Buggy Whips + Col. Sanders = Rae Lombino?

[00:00:00] Lindsay: Oh, hey, it's me. The shoe that you lost in the paddock about two months ago that has just resurfaced and wedged itself in the new shoe you just put on your horse, resulting in not only a vet bill, but a farrier bill as well. All because I heard it was payday. Today, we're going to take a deep dive into something just as crazy as you get to venture into my thought process that links Colonel Sanders with Buggy Whips and our guest host, Ray Lombino.

Why? Because you're listening to Rochester Trail Riders.

[00:00:41] Rae: I'm very intrigued. 

[00:00:43] Lindsay: And I forgot my cup. Oh, hold on. Because you can hold in a podcast. Wait a second for me. Oh, she has returned. I have a question. Hello. Are you just randomly talking? That's awesome. Can you actually see me? I can see [00:01:00] you, yes. So if I do this, and I show this mug with this picture on it.

Yeah! You took this photo. I did. And for those that, you know, are, are listening because hello podcast audio, you can't see I'll make sure those pictures in the show notes, but, um, for Ray Lombino is a show photographer and a very good one. And this, this photo actually has a lot to do with what we're talking about today.

Before we get into it, um, dude, you've had, you've had some bad luck on your farm. And 

[00:01:35] Rae: yes, and just in my personal life lately, 

[00:01:38] Lindsay: life has not treated you so well. So I just want to say, I'm sorry. And do you want to share a little bit? Because I know for a fact you're not alone and yeah, 

[00:01:49] Rae: uh, well, I, yeah, I mean, 2024 has definitely.

Gone off with a bang. We'll say, um, so my horse bug [00:02:00] had surgery at Cornell University back. What the beginning of the month, basically, um, it was surgery we planned on. It was planned. It was not an emergency surgery, but even still it's, it's surgery. So, you know, the stall rest and everything, he had a, um, tumor removed from the side of his knee, but he is doing.

Thankfully, a very big one. Yes. Um, I don't know if you could, if you could, like, put pictures. I can send you pictures. I don't know if you're allowed 

[00:02:31] Lindsay: to put things like that in the show. I don't have a problem with it, you know. For anybody that wants to see. Yeah, I, you know, it's very interesting. If you don't want to click on it, don't click on it.

[00:02:42] Rae: Exactly. No, there's, uh, there's got to be somebody out there going, hmm. We'll just say, um, without going into Too much detail because I'm sure some people would rather not hear about it, but we lovingly called Bugs Tumor his potato lump, and we will just say that the [00:03:00] harvest was bountiful once his, um, his surgeon, Dr.

McConey from Cornell got in there and excavated that Oh my gosh, absolutely incredible job. If 

[00:03:12] Lindsay: I recall, you were hoping to actually bring it home, but, you know, second guessed yourself on that one. 

[00:03:18] Rae: Yeah, I, like, half jokingly said to my mom, like, Oh, hey, like, do you think they would save it for me? Which is, like, I know, very disgusting of me.

They would. But, like, when my dog had Um, emergency exploratory surgery. A few years ago, they saved the hunk of tennis ball that he ate. And I still have it in a plastic bag 

[00:03:39] Lindsay: somewhere. You're a little weird, not going to lie. And I, I, 

[00:03:43] Rae: I love gross stuff like that. So, um, but yeah, so he had surgery and is just recovering from that.

His incision looks phenomenal. He's he's. Sound as sound can be right now, he's doing very, very well, but [00:04:00] during, you know, him being on stall rest and everything, uh, my mom and I's sweet little pony, Shetland Pony Karma, had a flare of laminitis right after the horrific cold snap that we had and, you know, at first it didn't look like anything horrible and then all of a sudden it was like, oh my god, she's crippled.

Like, and I have never had a, one of my personal horses have a laminitis flare, so I, like, kind of freaked out. Like, I've dealt with laminitis before, but never with any of my own horses. So I was like, oh my god. And it's been very up and down with her. She's basically been on stall rest for about three weeks now just in fluffy bedding and she's on a cocktail of medications just trying to you know get everything under control and she was formally [00:05:00] diagnosed with equine metabolic syndrome unfortunately and she also has a low functioning thyroid and so we're just trying to kind of get Her I'll, you know, back to normal, get her feeling good again, but I feel like we're, we're on the very slow upswing now.

