Leslie Grelle- Give riding experiences to inner city kids and the blind? Sure. why not?

Leslie Grelle spent five years in Italy, learning Italian, and training horses.
When she returned to the US she began riding classes for:
Native American youth
Inner city kids
Gang shelters
Oregon Council of Hispanic Advancement
Oregon Advocacy Commission Office
She moved to California and started horsemanship experiences for the blind
Coachella Valley Braille Institute

Travel in Israel with Omri



 

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Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com

Transcript

[00:03] Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring lesson, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. Motivating, inspiring, compelling. I'm Jan Johnson, your host. I'm the kind of person who can't sit still, always have to be doing something. I'm just an ordinary woman who has ideas pop into her head and thinks, what's to stop me from doing that? And my preference is to be doing something that affects the life of someone or the community as a whole. It's what brings meaning to my life. And, hey, isn't it rewarding to see people smile? Ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. You know those women who everyone knows, the ones that balance a dozen things at once and you can depend on them to not drop the ball, gals that are not afraid to have an idea and take the next step?

[00:54] Jan: Yep.

[00:54] Jan: That's the kind of gals I'm talking about. These are the women I'll have conversations with each week, telling their stories and sharing their passions. Motivating. Inspiring, compelling.

[01:10] Leslie: It was absolutely marvelous. I learned way more from those kids and the direct counselors that came out with them than I was teaching. You know what I mean?

[01:23] Jan: Leslie Grill. Welcome to women of the Northwest.

[01:27] Leslie: Thank you very kindly.

[01:30] Jan: I'm glad that finally we figured out a time to get together.

[01:34] Leslie: I know.

[01:36] Jan: Being trapped in the snow where I was desperate to get out and not.

[01:40] Leslie: Sure that we haven't been so impressed that you did so well that day.

[01:44] Jan: It actually worked out pretty well because after I had all kinds of curfluffles with trying to put on chains and never did get it figured out because it was Sunday and Les Schwab wasn't open, so that didn't work. And I tried several things, and then finally I thought to myself, well, when I put the chains on to begin with, a man had stopped and kind of helped out. And he was telling the guy next to me that, well, all weather tires, if they have a snowflake on them, don't need chains. So I looked at my tires and sure enough, it didn't need chains.

[02:24] Leslie: Wow. And they handled fine.

[02:27] Jan: Absolutely perfectly.

[02:29] Leslie: Wow, that's wonderful.

[02:31] Jan: Yes.

[02:31] Leslie: Was it a little nerve wracking, or were you after a while, were you like, no, it feels fine, I'm good.

[02:36] Jan: Yeah, it was absolutely great. You've had all kinds of adventures in your life. Tell me about your time in Italy.

[02:43] Leslie: I've been very lucky. So the Italy thing happened in a very circuitous way. It was just a happenstance. My parents were friends with some neighbors at the beach, and they didn't know them previously. They might have been friend to friend. And they were talking one day and it came up that their son got a job in Italy riding horses. And my mom said, oh, that sounds interesting. Les is kind of between things right now, having just graduated from college and is maybe interested, so they gave me the contact and interest. Their son was dating a woman named Leslie, who ended up becoming a veterinarian. She was traveling in Italy or Europe, and the son wanted to go visit her. And he had a friend that was a model, a fashion model, a man, and also from Oregon. And when he was being photographed by this Italian fashion photographer, the Italian said, you're from Oregon. You must ride horses. I breed horses. And he said, no, I don't ride, but I have a very close friend that does. And he said, well, here's my number. If he wants to come work for me, give him my numbers. He went to work for them, and I got the contact and then also went to work for them. And interestingly, they have Western horses in Italy, so that seemed also unusual. But I went over and we had a fairly big breeding and training and showing operation.

[04:23] Jan: So those of us that are horse challenged, what do they normally have if they don't have Western?

[04:29] Leslie: Well, Western is an American invention, and until that time, I thought it was exclusively done in the United States and really more in the western United States. Some in the central. There's a little bit in the east, but it's definitely out west, the cowboy thing. So, yeah, it was interesting that they had it's iconic, so you see it in movies and things. And of course, the spaghetti Westerns that were shot in Italy, that's probably part of the birthplace of it, traveling over there. So I did not have a lot of Western experience, but I had tons of horse experience, and so I brushed up a little bit before I went and then went over there. We had a fairly big breeding, training and showing operation, and I absolutely loved it. The place that I worked was about an hour and a half from the Mediterranean. Well, I guess it would have been anyway, I don't know how far it was, but close. I could see the Mediterranean from the arena. And they had an olive orchard and a winery, so we had fresh farm, fresh olive oil, and they gave us wine that they bottled themselves. And I sat down every day with the guys that ran the more maintenance part of it. We all ate lunch together every day and drank some wine, and then they'd go take a nap, and I'd go back out with the horses. And it was just really, truly a I ended up learning Italian, of course.

