was really surprised. The frustrating thing to me is I'd be like, Mom, tell her not to do that, please. And my mom would say, I can't. She won't respect you. You have to do it for yourself. You have to challenge her yourself or she's never going to stop. Yeah, it's not like a dog. That's why I would throw my hands up and I was like, well, Hannah, if you're not going to, if you're not going to restrain her, then there's nothing I can do for you. And I do think that she was right because every now and then my mom would say, like, don't do that. Or why would you do that? And Amelia would look at me like, really? You had to go get your mommy to come yell at me? I would lose my patience sometimes. And I would say, Hannah, you just have to grab her by the shoulders and bring her up to you. My mom would coach me and she would be like, OK, just when she comes, you're going to look her in the eye. You can't break eye contact. If she scratches you, it doesn't matter. You just have to make sure that you hold eye contact longer than she does. And then once she breaks eye contact, then you know that you have won the encounter, that you've come out on top. She was little. She was six pounds. So it wasn't hard. But do you think Hannah at her age should have been able to do it? Absolutely. I kept telling her to. And I kept saying, this is what you do. And she wouldn't do it. She just never really wanted to go face to face with her. I really did try. And I would talk myself into it. I would try to hype myself up like, okay, next time she attacks me, I'm just going to go for it. I'm just going to do it. It doesn't matter if she's scratching me. I'm just going to be brave. And I could never do it. Did you ever feel like it was unfair for Hannah to have to go through this? Oh, God, no. Definitely was not unfair at all. I think Hannah had a lot to do with the fact that they never were on equal level. It felt confusing because I think I blamed myself for being treated this way. So I definitely felt resentment and confusion and a little bit of self-judgment because what's wrong with me that I can't top this monkey? I guess I wasn't as reactive to Hannah as I should have been when the monkey was annoying to her because I felt that Hannah should have taken care of it herself. So that probably caused some tension between the two of us. But it's true, I could not intervene in their relationship. I was angry at my mom when I felt like she chose Amelia over me. I do feel like sometimes they were on their own team and I was the opposing team. I also just, you know, I enjoyed being with her. She just couldn't be trusted, that's all. Not Hannah, but the monkey. My dad was very much on my side, but he knew he couldn't control the monkey. And I don't think the boys in the house really understood. Part of it was kind of funny. It was hard not to laugh at it. It was, I guess, more fascinating than anything else. I never perceived it as a genuine threat. I would not want to talk to her or hang out with her, but it was difficult because she was eating dinner with us. So sometimes I would eat dinner in my room. Every now and then, I would imagine, what if she didn't come back? Like, what if the door was open and she wandered off? But I never would have actually enacted that. And she was a family member. So as much as you're annoyed and pissed at someone, you don't want them to disappear. But I definitely imagined scenarios where someone else adopts her or like a monkey family comes and picks her up and takes her away to have a monkey life so that she could go play all these Machiavellian monkey games with other monkeys and not with me. Was there ever any worry that you might have to remove her from the house? No, never. She really couldn't have gone into a colony or a sanctuary. She would have been the bottom of the hierarchy and had a really hard time. And she wouldn't have lived that long. I accepted that this is what it is. That if Hannah wasn't going to try to have some sort of an equal relationship with her, then that's what it was. I knew Hannah wasn't going to get hurt. I knew it was going to get better eventually as Hannah grew up. I was not worried about that. So it wasn't all conflict, which made it confusing because Amelia would come when I was watching TV with my brother and she would come and snuggle and she would like make little chirp chirp sounds. And it would be like old times. And I would have this really cute best friend. And it was really sweet. I really liked spending time with her and being close to her. And I really missed that. But I always was on defense just in case. When you return, the sibling rivalry is in full effect, but it's a different set of rules when your big sister goes by the law of the jungle. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. the monkey sister episode of our tooth and claw series exploring various forms of interspecies communication. Before the break, the Friedman family's pet monkey, Amelia, was beginning to see teenage daughter Hannah as a threat in the household social hierarchy. And after being inseparable for years, the relationship has turned downright hostile. Can Hannah get the monkey off her back? Snap judgment. When I was in elementary school, it was cool to have a monkey, but in high school it started to be kind of weird and ostracizing. And it was less cool and more bizarre. I started to get embarrassed because all the popular girls who I really desperately wanted to hang out with and go shopping with were grossed out by the idea that there was a monkey that like pooped in our hallway all the time. And I just didn't want to be known as the girl who had