Um, so that's, that's just been the barn fun, but the, the, you know, cherry on top of everything for me was I got in a car accident last week and destroyed my car. Why not? 

[00:05:30] Lindsay: You know, trifecta. Perfect 

[00:05:33] Rae: timing. It was, yep, just absolutely so. Rest in peace to my beloved 2015 Subaru Forester who, she was at 185, 000 miles, I was really hoping I was gonna 

[00:05:47] Lindsay: hit.

Yes. 

[00:05:49] Rae: Yes, I was hoping to hit 200, 000 this year, and I will all say, not sponsored by Subaru, but man, you ever need a car to [00:06:00] feel very safe in. I, I always felt so safe in that car, that was the car I learned to drive in. Lot of memories. I, I bought it from a parents and oh, so many memories. I put, I put so many animals in that car.

I think there's animals that had 

[00:06:15] Lindsay: no business being in that car. Um, like cows and horses. Cows 

[00:06:21] Rae: and a particular mini horse named Harley. There's many cats, many dogs. 

[00:06:28] Lindsay: Lots of animals. I, I hope to bless mine with as many, um, creepy, you know, experiences myself with. I just don't want Yes! I 

[00:06:39] Rae: feel like it's part of owning a Subaru, is you have to just do a lot of very obscure adventures with it.

Sure, why not? Now I'm searching for my next Subaru friend and hoping that I can fill it with as many weird adventures as the last one, but boy, what a pain in the butt. And just I, [00:07:00] I swear I had, I had a mental breakdown, like right in the middle of the street after it happened, so I'm sure some people were like, wow, she's really going through with 

[00:07:08] Lindsay: it.

You were just on your way to work and, you know, it was your response back with, she's, where the girl is just like. I thought I could make it. I'm like, no, you thought wrong. And yeah, she told, 

[00:07:22] Rae: she told the cop she thought she could make it. And I was like, well, you thought wrong and you killed my car. Thanks.

Thank you so 

[00:07:29] Lindsay: much. Thank you for that. Well, hopefully I can, um, cheer you up a little bit today. This is, this is one of my horses in history little things. We did one about snow plow, sidewalk snow plowing a while ago. And this one, um, I can thank my husband for it because he turned over and he showed me a picture and he goes, who's this look like?

Oh my goodness. 

[00:07:52] Rae: Is that who I think 

[00:07:54] Lindsay: it is? Does that not look like Colonel Sanders? 

[00:07:57] Rae: It looks like Colonel 

[00:07:59] Lindsay: Sanders. I'll put this [00:08:00] photo in the show notes. So, we can thank my husband because he, um, Thanks Mike! He hit me up and he goes, Who is this? I'm like, Well, it looks a little old to be Colonel Sanders but it sure as heck looks like Colonel Sanders.

Deep dive history on who this individual is, I'm not gonna reveal. Because if I say the name, everybody's going to know who the heck I'm talking about immediately and you're going to go, Oh my God, I had no idea. All right. We're going to go. What do Buggy Whips, Colonel Sanders, and Ray Lombardo have in common?

Any ideas? Oh boy. Any ideas? 

[00:08:36] Rae: Oh man. I'm guessing maybe horses, but I don't, or bad luck. Who knows? 

[00:08:44] Lindsay: No, in their, good luck in their fortune. This is going to be a little quick story about good old Rochester history because hello, Rochester trail riders, all thing horses. Let's start at the beginning. The year is 1883 [00:09:00] and Alva and Catherine, they bring into the world this beautiful bundle of joy and we're going to call them Henry and they actually live in Rochester, New York and they live the posh life.

These guys are not hurting for money. They have their own company and they are doing well. And good old Henry is brought into this world. He grows up. He gets, uh, The, the civil war starts out, he ends up, um, enlisting in the Navy and he, you know, Fights for his country in the North. Go North. Um, Civil War.