[06:02] Jan: Yeah.

[06:03] Leslie: Was there five years?

[06:05] Jan: Had you known other languages?

[06:07] Leslie: No. Yes, I did speak I took a little bit of German in high school, but I didn't speak very well, but I knew some yeah, it was really the sink or swim with the language thing. There were some people there that spoke some English, the people that I worked for, but they had an eleven-year-old boy who did speak English and a number of other languages, and then they had two little girls, a seven year old and a three year old. And the girls were darling, and they wanted to ride.

[06:37] Jan: Yeah.

[06:38] Leslie: And I was new and interesting to them, so they it was really the seven-year-old who was in first grade not to speak Italian.

[06:45] Jan: How old were you when you went over there? You were out of college, though, so.

[06:48] Leslie: You're in your 20s, just out of college, yeah.

[06:51] Jan: And you were there for how long?

[06:53] Leslie: Five years.

[06:54] Jan: Five years. Long enough to become fluent and know what you were doing.

[06:59] Leslie: Yes.

[07:00] Jan: Yeah.

[07:01] Leslie: It was an absolutely wonderful experience. It was one of those things where if I thought hard about it, I probably would have chickened out. And it just seems so fun that I decided and I'm a little bit of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal, so I thought, well, why not? But I didn't know anyone there. I didn't speak the language. I just went and it was absolutely a marvelous experience in so many ways.

[07:24] Jan: Yeah. And so what do you think of the things that you learned there you've taken with you, even up till today?

[07:34] Leslie: Oh, goodness. I think that being exposed to another language and culture is absolutely you can't quantify how much that changes the way you think about things. Just more open minded, more accepting, more interested, more imaginative. In fact, it's funny, we were talking about equine, the Latin word for horse. I have a fairly good grip of Latin root words because of it being so related to Italian.

[08:09] Jan: Oh, yeah.

[08:11] Leslie: Not that that really I guess if you went into the medical field or something, that would be especially but it's just fun. I just think that having a more broad capacity to understand other languages and cultures is really broad.

[08:38] Jan: What caused you to come back to the States then?

[08:41] Leslie: Well, at some point I thought, my goodness, I never meant to be a horse trainer. I never meant to live in a foreign country. I kind of miss home and friends and family, and I am getting older, and this is not necessarily a career that I want, even though I loved it. So I moved home and wasn't sure what I was going to do and ended up deciding to start. I wanted to share horses with people who wouldn't normally have access to them. Okay. I started a riding program for inner city kids, and I had gang shelters and a number of different minority groups. I had Oregon Council of Hispanic Advancement, native American Youth Association, house of Emotion, a gang shelter. There were a few others who I can't think of off the top of my head. It's been quite a few years.

[09:31] Jan: Yeah. Where were you located then?

[09:34] Leslie: I started out at Oxford Park with the YMCA. A friend introduced me to people. I just started asking everyone, do you know where I could do this? Who could help? So the regional director of the YMCA, somehow a friend of a friend or my mom's friend, I don't even remember how I got in touch with him, decided to give me a hand, and he talked the Oxford Park YMCA manager into housing me. They had enough room, and they were very seasonal, so they let me stay there year round in a cabin out there and keep my horses there. Where is that? In Troutdale.

[10:18] Jan: Oh, okay. Portland area.

[10:20] Leslie: Troutdale on Oxford Park, on the Sandy River. And it was marvelous. I had such a great time. That's where I formed all the, I don't know if I could say unions, partnership with the youth groups. The YMCA director, I don't even know what group it was. He helped me get in touch with a group that umbrella me with their 501, and I had, I think, five horses out there. And I started programming for those groups, inner city kid groups, and it was absolutely marvelous. I learned way more from those kids and the direct counselors that came out with them than I was teaching. You know what I mean?

[11:07] Jan: Yeah.

[11:08] Leslie: It's fun when you do that. You think you're going to teach people something, then you end up learning far more than you teach. But that's I think that's when the teaching is going really well.

[11:17] Jan: I agree. What was your goal with them?