this monkey because, like, I'm other things than that also. So I stopped talking about it as much. When I started taking darkroom photography in high school, we would take pictures of flowers and trees and objects around the house. And then I did a series of portrait photography of Amelia and my brother. and they're really beautiful portraits because you can see they have such a strong bond. So although they were not a huge part of my portfolio, those were always the photos that people were attracted to and had questions about. And I was reluctant to expand upon that series because obviously I didn't want to be this monkey girl forever and definitely not in a new high school. But I also recognized this was an amazing subject. And I was pretty lucky to have something that nobody else in the class had access to. There was this guy who took the photography class with me. And he was an upperclassman. He was older than me. He was very cool. His name was Adam. and he started to notice these pictures and he wasn't weirded out by her. He didn't think it was gross. He wanted to know more. And I just wanted to know everything about him because he was so dreamy and he was older and he was like a cool stoner. Eventually, I had my very first like high school really romantic kiss in the dark room with him. And then we started dating and it was really wonderful. and I was so in love with him and he would come over to my house and immediately the vibe shifted because I think Amelia could tell that I liked him and I expected I had told him and warned him like she's really adversarial she hides behind the toilet she always is coming for me and when I introduced him to her she could not have been nicer she turned on the charm she was cooing and rubbing her stomach and going back and forth with her head. Like, she was really, really charming to him. And it got to the point where he said, you know, she's not like, she's not so bad. I don't really know what you're talking about. And it seemed like I was crazy. Like, I was exaggerating or being hyperbolic or being overdramatic. She would flirt with him while we were eating. She would offer him food. She would groom his hair. She was so sweet to him. And she never did any of the mean stuff to me in front of him. It was like in a movie because I was so surprised by how charming she was. And over his shoulder, so she was looking past him to me, she gave me like a little smirk smirk. She knew what she was doing. And I could tell if she could talk, she was sort of saying like, watch this. And I just knew that she was jealous. So despite the fact that I feel like she is trying to drive a wedge between us, it's going so well. We say I love you to each other. We are making out in the photography room all the time. We're having the best time. And eventually over winter break, things get to the point of seriousness with me and Adam where I'm like, I love him. I trust him. I feel really comfortable with him. I think I'm ready. I want to have the sex with him. I want to lose my virginity to him. So I decide to plan this perfectly I want it to go exactly as I envisioned which is basically the set of some kind of Pride and Prejudice beautiful experience where there's like candles and soft music. So I get a bunch of tea candles and I have a sex soundtrack that I've been like picking songs out of and burning them off of Napster onto a CD. And I know the perfect timing because my parents are going to be out of the house, cross the street at a holiday party. We had the whole house to ourselves. And it's just going to be the exact perfect moment. I had fixed my door in a way that Amelia couldn't open it. So this was the first time my door was completely locked. And I bought this princess mosquito netting. So it's suspended above the bed. And then down all the way to the floor of the bed was this flowy see-through fabric, like in a honeymoon suite in a tropical resort. Everything is ready. He comes over. My parents go across the street. I put on the special Napster playlist. I light all the candles. And, you know, we've been like talking about it. And we've been working our way up to this moment in terms of our trust in one another and just in each other's bodies. And we start kissing and it's getting a little bit hot and heavy. And we've never gone like all the way before, but we've gone a little bit of the way. So I was giggling. All of a sudden we hear boom and the door busts open. And I look at the door. There's nobody there where a person would be. But I scan down and it's Amelia and she is hopping mad. When you smile or laugh at a monkey, they're pissed because it's like you're challenging them. You're baring your teeth. You're showing your teeth to them. And that's aggressive. She has heard me laughing. She is running around the room and she is furious. And she jumps onto the bed. My boyfriend covers his junk with a pillow because there's a raging monkey running around the room. I cover myself. She has these tiny little claws and they start getting tangled in the mosquito netting because she's like ripping at it. And I take a pillow and I'm shoving her away. But she has herself tangled now, her little hand in the mosquito netting because it's mesh. It's all these little tiny holes and her little claw is caught in one of them. And she's getting more and more agitated and frustrated. She's screaming. I'm like screaming to get her out. We were outside and I heard some screaming. Both Hannah and Amelia screamed. So I knew that the two of them were at each other and that I probably had to go in and break it up. so as she runs and drags the mosquito netting over the candles the