Last year the Club Executive Committee selected Bunny Nutter for Emeritus membership status. What does that mean? The Club bylaws describe Emeritus status as follows: "Long standing members referred to or selected by the Executive Committee, who have made outstanding contribution to the Myopia Driving Club."

As the most recent Emeritus member, the Executive Committee felt Bunny would be a good candidate to inaugurate a new feature on the Club Website, "Member's Corner" where we will relate some of hte background and equine experiences of our Club members.

Bunny and John Nutter were among the earliest members of the Club. Many Club members were fortunate to have known John before he died in a tragic accident in front of his house on Ipswich Road. To honor and respect his memory, the Town of Topsfield named the former Topsfield Town Forest on Haverhill Road as the "John Nutter Memorial Park". So how did Bunny and her husband John first get involved with horses and carriage driving? According to Bunny, it started from childhood with both of them. John and his family lived in Swampscott but spent their summers on a farm in Wolfeboro, NH, were they leased a horse and carriage from a neighboring farmer. John drive the horse and carriage on the dirt roads all over the countryside and, in the course of this summertime recreation, learned the practical aspects of driving. Bunny grew up in Marblehead but spent part of her childhood summers at her mother's family in Plymouth where her grandparents kept a pony. Needless to say, the inquisitive and adventurous Bunny tried riding the pony but, apparently, this pony gave Bunny repeated lessons in how a clever pony can outsmart you and dump you on the ground if it choses! But that only piqued her interest matters equine.

After Bunny and John were married and settled in Topsfield, she recalls them being spectators to wintertime afternoon scenes of Marshall Winkler and a friend driving a horse and sleigh through Bradley Palmer State Part, then on to Ipswich for supper, then back to the Park. This rekindled their common interests in horses and carriages. So they acquired several horses. Then, a few of John's coworkers at the GE Lynn plant who had places in Maine, on learning of John's interest in getting back to driving, offered him their old carriages which were collecting dust and cobwebs on their farms up in Maine. John jumped at the opportunity.

Now when you read this, you'll marvel at how things have changed. In the 1960's, John and Bunny would take their horses and carriages down their driveway and onto Ipswich Road and go driving for miles up and down Ipswich Road without concern for life and limb, as would be the case today!

Through Bunny's involvement in Pony Club in the 1970's, she found herself in the gravitational pull of the Myopia Driving Club and Event. The Myopia Driving Club needed kids to help as volunteers for the MDE and so approached the local Pony Club for "helpers". Bunny encouraged some of the Pony Club kids to help and found herself working as a volunteer at the Event. Bunny herself never drove in the MDE. It was through the Club and the Event that Bunny and John found themselves giving a temporary (!) home to Deirdre Pirie's Welsh pony, Winky, who ended up with them for many years.

Bunny's most memorable and exciting moment in the Myopia Driving Event came while serving as a referee on the marathon for Mickey Bowen who drove a team of white Welsh ponies. As Mickey was driving her team through Black Brook at the Winthrop's, all of a sudden the carriage hit a big submerged rock and Mickey bounced out of the carriage. Bunny just instinctively grabbed the reins and got the team under control. Talk about heart-stoppers!

We would like to nominate Bunny for the award of “most exciting picnic drive” based on her telling of the following story. Many years ago, she went on a picnic drive with other members of the Myopia Driving Club. They stopped at what was then known as “Nancy’s Corner”, where Cutler Road dead ends at Highland Road. While picnicking, all of a sudden Bunny’s daughter-in-law realized her son, Josh, was missing and screamed out “He’s gone”! After a mad scramble to find Bunny’s grandson, Josh, Bunny happened upon an old abandoned well and peered down into the abyss. Was she ever surprised to find looking up at her the angelic little face of Josh who obviously had unwittingly and quietly fallen in. First Bunny tried to reach down to Josh but the well was too narrow and too deep to grab Josh and then her husband John tried lowering a rope but to no avail. Finally, our own Kit Gregg laid flat on the ground and had six men grab onto his feet while he carefully lowered himself upside down into the narrow well. By stretching his full length of over six feet way down, he was able to grab onto Josh’s jacket and then while hanging onto the jacket/child had the six men pull his feet and legs up out of the well. After Josh was joyously reunited with his family safely above ground, Dr. Gregg gave him a careful on-the-spot checkup and pronounced him just fine: a happy ending to another exciting Myopia Driving Club picnic!

Bunny's most favorite pony was "Superman", a Welsh originally owned by Dr. Thibeault or Cirilla. He was sensible and loved kids who could trust him. Bunny's favorite horse was a dun Arab mare named Nina. Bunny and John rode and drove Nina both to a carriage and to a sleigh. In fact, she recalls hosting many a sleigh rally at their farm.

The most unusual/funny incident that Bunny can recall in the many years she and John drove was the day they were out driving and the shaft on their carriage broke. John, always prepared for anything and ever inventive, took the axe he kept under the carriage seat, cut down a sapling by the road, fashioned a makeshift shaft from the tree, and attached it to the remnant of the original shaft by wrapping rope (also kept under the seat) around the overlapped pieces. Talk about a spares kit and ingenuity!

Bunny recalls John as the last of the real Yankees; he saved everything and fixed everything himself. As a result of John's habit of always saving everything in case someone needed it, people learned they could come to John for odd pieces to help them salvage something from going to the scrapheap. Now there was a true friend!

A final note on John, this from the website of the Topsfield Ski Club on the subject of Wheatland Hill ski slope and tow: "The operations manager, if there was such a position, was filled by a great "Old Yankee" by the name of John Nutter. He was an amazing engineer/mechanic type who could design and build things from next to nothing and have them operate flawlessly. At some point in the sixties, he got hold of an old electric motor from the GE Plant in Lynn where he worked as an engineer. Somehow he managed to get this large heavy old motor home to his old barn where he had an incredible workshop. From there he went to work converting the old motor into a power plant for the ski tow. The club built a building at the bottom of the hill to house the motor and to accommodate a supply room and warming area. I do not remember how the club got this heavy old motor into the hill but it must have been quite a feat. The motor ran flawlessly for many years and was used until the last day of the club."