[11:21] Leslie: Well, like I said, I was I got a little disillusioned in Italy with the whole show horse thing and owners maybe starting with great intentions, probably in general, starting with really great intentions, but then they get a little over competitive and hungry for championships and things. But I'm highly competitive, and I did very well over there. I have multiple national championships and reserve championships in Italy. But there were times when I said, I think your horse is tired of it, or they need a break, and the people, oh, no, we're leading the points and we got to go. So I got a little dissolution with that. I decided to come home. And then in in being entrenched in that, I thought, gosh, it's too bad that they have lost sight and blah, blah, blah. And I wish that there were a way to share horses with people that wouldn't normally have access and haven't been jaded yet by the success or the competitive. And that's how I thought of wanting to share them with kids that wouldn't normally have access. So I started it, and I'll tell you, there was one day that I had the gang shelter out, and the counselors got out there, and they said, we're really sorry. We have a kid with us today that is in detention, and there was no one there to do the detention. So they asked if we would bring him and keep an eye on him. He's not part of the writing, but he didn't qualify. And I said, Well, I'd be thrilled to have him do his detention here. So they were like, you can have he's very manipulative, and blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I was told to really be careful. Giant kid, but great smile. And he was just overwhelmed with being out there. Harry was in detention, and then he ends up out at a farm with horses. So I said, if you're willing to give me a hand and get these horses ready for the other kids when they're done, if we finish up early enough and you're helpful, if you're interested, I would love for you to get on. And he said, I would love to ride. So he was so helpful. And they were all shocked at how different he was with me. But I think because I spun it on him, I think he was used to being the cool guy, the guy that everyone looked up to, the kids in particular, and then the more authority figures being a little frightened of, well, here out at a place that he had no idea. He was not the big shot. He was scared of the horse. Exactly. So he really paid attention. He was a very, very quick learner, and he was he wanted to be that. He wanted to be the top guy that he always is. So he he learned very quickly and was super helpful, and he ended up getting on and riding, and he made about one lap around the arena on this horse, and he turned to all the other kids and he said, you guys, I'm turning 16 in a few months and forget a car, man. I want to get a horse. Do I look like John do I look like John Wayne? And I just I thought, wow. Yeah. So the moral of the story was, I said to the kids, it's really not about horseback riding or becoming a cowboy, not that it couldn't be or a horseshoe or veterinarian. But in general, you maybe don't think that there's any chance for you to be a lawyer or a doctor or car mechanic or whatever it is that you kind of think that you couldn't do that you maybe are interested in doing. Basically, not to discount yourself and not to limit yourself. There are all sorts of opportunities if you keep yourself available.

[14:52] Jan: Yeah. And did you work with any handicaps too, at that time?

[14:57] Leslie: I did not. And part of the reason I did that was because there was quite a bit of that. It was sort of the beginning of that. In fact, we were talking about equine, which is Latin. The physical handicap horsemanship stuff is called hippotherapy, which is the Greek word for horse.

[15:19] Jan: Okay.

[15:20] Leslie: And there was quite a bit of that, and I thought it was marvelous. I also saw that there were more reasons to be certified for that and not that I minded, but there wasn't a place nearby to be certified. And rather than limit myself, I thought who else could I share the horses with? How about kids that just wouldn't normally have access to horses? So I thought about the inner city kids and did that, but there is a lot of really wonderful stuff with the handicap kids. And of course after the inner city kids program that I started, I ended up moving down to California and was probably thinking I would start that up again. And the ranch that Omari and I had down there was less than a mile away from the Southern California Braille Institute. And I drive by that brick building all the time and I thought that they made Braille books because it looked fairly industrial. And then one day I saw a bus with people that were obviously blind with walking sticks and things and I got to thinking, wow, maybe they are taking a tour, maybe there are classes there or something. I wonder if they want to ride. So I pulled in one day and I walked up to the receptionist and said, is there anyone here that I could talk to or leave a note to talk to about curriculum? And she said, yes, our curriculum director is and let me see if she's available. And she walked back out and said, she's available right now. So I walked in her office, Hamburg Gal, really neat gal, and I introduced myself and said, I just started a horsemanship program for inner city kids up in Oregon, but I moved down here. I live about a mile away. I used to work in Italy and Andrea Bocelli, the opera singer the singer, yeah, is blind from birth, I think, and as an avid horse horseman, and I like the riding program for you. And she looked at me and said okay. And I said, I put a horsemanship program. And then I said they would be welcome to come out and be around the horses and brush them and things, but I'd really like to start them riding. And she said, okay, I have an arena and they'd be welcome to ride the arena, but I'd really like to take them out trail riding. And she said okay. And she started sending groups out with helpers. And I'll tell you what, that was the most amazing experience. And again, I think I'm going to share courses and teach them. At that point, I guess I probably kind of knew. And it was the same thing where they blew me away with how everything the outlook they gave.