Way to go, Henry. I don't know, Henry's, Henry's rocking it. So, United States Navy. No, he don't. He was the assistant paymaster during the Civil War, serving for two years. Gets out, the war ends, he comes back home to Rochester because he's born and bred here. And he's like, well, man, I got to do something for a living.

And he gets into business with his uncle, Myron. And they [00:10:00] make buggy whips of all things, because this is 18. So this is like 1865, 68. He's doing this and I mean, horses, buggy whips, business is good because everybody needs one because that is your method of transportation. Business is so darn good. That he goes and in turn buys another buggy whip company from EF Woodbury.

So now he is like, he is the buggy whip maker of Rochester, New York. This man is like, out on the town, living life, all because of a buggy whip. It's wild. Love that for him. I know. Henry is, he's rocking it. He's like, my life is pretty darn good. However, you go, Henry. You and I would never know Henry's name in a million years if that's where his story ended.

Because who the heck cares about buggy whip manufacturers today, right? Right, right. I mean, woohoo, you made, you've made your money making them. [00:11:00] Nobody cares in Rochester today. There's another gentleman that you might be familiar with that is, uh, Right around this time frame and, and this is, and this is where this photo comes into play.

Because if I say photography in Rochester, New York, I'm going to put you on the spot. What comes to mind? Eastman. Yeah. 

[00:11:19] Rae: Or Kodak. Those are, those are like the top two things that pop into my 

[00:11:23] Lindsay: head. Good old George Eastman. So George, little Georgie, Georgie, it turns out is not a native of Rochester. Believe it or not.

Um, it wasn't, his family moved to the area earlier, uh, in his childhood and his father establishes a business school, but they're, they're not at the top end. They're struggling. Um, his. His father actually dies pretty early, um, 19, or 1862, his father passes away, which just crushes the family income because now they're like destitute.

Wow. [00:12:00] Yeah. At the age of 14, George actually leaves school to get a job just to bring in money. His family, he is now the man of the house at the age of 14. This is just after the Civil War. I can't even imagine, jeez. While, um, to do this, he actually is a messenger boy at an insurance firm. And then he becomes an office boy at a local bank.

So, I mean, George is doing this thing. He's making You know, he's doing what he has to do to provide for his family. But the man's absolutely, the man's got aspirations, right? Cause we all know who George is. Yeah, he's got, of course, hello. He's got big aspirations. Yes. Um, he must've been type a enough because.

He's made enough friends that around 1874, he gets pretty into photography. He loves this. Um, a couple of people at work showed him, you know, the art of photography. He's really getting into it. He's [00:13:00] taking pictures. It's expensive to be a photographer in this day and age. Like not only is it expensive, it's psychotically time consuming.

There is no easy process to make. Film doesn't exist until George invents it, right? So, good old Georgie decides, you know what? It's time to take a vacation. I've been working my butt off. I'm actually making a good morning. Let's, let's go on out here. No, no, no. He takes all his vacation funds, Cancels his vacation, Oh, oh.

Buys photo equipment, So he can continue his hobby. That's honestly what a mood. Um, I couldn't have been there, done that. I can't find if he was actually buried at this time. I just can imagine that like dinner conversation. We're like, Hey honey, we're going to go away to Paris. I'm actually bought a camera.

My bad. Oh my [00:14:00] gosh. Well, by him having the equipment in hand, that means he actually got to really get intimately involved with processing of the photograph and how it actually works. So around 1877, 1878, he starts, it was a wet process, and he actually came up with a dry process to do these plates. Okay, yeah.

And he actually has, he created a machine to do this. This is an amazing technology because it now makes the camera something that's portable. That you couldn't do before. Yep. Wouldn't it be nice to have the money to patent that? Oh. Oh. I'm going to send you another photo here because this photograph, this is in the Library of Congress, so it's free to use.

I'll put it on the website. This is State Street, Rochester, New York in 1914, most likely taken by George Eastman [00:15:00] is my guess. There is no photographer name on the plate, but if I had to guess. Right. There I mean, hello, but look at the street. We have trolleys. We have horses everywhere. No car. What a cool shot.