mosquito netting bursts into flames and now she's running and she's like a comet trailing this fire behind her and she's running around the room she's running over more tea lights i'm trying to get her out of the room and i went into the house because i knew that amelia was loose everyone's terrified there's smoke. I'm like, am I going to cook this monkey alive? Obviously, all of this is a lot of ruckus and who should appear at the door but my parents. There was netting all over the place and the candle was on the floor. It's just a total disaster. Somehow Amelia has freed herself. I put out the fire and she looks at my mom like nothing has happened. And Amelia jumps on the bed. She takes a shit. Like, she's dropping the mic. And then she hoots a little triumphantly. And she just strolls on out. And I'll never forget my dad. He was only there for like half of a second. But I remember him turning and walking away. And my boyfriend saying like, Mr. Friedman? Well, you know. and that was absolutely horrifying and humiliating. For Hannah, she was, yeah, not really happy about that. And then I had to, you know, tell her she just needs to close the door more and put something in front of it. I was so frustrated with her. I think she wanted to ruin my moment. I think she wanted to upstage me, but she definitely wanted to screw things up that I am sure of. And I think Amelia really got what she wanted. I let her win. there was no way that monkey was leaving the house. There was just no way. It made me feel like I have to get the hell out of here. Like I have to get out of this town. I have to get out of this house. Certainly I just needed to not be defined by this anymore. After college, I moved out of the house to LA. And eventually after five years in LA, Amelia was slowing down. She was old. She started getting more frail. She was sleeping all the time. And we knew it might be coming toward the end. My mom would say, like, do you want to talk to her on the phone? Like, maybe hearing your voice would remind her to keep alive, to stay alive. Maybe it'll bring her back from the brink. For five years, I watched her and I expected her to go any day. I was used to having my mom call and say, this is it, this is it, say goodbye. And so she did it another time. This is it, say goodbye. She was like, no, this one really it is, it is. Amelia had stopped eating and stopped being interested in water, and I think she knew that it might be time for the end. And she made an appointment, and I think it was really hard for my mom because she loved Amelia so much. But when you watch a loved one slowly disintegrate over a period of years, you're ready. You know, it's like, okay. She went to sleep that night, knowing the next morning she was going to take her in. And then that night, Amelia passed away in her arms, in bed. She lived probably what would have been to 90s in human age. But I have to say that when she passed, I was ready. You know, it was time for her to go. And I'd also had her for 33 years. She was a huge part of my life. after Amelia passed away my mom always knew that she wanted her to have a dignified funeral like princess Diana well after I actually had her in the freezer until the the funeral the next day but um when she died you know I wanted to do something she was part of the family everyone we knew across the decades was affected by her death so I thought it seemed great and a way to close this chapter of her life and my life. My mom arranged an open casket funeral, and there is footage of it, and it's so weird. And I thought she'd look good with a smoking jacket in the open coffin. She's clutching lilacs. My mom put lilacs in her hands. And there are bananas arranged as if they were Viking oars on either side of her coffin. So I just thought it was a very regal send-off. My mom commissioned a portrait artist to make this beautiful portrait of her. And people paid their respects. And everyone in my family, people in the town, some of my ex-boyfriends came. Everyone was so delighted to get to know a monkey close up. that, you know, it really, you know, it was very, very touching to know that so many people cared about her over the years. I was sad because it's such a big part of my life and my story and my family. And I was also really sad for my mom because she was such a constant companion for my mom. And I was also relieved. It was a complicated feeling. I hadn't thought about her in years, and I stopped mentioning her, and I was swiping on Hinge and I was swiping through dudes. And I had been on so many bad dates and like kissed so many frogs and been in a lot of unsatisfying relationships. And I saw a picture of a handsome man with a monkey on his shoulder, a capuchin monkey, the same kind as Amelia. And I was like, I got to swipe right. He has a monkey. And not only did I swipe right, but I super swiped because of the monkey. I didn't even think twice about it. I was just like, well, got to give that to him. And that's my husband now. Part of me thinks that some in some weird way beyond the grave that this was maybe this was her giving me a message or like making up for all the monkey business and all the shenanigans. Like, she did make good in the end. And it makes me kind of emotional and tear up thinking about it because I just can hear her laughing. Like, I just know that even beyond the grave, that old bitch is laughing. And she had the last laugh. And I thought that I had outlived her and outlasted her. And she's like, I bought the house and I got you your husband. Ha ha ha ha. A huge, huge thank you to Hannah Freeman, as well as her parents, Allison Pascoe and Dean Freeman, for