A Follow-Up to an Old Story

A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay on spec that I sent to a Kentucky business magazine called The Lane Report . (No relation, BTW. My married name is Lane, though.) When you read it, you’ll be able to tell that it all comes from the heart. Here’s a follow-up.

I still go for monthly blood draws, but I see different nurses now. For about the past year, I hardly ever saw the nurse featured in the article. BTW, I never told her about the story. Anyway, I saw her Thursday. She asked, “Been to Kentucky lately?” I replied that I was going in May, but that I had skipped a year. Then she said, “Don’t you still have family there?” I said that I did, but didn’t add that my parents are deceased and I’m an only child. And then she scolded me for not going to see family.

My relatives and a lot of my old friends from Kentucky travel but don’t come up to see me. The invitation is there. I’ve even heard about some going on a “leaf peeper” tour of New England. Did I get a call when they went? No.

So, I shot back, “They come up here and don’t tell me.” Then, I added, “Besides, if I contacted them, they wouldn’t let me do the horse stuff.”

Then, I thought I’d better save face. So, I told her that I was planning a horse blog. I’d be going down to work, I said. I wouldn’t have time to see everybody anyway.

Because, as I didn’t add, if I visit one, then I have to go all over northern Kentucky and southern Ohio to see them all. And then horses would get squeezed out, again. Which was the story of most of my years in Kentucky. Even those few friends who had been into horses have gotten out. For them, it’s all part of the past. Reminders of hard dirty work and some injuries, as well.
What an irony — to have to move to Connecticut to be able to get to do horse things in Kentucky every once in a while.

This time, she didn’t ask me about real estate ads, as I described in the article. Maybe she’s given up on her dream? So maybe that’s why she took a potshot at mine?