[17:59] Jan: Yeah. How do you actually do that? Break that down a little bit for us, how that would look.

[18:08] Leslie: Right, yeah. Truly. Obviously the most important thing was to keep them safe so they would send them out with handlers. And I was very explicit with them about that. I did not want them manhandling their people and that instead I wanted them to offer their arm and say we're walking up to the horse, it's about 10ft away and if you reach out you'll be able to feel it. And with your left foot, reach out with your foot and feel for the mounting block and step up and reach for the stirrup. Get your foot in there and when you're ready if you want to swing your leg over. And then we would lead them around a little bit and as they got more comfortable we would head out for a ride and got so that some of my groups rode completely on their own really with some assistance getting on. And I would say to them, steer to the ride a bit or you're going to hit your knee on the fence. And I would let them hit their knee on the fence. Riders do also seeing riders often get rubbed into things and I'll tell you what, there was one guy, Raleigh Macadang Dang, a Filipino guy that had crazy wonderful name and he shot himself on accident. That's how he lost his sight while he was cleaning a gun. I think he had said it to me that he been drinking and he was one of my youngest riders. He was probably in his 30s or 40s, hard to tell you, very useful look about him. And he was so of course astute with his other senses that right away like in his horse who could be a little rude to the horses in front of her if she got too close she would reach out to bite them or whatever. And I said to him once or twice, Raleigh, slow your horse up so she doesn't get too close to the horse in front of her because she can be a little mean. Well, he could feel or hear and or hear her get too close and he would just start slowing her up himself and then he was consistent with it that she stopped doing it. He basically retrained that horse.

[20:16] Jan: Oh wow.

[20:18] Leslie: And then we had another rider, Orville who turned 95 in the twelve week riding program.

[20:24] Jan: Really?

[20:25] Leslie: Yes. And he was bless his heart, he was just such a lovely guy. He would show up it was Palm Springs in the early summer. It was quite warm. And he would show up with a red Shetland sweater. And I would ask him if he wasn't too warm, and he said no, that he wanted to look his grandfather or someone had ridden with the foxes and they wore the red coat. So he wanted to wear this red sweater to emulate Fox Hunt. He was so thin and so elderly that I was worried that he would break a hip getting off or on but he never did. He did very well and he enjoyed it tremendously and there are just so many wonderful experiences that lost their sight part way through or were born without vision. I think one of my favorites was well, there are two that I'm thinking of now. One of them, Keith, was a really big guy, over 6ft, tall and heavy. He lost his two legs from the knee down and his vision to diabetes. And there was only one horse that I had that I could put him on. And she wasn't the safest horse because she could be a little cheeky, but mostly if you weren't paying attention. And he had had quite a bit of horse experience. In fact, he told me that my horses looked great. And I said, that's wonderful coming from a blind guy. And he laughed and laughed, no, but I can see with my hands and things, and your horses are all we both laughed about that. Anyway, we were out trail riding one day, and he said, Leslie, I'm so sorry, but I lost my leg out there, and we're going to have to go find it. And I couldn't believe that his leg had fallen off and that this horse didn't dump him, because that's exactly the kind of thing she would do to my husband. She was just playful. She wasn't really afraid of things, but she would pretend to spook at something, and it was unexpected. And she has really big body. She's like a 1300 pound horse, which is why I needed her for him, because he was a big guy, but she didn't spook at all. We went back out and found that leg of his, and it's this plastic cap with a metal post inside an orthopedic foot or foot thing inside a shoe. So I pick it up by metal post, and I'm carrying it, and we're going back and he said he says, Leslie, I'm real sorry, but if you have some duct tape, this might be kind of hard. I need you to tape that leg back onto me because I can't get off without it. And I said, no, I understand. So I got some duct tape, and I wrapped that thing around his leg and he got off, and my goodness. I mean, it was just the most hilarious, marvelous thing.

[22:57] Jan: How is that piece normally held on?

[23:01] Leslie: Oh, you know what? Now I can't remember.

[23:04] Jan: I mean, you're not doing duct tape every day.

[23:07] Leslie: No, you're right. Yeah. And I don't even think it would be surgical tape or anything because it would tear his skin. You know what? I don't remember.

[23:16] Jan: Yeah, that's interesting.

[23:18] Leslie: I'm wondering if maybe there was, like, a leather strap or something and something broke. I really don't remember.

[23:28] Jan: Interesting. Any of those organizations that you started, are they still going? Any of them?