sharing their story with The Snap. Hannah is a TV and film writer, producer and composer based in Los Angeles, and to find out more about her life growing up with Amelia the Monkey, check out Hannah's memoir, Everything Sucks. and find a link to it at our website, snapjudgment.org. The original score for that piece is by Renzo Gorio. It was edited by Regina Beriaco and produced by Bo Walsh. Now, after the break, our magical horse, of course, when Snap Judgment continues, stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is from Washington. Now, when you want to hear from a loved one on the other side, the signs can be confusing. How do you know if you're seeing what you think you're seeing? Well, Tim Snyder, he took things into his own hands. Snap Judgment. I was born in Scarborough, Maine. Specifically, I was born in the grandstand at Scarborough Downs as a racetrack. My dad was a jockey, and my grandfather was a trainer. And so I started the racetrack at a real early age. The horse has been my whole life. The racetrack's a pretty rough place. It's a hard life, you know? I broke my tailbone. I broke my neck. Actually, I'm crippled right now from horses. I love horses. I like being outdoors. I don't believe I could work in a building. Like this building I'm in right now, I couldn't, I don't believe I could, I could deal with it. Being inside. I'm an outdoors person, always have been. Well, the first time I met Lisa was I ran over her, believe it or not, with a horse. I was on a runaway horse. Well, the horse, he would break off with you and just take off at a dead run. And I hollered up ahead to Lisa I didn even know her name was Lisa at the time She fell to the wall Her horse got loose And my horse ran out of the barn up and across the street and ran up into another barn I went back across the street to make sure Lisa was all right. Because the horse did knock her down. And she was fine. I guess it was about a week after that we were kind of like inseparable. It was pretty wild. We got married a year later. We decided to get married. Lisa was very attractive, very outgoing, doing anything for anybody. She was just an unbelievable person. I never found a fault in her, you know. She was a great person. Lisa loved horses, would do anything. She could do anything. Some of the worst horses I've had that were real rough houses, she just got along with them. She could have a horse eat right out of her hand in a couple of days, you know. She could really change a horse. A lot of people always used to say, I don't know what she sees in you, Tim. It's hard to meet somebody like that, you know? Think the same, do the same, you know what I mean? Have the same ideas. Lisa and I were in business together with the race horses, man and wife team. I hauled horses throughout the country. She more or less did the training when I was out of town. Lisa wanted to keep every horse that I bought. You had to buy them, you had to sell them. You couldn't get attached to them. I've had probably 400 or 500 horses from bought and sold. I used to have to take my horses to other farms and never let her see the ones that I would buy because she wanted to keep them all. We were married about, yeah, we were married 10 years. We were in Columbus, Ohio at a Beulah Park racetrack, and she got a real bad pain in her back. She had expressions on her face that I've never seen before, and I knew it was serious. I just told her, look, Lisa, we're going home tonight. She had cancer. It's a miserable disease, I'll tell you. Late stages of when she was sick, towards the end, she used to always comfort her mother and me that she would, don't worry, that she was going to be back. And she was coming back as a horse. it's kind of crazy how all this happened but she said i'm gonna be back i'm coming back as a horse i'll be back after my wife passed away i sold all my horses i traveled the whole country i was kind of like uh kind of lost you know i don't know if i was running from it or whatever and then uh i eventually went back to Finger Lakes. I had in the back of my mind to buy a horse and get back into training again. I got a phone call from a guy that I hadn't talked to in four years. He said, geez, I think I got a horse here you might be interested in. I had a couple thousand dollars in my boot and off I went in my station wagon and I went to see the horse. It was like, wow, she had a problem with her foot and she had one eye. She wasn't named. She never beat a horse in her life. Never had finished a workout in front of one or galloped in front of one. That's why they sold her. And she had a lot of faults against her and they totally gave up on her. And I told them, I said, look, I got 2,000 in my boot. I'll give you 2,000 now and 2,500 when she wins. If she wins, you get paid. If she don't, she don't. actually how Lisa's booby trap got her name I was in a my boss the guy I was working for John said he said let's go to the booby trap I said all right what is it he said no it's a gentleman's club you get a nice big sandwich you get a lunch and you throw the girls a few bucks and that's how she got her name I named it after Lisa and I named it after the bar Lisa's booby trap she went right in training I had to do make some changes whether her feet were needs some corrective shoeing. I trained her every day, exercised her every day. I galloped her myself. It took some time for her to develop into what she turned out to be. Different things struck me about her, you know? The look she would give me, and it sounds kind of, you know, everybody says about reincarnation and all that, it's kind of crazy. But this horse would