No cars. That is so neat. Or so you think if you zoom in. There's a single car back. Dun, dun, dun. Oh, look at that. So, um, as I said, this is 1914. We left off in Henry's life in 1880, and we left off in Eastman's life in 1880. So here we are, about 30 years later, and there's a car. Do you know what that car means?

That car means that the buggy whip business is going to die. Yeah. So it's about 

[00:15:58] Rae: to go 

[00:15:59] Lindsay: under for [00:16:00] poor Henry's Henry. Henry's not looking so good if he wants to stay in the, in the buggy whip business, but check this out. Henry ain't no fool. Henry. I don't know how he and, uh, George. Got together. My guess is at the bank.

Cause at this time, George was a teller at a bank and Henry, you know, well, the dude's laying in money, so he's got to go to the bank and I betcha he gets a chit chat with Georgie pants and they're having those photography conversation and, um, somehow Henry goes, you know what? I got money. I believe in you, George.

Not only do I have money, I got lots of money because this. It's 1880, 1880, 30 years before that photograph, mind you. Business is good. There's no such thing as a car. None. Yep. I mean, why would The man sells his [00:17:00] buggy whip business. Sells it. Gasp. I know. And, you know, the buyer of that buggy whip business was like, Heck yeah, you're an idiot.

And he's like, No, I'm retiring. No, I'm Do you know it? You take it. It's all 

[00:17:15] Rae: yours. Have fun with 

[00:17:16] Lindsay: that. He ends up giving money to Georgie. The two of them go into business together and they call it, um, the Eastman dry plate company is the name of the company that they created in 1880. Um, I believe it was January.

And it's the first that they created this thing. It's like, we have a company. Henry is president of this company. Georgie is vice president. Actually. I think he's treasurer. He's not even VP. Henry's like. Henry's like, dude, you've got the vision. This is great. I'm the business guy. We're all good. 

[00:17:53] Rae: I've got the experience.

Let me, Let me just take over from here 

[00:17:57] Lindsay: so and they get going and [00:18:00] this takes Off, obviously Rochester exists for a reason, Kodak exists for a reason, you can take photographs today because of this, right? Yes. 1901, they expand, they then create a New Jersey company, and Biden, they do this in New Jersey, they actually change the name of the company to Kodak.

And you know, good old, good old Henry, our Colonel Sanders friend looking there, he is starting to get older in his years and decides to step down to vice president and eventually says between him and George in this short period of time have made bazillions of dollars in today's money. I mean, I can 

[00:18:47] Rae: only imagine.

Yeah. 

[00:18:48] Lindsay: Yeah. Just rolling. Henry starts going, that's it. That's it. I love this city. I was born here. I'm going to start giving back and he starts, you know, just throwing out the money 

[00:18:59] Rae: [00:19:00] as he should love that for him to 

[00:19:02] Lindsay: loves it. Yeah. So both him and George, I mean, hello Eastman school of music, but could you, yep.

Do you, have you figured out whose name in Rochester might be so prominent as George Eastman? Any ideas? 

[00:19:21] Rae: Oh, gosh. Clearly, it sounds like I need a repeat of Rochester history because I'm really honestly drawing a blank. 

[00:19:30] Lindsay: I'll give you a hint. The U of R. 

[00:19:34] Rae: Is it horrible that I really don't know that much about the 

[00:19:38] Lindsay: U of R?

Does the name Strong Hospital mean anything to you? No. 

[00:19:42] Rae: Oh my god. Henry. Golisano. 

[00:19:45] Lindsay: Henry. A. Strong is his full name. Oh, okay. Now, silly pants, we're in the 1900s. Right, right, okay. We're in the other turn of the century, not this turn of the century. [00:20:00] 

[00:20:01] Rae: That's so interesting, though, because genuinely, I did not realize that I had no idea.

Strong was its own. I really I had no idea. I had 

[00:20:09] Lindsay: no clue you're like none of us. We're sitting there going and that's when Mike found this picture. I'm like, yeah, Colonel Sanders is like, no, that's Henry strong. I'm like, yeah. And he goes strong as in strong hospital, like the man's name, strong museum of play.

Strong, the other name that's around Rochester outside of Eastman, and Mrs. Guy. Wow, 

[00:20:30] Rae: okay. Huh. 

