Chasing Carson

We knew we were in trouble when we started getting calls from the neighbors saying Carson was at the top of the tallest tree on the street. He was 7 or 8 years old. At 10 he made a zipline out of the dog’s tie out and leash then attempted to zip from the tree to the top of the playhouse, nearly hanging himself. He came out of the womb a natural athlete and risk taker. We were amazed by his ingenuity. Freshman year of high school he started experimenting with drugs like most teens do, however our boy had unlocked the door to addiction. As his drugs became harder he spiraled out of control with periods of abstinence followed by a few weeks of being on a “bender” until a crisis would end that cycle. Each time, we would think this is his “rock bottom”, then it wasn’t. We struggled with “Is this just the throws of adolescence or does he have a problem.” By his Senior year he overdosed. Then starts the scramble to find some sort of rehabilitation that is longer, different and out of our area. How can we afford it? Insurance? Savings? Mortgage the house? What does recovery look like for a now 18 year old that can just walk away from wherever we send him? ……Always Chasing Carson……

Carson: My life was flipped upside down when my sister miraculously came back from the dead, and unfortunately I was left feeling like I was back in her shadow, yet again. But all that seemed to fade away once he came strutting through my front door. He was beautiful beyond words, and had a way of talking that would make any girl fall for him, but that was the problem. Now I found myself fighting every urge to be with him, regardless of how much my heart ached for him. Ruger: I had never met anyone like her in my entire existence. She was snarky and sassy, and that was exactly what I loved about her. She wasn't susceptible to my charm like most other girls, and that made the chase, that much more rewarding. I need her and want her all the same, but unfortunately for me my life and career tend to get in the way. Sometimes you have to have faith to get the one thing you've always wanted, but would she want me in return after knowing the real me?

A resonant true story of small-town politics and community perseverance and of decent people and questionable choices, Zoo Nebraska is a timely requiem for a rural America in the throes of extinction. Royal, Nebraska, population eighty-one--where the church, high school, and post office each stand abandoned, monuments to a Great Plains town that never flourished. But for nearly twenty years, they had a zoo, seven acres that rose from local peculiarity to key tourist attraction to devastating tragedy. And it all began with one man's outsize vision. When Dick Haskin's plans to assist primatologist Dian Fossey in Rwanda were cut short by her murder, Dick's devotion to primates didn't die with her. He returned to his hometown with Reuben, an adolescent chimp, in the bed of a pickup truck and transformed a trailer home into the Midwest Primate Center. As the tourist trade multiplied, so did the inhabitants of what would become Zoo Nebraska, the unlikeliest boon to Royal's economy in generations and, eventually, the source of a power struggle that would lead to the tragic implosion of Dick Haskin's dream.

Blake and Jennifer Carson look forward to the exciting arrival of a new colt for their cousin Jens. Ebony shows promise of greatness, just like his famous racehorse father, Naphtali, but suddenly he disppears! Who has stolen him? And why? When a scrap of Ebony's blanket turns up on Kwina Island, they know they've stumbled upon an important clue. But confusion, danger, and death also loom on the trail …

Reproduction of the original: Christopher Carson by John S.C. Abbott