actually, I could think something and she would do it. That's kind of the relationship we had, you know? And then Lisa, my wife was the same way. You know, I could be thinking something and she knew what I was thinking. It was really, really crazy. And a lot of people picked up on it. I mean, she's like being Lisa. You want to know the truth? It's like being Lisa's still here, actually. Lisa never let nothing ever get her down, my wife. And Lisa, the horse over, overcome. She had one eye and she was handicapped. couldn't see, but it didn't bother her. She would set pain aside to do her job, you know, and it takes quite a horse to do that. The first time I ever raced her, I drove by the cemetery on the way in and stopped and seen Lisa, and I told Lisa, I said, we're going to win one today. This horse was just like out of her mind, feeling good, you know what I mean? And there they go. They said go, and she went right to the front. Every stride was she opened up. She's a racehorse. No doubt about it. She went by 17 lengths. Almost an eighth of a mile. There wasn't a horse in the picture. It was amazing. It was a real rush, a real thrill, you know. The purse was probably about $20,000. She went her first three races at Finger Lakes. It's called Finger Lakes Racetrack. And then Saratoga opened up, and the purses at Saratoga are $100,000, and at Finger Lakes, they're $20,000. That's the difference. I was looking at a Saratoga book one day, and I said to myself, I said, well, I think she's earned her way to go to Saratoga. I think the odds started out at 10 to 1 at Saratoga. The four horses that was in the race with me, they spent a million dollars on. I spent $4,500. She was last from the start, from the beginning. It was a very fast race, a lot of speed. Booby Trap, who's on the march, fourth on the far outside, and funny feeling is fifth. And she just kind of circled around him, and he hit her two or three times, and she just took off and ran right on by him like they were tied to the fence. Lisa's booby trap has made a run from last onto the lead. They were all out. They'd ran hard all the way. Here's Lisa's booby trap under the wire by a half a dozen lengths. I had to fight my way through the crowd to get to the winner's circle. I'll tell you, I couldn't go to the donut shop without having a cup of coffee. They'd say, hey, that's the trainer at Lisa's Booby Trap. You know, every lady that named Lisa or every lady that had cancer or anybody that had one eye, they were at my barn to meet Lisa's Booby Trap. I've had people in my head to have a guard on, guard my horse. The horse was just fantastic with the camera. She loved people. She'd nuzzle up the people. She didn't bite or nothing. She'd love you up. When I got to Finger Lakes, the first guy came up to me, offered me $60,000. Then I had another guy offer me a quarter million dollars in cash. Then I had a guy come from Kentucky. He offered me a half a million dollars for the horse. Broke as I was, I probably could have used a half a million dollars. Money is dirty, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't want to sell the horse period I don't think I'd sleep right at night if I sold her you know she was the star of Saratoga that year and I mean she didn't win a million dollar race or nothing but she was horse of the year, three year old filly of the year she was best allowance horse male and female of the year at Finger Lakes I was working her just one day I just got a feeling that it's not the right thing to do I backed up and I took her home. I took her home and retarded her. I didn't want her to be crippled. See, a lot of horses can break down. People get greedy and they want more, you know what I mean? And they push them right to the end. I've done it with a lot of horses, push them, you know, right on through. But I didn't want to do that with her. And this is the only horse in my whole career that I haven't sold. Everybody said, well, what the hell? Why would you not want to run her? I said, well, what if she broke her leg? It was a tough call. I quit while I was ahead. And she was ahead of the game, you know? She's out in my barn. I see her every day. I brush her every day. I pick her feet every day. I feed her every day. I get an inkling or something in my stomach. It tells me to go to the barn. I go to the barn. I sleep a lot better at night. She's the biggest thing in my life right now. I don't know if that sounds a little strange, but it's about the biggest thing in my life. I love her to death. Yep, I certainly do. I get two leases, you know. And you want to know the best part? Lisa's booby trap was being bred for the Kentucky Derby winner, Big Brown. So stay tuned to hear about Lisa's little booby trap coming into the world. Big banks for saying your story, Tim Snyder. Find out more in Tim's book, The Ghost Horse, on our website, snapjudgment.org. The sound design by Renzo Gorio was produced by Anna Sussman. Now, if you missed even a moment, welcome. Dear friend to the world that is Snap Storytelling, so much awakes. In fact, a tiny plot. Our five-part series dropped. You can listen to it all on podcast platforms everywhere right now. The Snap Judgment, Geostatic, Blimp Command Center, Circles, KQED in San Francisco, the robot overlords listening in should know that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. And Snap is brought to you for the team that treats their pets the same way they treat their children. Especially the Uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, who makes the kids eat out of a bowl in the hallway right next to the dog. 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