[00:20:33] Lindsay: So, the two of them go nuts on this philanthropy thing. I mean, so much so, the, um, YMCA. Because good old Henry goes, hey, this is, Organization called the YMCA. That seems pretty cool. His wife goes, Oh yeah, we have a women's trap chapter two of the YWMCA and they went, yeah, okay, no problem.

Here's three quarters of a million dollars [00:21:00] and that have fun guys. And his and then, um, George goes, Let's add another 250 and make it a cool million. And that's why the Y is huge in Rochester today. 

[00:21:15] Rae: I, yeah, I would have never guessed any of that. So 

[00:21:19] Lindsay: indirectly, the buggy whip has made it possible for you to take horse show photos.

That, yeah, 

[00:21:31] Rae: which, and how ironic 

[00:21:33] Lindsay: that this photo has me holding a buggy whip in it that you have taken in Rochester. 

[00:21:39] Rae: One of my favorite pictures of you too. I love this. I love, I just, I love that picture so much. So for 

[00:21:45] Lindsay: those that know, this pony that is in this photograph here is a homebred filly of mine.

That's Charlotte. She, she's now owned by Megan. She no longer, I don't have her anymore. I showed her at Echo and we were, I don't even, we [00:22:00] are. Thank you. Um, High Point Reserve Grand Champion, novice tourist driving. So that was my happy face. Her 

[00:22:08] Rae: first ever 

[00:22:09] Lindsay: show season. That photo was her first ever show and I think my first ever entry into a show ring.

And I was just ecstatic. I'm like, we made it. 

[00:22:18] Rae: And I remember, um, I think I drove dude at that show. 

[00:22:23] Lindsay: Probably like, you just beat the snot out of him, watched him not go anywhere. I love that pony. Yeah. He's 

[00:22:29] Rae: the, the buggy whip did not help me in that, uh, that 

[00:22:33] Lindsay: situation. He ignores the buggy whip. He's just like, yeah.

And? Dude just does 

[00:22:37] Rae: dude things. Bless his little heart. He. He just goes what speed he picks, 

[00:22:44] Lindsay: but that was, I just wanted a little fun story of how horses and our mode of transportation then funded the ability for. George Eastman to do his photograph thing, who, [00:23:00] by the way, Kodak actually invented digital photography.

And then, I don't, they had a malfunction. They didn't run with it as they should have. They just saw it as a threat in their film business and went, we'll just go, we'll hide that patent under the rug. Nobody needs to know. Yeah. Well, somebody knew. Somebody. They were going to figure it out on their own anyways.

But. 

[00:23:23] Rae: That is such a wild, like, Isn't that a cool All those different things to take now, how cool 

[00:23:31] Lindsay: indirectly my foray into getting a job as a trail guide in the Adirondacks. Is, is linked to this because the Y, I had no idea he funded the YMCA that strongly and made them that financially stable that they purchased a camp up in the Adirondacks that I attended as a kid.

I mean, when you start thinking about it and you put all the pieces together, it turns out to be a crazy small world. 

[00:23:57] Rae: That's what I was just going to say. How absolutely [00:24:00] wild is that? Like truthfully, that is just. What a small frickin world! It, it 

[00:24:06] Lindsay: was That's crazy! It was a deep dive into, into some fun that I, I really had and I had to share it with you because you, being the photographer that took some of these pictures that I went, Yeah!

Oh my god, this is crazy, was just, it just added it all together. And I'm not 

[00:24:19] Rae: going to lie to you, like that kind of like, that makes me want to go read even more about this. Like, I just kind of want to like deep dive now and be like, okay, I want to know everything about, uh, this amazing friendship of George and Henry and all of these clearly incredible things 

[00:24:34] Lindsay: that they did.

To, to sit there and take a business that was thriving in a, in a. Time and age where, you know, you're not even thinking cars and it's like it that 29 was it? 1914 had one vehicle on that busy busy road one that I could find Yeah, and they have that foresight to say nah, I think [00:25:00] something I think I Got something better and bigger.