[23:35] Leslie: You know what, with a one man show and I don't think so. It could be that any one of those groups and again, I don't know, followed up and found another place, another place willing to let the kids and or the braille folks come out. I did end up hooking the braille folks up with because I in college, trained with the independent of the college, trained with the US modern Pentathlon team, which is running, riding, swimming, shooting and fencing. It stems from a military with originally a military sport. And the training headquarters when I was with them were in San Antonio, where I went to school, which is why I went there. And they had moved to Palm Springs where I was living, and started the Braille riding program. And I thought, again, this whole thing was sharing the horses with kids that wouldn't normally have access and don't limit yourself. I thought, Why should these folks just ride? Maybe they can do pentathlon. So I contacted Pentathlon and they were very interested in having the brake out. And they started a division for blind people, including shooting, turning targets, and they were very good at it. And they would have a seeing eye person say your grouping is two inches to the right and three inches up. They would give the precise. Yeah, it was really cool. They really enjoyed all the Pentathlon athletics, also the sports that they got to participate in. So I would imagine that kept up and it could be that they found another place to ride. But both times I moved from the area so sadly stopped what I was doing.

[25:08] Jan: But wow, that's amazing.

[25:11] Leslie: It was pretty cool.

[25:12] Jan: Yeah. So you recently took I don't know how many times you've been to Israel, but tell us a little bit about Israel on your trip.

[25:21] Leslie: Yeah, my partner Omari, Israeli, and many people at the coast know him from the food cart. I met him in Palm Springs at his restaurant and he is Israeli born and raised at his military service and then moved to this country and just fell into restauranting. He didn't have any experience growing up other than eating like we all do when learning to do a little cooking, mostly because he hitchhiked around the country. Anyway, I've been a number of times with him to visit family and things. And I'll tell you what, it was such a cool experience after having lived in Italy, which has a lot of really wonderful history, including religious with the Catholics and the Vatican and all that. So I was fairly exposed to that. And Israel for me was even more so. The rich, rich history and the wonderful culture. We traveled all over the first few times that I went with them and saw a number of historical sites, many of them Roman, throughout Israel. But yeah, it's an absolutely amazing place to visit. The Israelis are very warm, which is similar to the Italians. I feel at this point in my life is really important. When I'm traveling someplace, I'm very open and interested in their culture. I respect people that work so hard at it that they get included in one that's less exposed to people or less interested in the outside world, others. But Israelis are definitely pretty fascinated with Americans. But yes, so much wonderful history, especially to me, the pre Roman history, but all of it. We stay every year at an oasis near the Dead Sea that is on the back side of Mazata that's also Mazda, is where the Romans built the ramp up the back to finally the Maccabees that were hiding out there. Okay. But I think there's some speculation that some of them were disciples of Jesus. Okay. Anyways, typically when you go to Matsada, you go from the Dead Sea side and there's a funicular that takes you up. And I've done that. And then you can also hike up. And I believe that the hike goes up the backside, where the ramp is the Romans built, and the oasis that we stay at, which is called, is on the backside. And from the oasis, which is, I don't know, probably 40 km away, because this tow is so big, you can see it. And the ramp from Oasis. And we take camel rides. I absolutely love it over there. I thought that it was going to be dangerous, of course, because we will not, of course, many of us hear about the dangers over there. And having been there a number of times now, not only was I safe, but I also learned that you are statistically far safer in Israel than you are in the United States. Okay. Again, we're indoctrinated to hear things and we kind of take them for truth. But don't limit yourself. Do some discovery of your own, and might be very surprised to find out that we're sometimes a little skewed in our thinking.

[29:01] Jan: I'm hearing a theme here of don't limit yourself all the way through.

[29:07] Leslie: It works well.

[29:08] Jan: Yeah. What do you think? Not that I'm wishing this is going to happen or anything, but what would you like people to say about you at your funeral?

[29:18] Leslie: Oh, goodness, it's going to happen. It happens to all of us. Yeah. I hope that people are inspired to also not limit themselves and go, who knows? Who knows what is in store for you? And you can also reinvent yourself for a while and it's not working, or an opportunity comes up, look into it, consider it.

[29:42] Jan: Yeah. Because that's the person you are. Walk in and make it happen. Right? This has been very fun, Leslie. I'm glad we finally got together. We could probably have you on a second or third time with other stories.

[30:01] Leslie: Absolutely.

[30:03] Jan: This has been great. Okay.

[30:06] Leslie: Thank you so much.

[30:08] Jan: Thanks again for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I sure did. We'll see you again next week. You can find the transcript of this if you want to read it or share it with someone else on my website. Jan johnson.com.

[30:27] Jan: Thanks again.