[00:25:03] Rae: Yeah, that's, I mean, that is just the definition of an intelligent businessman right there. And, uh. And how, how insane is that, like, I, I've seen plenty of people talk about it where, you know, that picture is a perfect example where at one point horses were the norm. Cars were the luxury and now it is the exact opposite and a lot of people see, you know, horse ownership as in a way a luxury where cars, everybody's got a car, right?

We all need cars to be able to get from point A to point B. Horses, well, we just pile our money into them and they say, Hey, feed me treats.

[00:25:44] Lindsay: And we go, Oh, you know, you take how many hundreds of photographs, find one that you like. And, and how back then you took a photograph and you just prayed it came out. 

[00:25:58] Rae: Yes, you know, that's [00:26:00] actually something that I've been thinking about possibly like, you know, in wanting to just kind of have myself grow as a photographer, give myself some different challenges is I would really like to invest.

in, like, a nice old film camera. Obviously a little bit different than, you know, how they were starting before film was even a thing, where they're doing, like, the tin types and things like that. But, you know, to be able to challenge myself with, like, hey, I want to, you know, take pictures of whatever. But, yeah, you take one, or maybe you take more than one, but film is expensive, so ideally you're taking one shot and going, well, hope that turned out.

[00:26:40] Lindsay: Yeah. Wild. Until photography, they had no idea that a horse had all four feet off the ground. Yeah. And how 

[00:26:47] Rae: crazy is that? Well, 

[00:26:49] Lindsay: thanks for joining me today on this very short story. And, uh, maybe next time I'll, uh, introduce you to the buggy [00:27:00] whip's best friend, which is the buggy whip holder and how that has, um, Provided us with the most popular park in our area.

[00:27:11] Rae: Ah, 

[00:27:11] Lindsay: interesting. Now I got your attention. You're like, wait a minute, who owned the buggy whip holder? I guarantee you it's a design that's on almost every carriage today and is still in use today. 

[00:27:24] Rae: This is a very good cliffhanger to leave us off on, 

[00:27:28] Lindsay: but until then, you'll have to suffer through, um, a story of a man's trip through Mongolia on horseback and, Oh, 

[00:27:37] Rae: that sounds just miserable 

[00:27:39] Lindsay: to listen.

So that's one I got coming up in the queue and another one of talking with Cornell Cooperative Extension. And we're going to talk about, um, winter pasture maintenance and what we can do to give. us really good, um, pastures in the summer. Ah, 

[00:27:58] Rae: interesting. That [00:28:00] is one I will definitely, I mean, I tune into all of them, but that one especially, that's, that's going to be one I'm going to have a notepad out for while I am listening.

Jotting my notes 

[00:28:10] Lindsay: down. Yeah, I just got to find a date and time to schedule that one, and so that'll be coming up here hopefully in the next month is my guess. Thank you for joining. Of course, 

[00:28:19] Rae: we, we, I feel like we need a little, we got to come up with a name for these like fun little history lessons. Oh, I call them horses 

[00:28:25] Lindsay: in history.

Horses 

[00:28:27] Rae: in history, that's 

[00:28:28] Lindsay: right. Maybe it should be horses and history because it's not specifically about a horse. 

[00:28:34] Rae: But we find a way to connect the dots. That's right. It's Horses and History. Or Horses and History. Simone. Oh, whatever you want to call it, either way. I love these. I mean, this is just, it's, it's mind blowing and it's very cool that, you know, I never would have in my wildest dreams connected dots like that.

So there 

[00:28:54] Lindsay: you go. To wrap it up, I mean. You got a buggy whip, Colonel Sanders, and you. [00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] Rae: I hope that's what you're formally naming this 

[00:29:02] Lindsay: episode. It might be. 

[00:29:04] Rae: It's, it's great. I 

[00:29:06] Lindsay: love it. Thank you, Rae. Have a good evening. Yes, you too. Bye bye. Bye.

Thank you guys so much for listening for today's podcast. Um, if you enjoyed this content, be sure to, you know, give me some feedback, like, subscribe, share, follow, wherever you listen to your podcasts. I still have a few badges available. So if you do leave feedback, I appreciate it. And we'll send you out a little swag.

Otherwise, that about wraps it up. So be sure to respect the trail, wear your helmet and leave no trace at the trailer site. Happy trails.